Healthy Schools Campaign

Top Blog Entries from 2009!

It's been a great year for the HSC blog, and we're proud that our readers have continued to visit day after day for fresh content, lively discussion and valuable information on ensuring a healthy future for all children. To ring in the new year, we've compiled a list of our most popular blog entries from 2009. (Drum roll...)

10. More Reasons for Recess

9. Good Luck to Cooking up Change Students From White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass

8. Child Nutrition Act Reauthorization - Let's Do it Right

7. New White House Chef Support Healthy School Lunches

6. Do Healthy Eating Habits Start at Home?

5. Kids May Go Hungry to Avoid Stigma of Free Meals

4. The Lunch That's Changing the Future of School Food

3. Secretary Vilsack Connects Healthy Eating and Reduction in Health Care Costs

2. A Parents Perspective on Asthma: Talking with Michelle Obama

-And #1-

1. Students Bring Healthy School Lunch to DC and Cook with White House Chef Sam Kass

Honorable mentions:

• This is Not Your Father's School Nurse
• My First Garden Meal of the Summer
• H1N1 and Green Cleaning in Schools

Happy New Year from all of us at HSC -- We look forward to seeing you again in 2010!

Congratulations to Sustainability Leaders and Our Friends at PortionPac

Last month 38 Illinois companies and organizations were honored for their significant achievements in protecting the environment, helping sustain the future and improving the economy. Among the group was PortionPac, whose president and co-founder, Marvin Klein, is an HSC board member.

From the award materials:

PortionPac manufactures sustainable janitorial cleaning detergents. The company’s premeasured concentrated liquid products simplify cleaning while reducing the resources used throughout the lifecycle of production, storage, distribution, and disposal. PortionPac is utilized by schools, hospitals, industrial firms, and commercial cleaners. Some of the developments this year include expanding its Shared Savings program to over 9,000 schools, redesigning service programs to further reduce its carbon footprint, purchasing renewable energy credits to offset the factory’s electric and gas usage, and converting its fleet to lower emission technologies. Three new projects include a program to involve all employees in sustainability efforts, relamping the factory to achieve greater efficiency with reduced environmental impact, and a communications systems project that utilizes modern communications systems to cut the company’s carbon footprint.

For more background on PortionPac's unique approach to sustainability, HSC intern Cynthia San Miguel spoke with Marvin Klein about PortionPac's initiative to think critically, as an organization, about ways to reduce carbon waste and be more green. She found that PortionPac adapted and used a process known as MUDA in which employees identified ways environmental waste was generated and then thought creatively about how to reduce it. Although the MUDA process was first made famous by Toyota (and can be used for a variety of purposes), PortionPac specifically targets initiatives to make the company greener and more environmentally sustainable.

As part of this effort, teams of PortionPac employees worked together to generate ideas and and present suggestions for ways that the company could become more sustainable.Here, Cynthia asks Marvin Klein about the experience:

Why did you decide to run a MUDA program in your effort to go green?

MUDA is one program that can be understood and implemented by everyone -- whether they work in sales, the office or the factory. There is so much waste of energy, supplies and unnecessary procedures in every organization.

Toyota found that pure central planning from a corporate headquarters was relatively ineffective in refining a production system... the person doing the work knows their specific role more intimately than anyone else, and accordingly is often in the best position to identify waste and inefficiency as well as opportunities for improvement.

Have the suggestions from the first phase been put in practice?

Twenty percent of the ideas have been implemented and we hope to implement more and more of them.

What do you hope employees learn from the initiative?

That they are in control of their destiny -- plus, appreciate and get to know as many people as possible in the company. They must play a key role in our overall success, not just with their own immediate job. Their personal success at PortionPac is intertwined with the overall success of the company.

Is there one suggestion that surprised you?

Not just one but many. For example, sending electronic education modules to our school accounts rather than the hard cover notebooks that were traditionally distributed. Our controller, Judy Golden, found a program where we could stop printing invoices to mail to customers, saving labor, paper and postage. Our engineers installed an instant hot water heater so we are not heating water 24/7 and also installed new light bulb and ballasts combinations, which led to a reduction in energy use. A more complex Team MUDA was increasing communication and collaboration with video conferencing -- an expanded use of screen-sharing technology. It already looks like it will reduce our annual travel expenses by $300,000 while recapturing a great deal of labor previously lost in travel.

