by drecosse

Letter to ACIPC17