What advice would you have for others who want to implement this type of green initiative?

We are a small manufacturer, but MUDA is reducing our carbon waste. Reducing our carbon footprint increases profitability, and is good for us and our customers. The market as well as increasing regulation will demand environmental stewardship in the future. Companies that involve everyone in their organization to examine their environmental impact and improve it now will be well-positioned for greater profitability in the years to come. .

How does your MUDA initiative connect with your organization’s commitment to the environment?

Forty-five years ago our company was founded on sustainable values, and we have always tried to help our schools use fewer and less cleaning materials and water and to use them safely. By eliminating this waste and overuse we are shrinking our environmental footprint. Waste reduction is never-ending. The best part is that it brings everyone into the decision-making process and sharing in our success.

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Congratulations to Marvin and all our friends at PortionPac!

A Healthy Day Starts in the Classroom with School Breakfast Programs

by Tara Kennon, HSC communications manager

Kids at Chicago's Sandoval elementary school receive breakfast each day.

Our partners at the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) recently released their annual report on the state of school breakfast in large urban school districts. The scorecard, which analyzes school breakfast participation in cities across the US, comes with a simple message:  more students are eating school breakfast than last year, but many more who could benefit from the program aren’t participating.

“Nationally, we’ve seen a real increase in breakfast participation among low-income children both because of the recession and because states generally have slowly been increasing breakfast use, but participation is just not growing fast enough,” said Jim Weill, FRAC president, in a press release about the report.

The report provides some context for these findings: “At a time when the nation is in a long and severe  recession, the School Breakfast Program is more indispensable than ever to maintain the health and well-being of low-income children. In 2008, nearly 16.7 million American children, or almost one in four, lived in food insecure households where their families faced a constant struggle against hunger.” (For more on these numbers and their relevance to school food, see our recent posts on the USDA’s 2009 food security report.)

We know that breakfast helps kids focus and do their best in the classroom and that schools can play a vital role in making sure kids have access to a healthy bite in the morning before classes begin.

That’s why we’ve been so impressed by efforts such as those in Chicago and Washington, D.C. public schools to provide universal breakfast in the classroom – a program that brings breakfast to all children, in their classrooms, before they begin their studies for the day. The program increases participation dramatically, takes away stigma and helps children learn that breakfast is part of a normal routine.

These programs also involve a certain level of logistical coordination to bring breakfast to each class, take away trash, and transition to the start of the day. And they are not without problems: critics have pointed out opportunities to improve the nutritional content of breakfast items served in the classroom, for example. 

But the benefits are huge: the report points out that the districts that were most successful in making sure kids had breakfast were the ones that served it in the classroom. FRAC also urges broader adoption of universal in-classroom programs like the ones in Chicago and D.C.. According the report: “The key strategy that urban school districts across the nation should adopt to expand breakfast participation among low-income students remains the adoption of universal classroom breakfast programs, especially in schools with high percentages of low-income students.”

Kudos to the school districts across the country doing their part to make sure all kids have a healthy start to their day.

Bills Would Reduce Paperwork, Increase Hungry Kids' Access to Healthy Meals

By Amanda Chablani, HSC policy specialist

There’s been a lot of response from the media to the recently released USDA report on food security, bringing attention to the often overlooked issue of hunger. While many were surprised to learn that food insecurity is at an all-time high, others were more disturbed to learn that it has been a large problem since long before the recession began.

Add to this the fact that many of the families that suffer from food insecurity have at least one full-time working adult and, as we’ve discussed, the 17 million children who are being brought up in food insecure families, and you get a lot of people suddenly paying attention to this huge national problem.

While I’m sure hunger is a complex and nuanced issue, I also know there are some fairly straightforward things that can be done that will have a large impact, especially when it comes to children. Children are in schools where free or reduced-price school meals are made available to those who qualify. Therefore, theoretically, we can make sure kids from food insecure families have access to healthy, nutritious meals.

Unfortunately, we also know that sometimes it is very hard to make sure that the kids most in need of food actually get it. Because of any number of issues, students are often not enrolled in the school lunch program. That’s why, in anticipation of the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, several bills have been introduced that aim to directly certify kids (using records from programs like SCHIP and Medicaid) so their families don’t need to fill out (and schools don’t need to process) additional paperwork. (More context and background from a January 2009 HSC blog post.)

As Senators Bennet, Brown, and Casey explain about one such bill:

“No child should miss out on nutritious meals because of needless red tape. By cutting through it, our bill would ensure access to meals for an estimated three million additional children. When Congress renews the child nutrition programs, the Hunger Free Schools Act must be incorporated.” 

To learn more about the Child Nutrition Act, visit HSC's website. 

Safer Strategies for Pest Management in Schools

Today we have a special guest post on pest management in schools, from our friends at Beyond Pesticides.

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When children attend school, it's assumed that they are going to a safe environment, free of toxic chemicals that could harm them. New legislation seeks to make this assumption more of a reality. With the introduction of the School Environment Protection Act of 2009 (SEPA), H.R. 4159, some members [PDF] of Congress and public health, school employee, children’s health and environmental groups are saying that it's time to stop the unnecessary use of dangerous chemicals and help schools adopt afer strategies to prevent and manage pest problems. U.S. Representative Rush Holt and 14 of his colleagues put the legislation forward, building on more than a decade of state and local school pest management and pesticide use policies and on-the-ground experience from across the country.

 

SEPA requires that all public schools adopt integrated pest management (IPM) programs that emphasize non-chemical pest management strategies and only use defined least-toxic pesticides as a last resort. Least-toxic pesticides do not include pesticides that are carcinogens, reproductive and developmental toxicants, nervous and immune system poisons, endocrine disruptors, or have data gaps or missing information on health effects.

 

School is a place where children need a healthy body and a clear head in order to learn. Numerous scientific studies find [PDF] that pesticides typically used in schools are linked to chronic health effects such as cancer, asthma, neurological and immune system diseases, reproductive problems, and developmental and learning disabilities. Children’s bodies are especially vulnerable when exposed to pesticides, even at low levels. IPM in schools has proven to be an effective and economical method of pest management that can prevent pest problems and eliminate the use of hazardous pesticides in school buildings and on school grounds.

 

“Our nation must and can do a better job of protecting our children from diseases and illness that are caused because of chemical exposure,” said Kagan Owens, senior project associate at Beyond Pesticides. “We can start by protecting children in the place where they spend most of their young lives -- school.”

 

If you represent an organization and want to sign-on to a letter in support of the bill, please email Kagan Owens at kowens@beyondpesticides.org. To encourage your representatives to co-sponsor it, please visit Beyond Pesticides’ action page.

All Pumpkin Butter, All the Time

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

My new favorite blog for kid cooking ideas is Weelicious. It's great. If you're cooking with your kids, check it out. Over Thanksgiving weekend I tried a simple recipe with Henry which he loved: pumpkin butter. And it was pretty simple.

First some background. This past fall, my family went apple picking together. And at the farmer's market at the orchard, we picked up some pumpkin butter. It turned out to be one of Henry's favorite items. He ate toast with pumpkin butter, bagels with pumpkin butter, pancakes with pumpkin butter. It was all pumpkin butter all the time. Then I saw this recipe, and I knew what we had to do. You can watch Henry's pumpkin butter dance in anticipation of our snack.

Henry and I grabbed a can of pumpkin puree, some spices, and some maple syrup for sweetness, and off we went. I adapted my recipe based on what we had in the kitchen at the time.

1 can pumpkin puree

3 sprinkles nutmeg

5 sprinkles cinaman

1 splash vanilla

1 dash salt

5 tablespoons maple syrup 

Put it all in a big bowl. Get a big wooden spoon. Mix it up. Add more of whatever it is missing. Eat it on everything. Smile.

Share Your Comments on the HHS Healthy People 2020 Objectives

 By Amanda Chablani, HSC Policy Specialist

Every ten years, the US Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) publishes a set of national objectives to promote health and prevent disease. These objectives are used as a benchmark for assessing health interventions, lifestyle promotion activities, and the health of the nation over time. Because the process of developing the objectives is collaborative and HHS solicits wide stakeholder engagement, the objectives also serve as a public outlet where many government agencies and nonprofits come together to express their commitment to improving the wellbeing of all people across the country.

The next incarnation of these objectives, Healthy People 2020, is currently being developed for release next year, and HHS is currently accepting public comments.  Due to the important role schools play in promoting healthy, active lives, HSC has submitted comments on a number of these objectives. We’ve shared our comments with you below and encourage you to submit your own.

Please participate in this important process; your voice could help direct the efforts of health interventions over the next decade, and make a difference in the lives of countless children. 

Proposed Objective: PAF HP2020–2: Increase the proportion of the Nation’s public and private schools that require daily physical education for all students.

HSC Comment: Daily physical education for all students should be the standard in all elementary and secondary schools. The CDC has recommended that all children and adolescents, including those in elementary school, have an hour of daily physical activity. Because many students do not have access to open spaces or equipment outside of school, it is vital that schools allow for daily physical education. In addition to combating the rising epidemics of childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes, daily exercise has been shown to improve children’s ability to focus in school. 

Proposed Objective: PAF HP202012: Increase the proportion of States and school districts that require regularly scheduled elementary school recess.

HSC Comment: Together with physical education, daily recess provides children with a regular opportunity for physical activity which is vital for healthy development. As well as the obvious physical benefits, daily scheduled recess gives children an opportunity to explore their own interests, collaborate with others, and resolve conflict without relying on an adult. Recess provides children time in the day for unstructured play, which is essential for social and cognitive development, and also a necessary break from academic work, allowing them to return to the classroom refreshed and ready to learn. Teachers and school administrators should be made aware that punishing students by restricting recess only reinforces the idea that recess is an ‘extra’ or ‘bonus’ as opposed to a vital part of every school day.

 

Proposed Objective: PAF HP2020–13: Increase the proportion of school districts that require or recommend elementary school recess for an appropriate period of time.

HSC Comment: Together with physical education, daily recess provides children with a regular opportunity for physical activity which is vital for healthy development. As well as the obvious physical benefits, daily scheduled recess gives children an opportunity to explore their own interests, collaborate with others, and resolve conflict without relying on an adult. Recess should be scheduled for at least 20 minutes, allowing children a sufficient amount of time for unstructured play. If recess is scheduled around the lunch period, it should come before the meal rather than after to ensure that students will not skip the meal. Recess should not be scheduled before classes begin for the day to ensure students do not simply arrive after the recess period is over.  

 

Proposed Objective: ECBP HP2020–4: Increase the proportion of the Nation’s elementary, middle, and senior high schools that have a nurse-to-student ratio of at least 1:750.

HSC Comment: Increasing the proportion of school nurses to a nurse to student ratio of at least 1:750 is critical. School nurses hold a unique role in supporting the health of students and the entire school population. In addition to providing health care to students and staff, school nurses promote a healthy school environment by serving as leaders within the school administrative body, supporting nutrition, physical activity, and health education programs, as well as evaluating school health care policies.

Proposed Objective: NWS HP2020–20: Increase the percentage of schools that offer nutritious foods and beverages outside of school meals.

HSC Comment:  By establishing health-promoting nutritional standards for food sold in schools outside of the school meals program, students will have more access to nutritious foods and less access to unhealthy snack foods. Competitive food items sold in schools, such as snacks and beverages from vending machines, must be consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and with nutritional standards for school meals. 

 

Proposed Objective: AH HP2020–12: Increase the percentage of schools with a school breakfast program.

HSC Comment: Research has shown that students who eat breakfast score better on standardized tests, have a lower likelihood of disciplinary or psychological problems, have better attendance and less tardiness, and visit the school nurse less often. The School Breakfast Program provides at least a quarter of the daily level of nutrients that children need in order to be healthy. By supplying universal school breakfast, particularly in schools where there are a large number of students receiving reduced or free school lunch, we could ensure that students have what they need to perform well in school. 

Proposed Objective: EH HP2020–19: Increase the proportion of the Nation’s elementary, middle, and high schools that have official school policies and engage in practices that promote a healthy and safe physical school environment:

1. Have an indoor air quality management program.

2. Have a plan for how to address mold problems.

3. Have a plan for how to use, label, store, and dispose of hazardous materials.

4. Reduce exposure to pesticides by using spot treatments and baiting rather than widespread application of pesticide.

5. Reduce exposure to pesticides by marking areas to be treated with pesticides.

6. Reduce exposure to pesticides by informing students and staff prior to application of the pesticide.

7. Inspect drinking water outlets for lead.

8. Inspect drinking water outlets for bacteria.

9. Inspect drinking water outlets for coliforms.

HSC Comment: Healthy school environments are tremendously important to children’s health and academic success. Problems such as exposure to harsh chemicals, toxic building materials and mold negatively affect children’s ability to consistently attend school and learn, especially among the millions of children affected by asthma. Schools must address indoor air quality and limit student exposure to chemicals through comprehensive school environmental health policies that include indoor air quality controls, integrated pest management systems, green cleaning programs, and a hazardous materials disposal plan.

 

Proposed Objective: EH HP2020–25: (Developmental) Decrease the number of new schools sited within 500 feet of a freeway or other busy traffic corridors.

HSC Comment: While this recommendation is a positive step, recommendations for school siting must take into account many factors, including students’ exposure to hazardous substances, such as those that may be present on contaminated land or in areas with high pollution. In addition, schools should be sited in a location that allows children to increase their daily physical activity by walking or biking to school.

Moreover, during the planning process for new school sites, coordination between agencies is vital to ensure that the health of students is taken into consideration by all agencies, including but not limited to those representing the issues of transportation, education, commerce and energy.

We urge you to submit your own comments on the objectives. The deadline for public comments is December 31, 2009.

Gaming for Health: Can Online Games Transform 'Tween Eating Habits?

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

We've seen efforts to promote health through Wii and Dance Dance Revolution, but now the USDA is taking steps to integrate wellness into online gaming. The USDA is...

...launching the Innovations for Healthy Kids Challenge... by holding a national contest that will promote healthier dietary habits among children... This challenge is open to entrepreneurs, software developers and students to design a creative and educational game targeted to kids, especially "tweens," aged 9-12. 

And the USDA is providing access to a rich database of nutrition information, the MyFood-a-Pedia database, to help software developers build their games.

So while the details haven't been announced (and details do matter), it's really interesting to see how the Obama administration is getting so creative in getting health messages out. Obama was the first presidential candidate to place ads in video games after all, so it's interesting to see this non-traditional approach to communication strategy play out in public health initiatives.

We've seen USDA on Sesame Street, the White House on Iron Chef,  and now efforts to meet kids where they are: on the Internet.

What kind of game do you think would get the healthy-eating message out to the 'tweens you know?

Here's my idea: how about a school food Facebook game? Run your own school food service (think of a combination of Farmville and Restaurant City) where you need to stay within a very tight budget, make the food healthy, incorporate veggies from local farms and of course you need to make sure your customers (the students) like your food? Invite friends to help slice cucumbers, or try your healthy chicken jambalaya.  I think it could work. It could be the next big  Facebook game sensation. Anyone game?

No more Mafia Wars requests please. I'll spend my time building a successful school cafeteria.

We've yet to see how well the public health community (or others, such as the sustainability movement) will be able to harness online games to get their messages out. I think they have a fair chance of success, especially if they proceed with the input of the kids and online gamers they're hoping to reach. Which explains the contest. Kudos to the USDA for reaching out to kids, gamers, software developers and others for help in crafting a tool that will resonate with the 'tween audience they're hoping to reach.

For a more detailed (and sometimes academic) take on the place where online gaming and public health meet, check out the work of Games for Health, an organization of researchers, medical professionals and game developers who "share information about the impact games and game technologies can have on health, health care and policy."

Private Sector Solutions May Overlook True Cost of Healthy Meals

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

The media's interest in private sector responses to the challenges of school food fascinates me. For the most part it's good because it helps increase understanding of our food systems and highlight the barriers involved with serving healthy food in schools -- something that I believe can ultimately lead to greater support for increased resources and changes to our current system. But on the other hand, the coverage always seems a bit off to me.

USA Today recently ran a story about Revolution Foods, a company that is privatizing healthy food for schools. It's a model that is working in some areas and focuses on local and healthier options:

Revolution shuns high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and flavors, trans fats and deep-frying. Its meats and milk are hormone- and antibiotic-free, and many of its ingredients are organic and locally sourced.

As I wrote before, I think that it's great that the private industry is getting involved, and we're always glad to see kids being offered (and eating) healthier foods. And the USA Today article offers opposing views by quoting others in the field who ask if Revolution's priorities are right, or if their model is truly scalable. 

However, I have another concern. In short, saying that a company can provide a healthier meal for $3 doesn't account for all the costs that a school must cover. Let me break it down a bit. According to the story:

The federal government pays, on average, $2.68 per child per meal – and most food advocates say that simply isn't enough. A few insist it can't be done for less than $5.

(For reference, HSC believes that schools need an additional $1 to provide a healthy meal.)

What many people forget is what that federal reimbursement has to pay for. Not only does it have to cover food costs, labor, and prep, but it also has to pay for overhead and the facility. For most schools, the overhead and facility costs associated with serving a meal may be close to $1 per meal -- just to have a space and staffing for a kid to sit and eat.

So if you have to purchase a Revolution Foods meal for around $3.00 per meal (only losing $0.32 per meal based on federal reimbursements) you then need to add the cost of the facility, staffing, utilities etc. That means an outsourced $3.00 meal actually costs a school closer to $4.00 per meal by the time it reaches kids at their cafeteria tables. That's not too far off what the "advocates" cited in the story claim that schools need to spend for a more healthful meal.

We're all for creative private solutions, but in order to have meaningful and practical discussions about their impact, we need to come up with a common accounting system to track the true expenses of school food. We need to make sure we're comparing apples to apples when we discuss costs.

What we really see is that the solution to providing healthy school food is not based only in tweaking the existing system. Schools need increased funding to invest in healthier food -- and along the way, develop a system that supports children's health.

Beware the Unscrupulous Vendor: Disinfectants, H1N1 and Green Cleaning

By Mark Bishop, Deputy Director

The EPA issued a press release warning us all "to beware of unscrupulous vendors" who try to sell us ineffective or unnecessary products that claim to protect us against H1N1. According to the press release:

"Unfortunately some vendors may try to take advantage of people’s fears at a time like this and market products that aren’t effective or make unsubstantiated claims,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. “Americans need to be aware of what they may be buying."

This is right on. And while it applies to the purchases we make in our homes, it also is an important lesson for our schools -- especially when implementing a green cleaning program.

Protection against H1N1 really takes three important steps: Education, Cleaning, and then Disinfection. All of these steps are outlined in HSC's Quick & Easy Guide to Green Cleaning in Schools:

1. PREVENT INFECTION THROUGH EDUCATION

Students, teachers, coaches, and all school staff must be educated about the importance of hygiene and frequent, thorough hand-washing, and the school nurse can play a key role in developing a hygiene education plan for the school. Recent studies show that through proper hand hygiene, schools can actually decrease student absenteeism. If possible, students and school employees should have access to appropriate hand-washing facilities. If not, hand sanitizers should be made available.

2. DEVELOP AND FOLLOW A THOROUGH GREEN CLEANING PROGRAM

Health is the goal of a proper green cleaning program. Along with environmental benefits, infection control becomes the natural byproduct of an effective cleaning program. Through proper cleaning, the spread of germs can be significantly reduced and controlled, and overall health improved.

3. DISINFECT WHEN AND WHERE NECESSARY

Many of the harsh chemicals in disinfectants are highly caustic, toxic in nature and may decrease the quality of the indoor air. Minimizing potential exposure to these chemicals can promote health and wellbeing while still reducing risk associated with the spread of infectious diseases.

When disinfectants are used, it is important to use them as part of a larger green cleaning program, rather than as a hasty reaction. Disinfectant use should be limited to high-touch areas such as door handles, keyboards, light switches, and tables. When selecting a disinfectant, work with vendors to select the least toxic, most affordable option, and always choose EPA registered products.

Here are some great resources for more information:

1) HSC's Quick & Easy Guide to Green Cleaning in Schools

2) CDC's Swine Flu and You

3) Selecting green disinfectants for this flu season from American School & University magazine

If you want to read an account of a school facility director's efforts to clean green while protecting against H1N1, check out this recent blog entry.

Finally, be sure to stay tuned for details about HSC's upcoming webinar, Green Cleaning Your School In the Age of H1N1, scheduled for late January 2010. The webinar will feature experts in the field of green cleaning for infection control. More details coming soon!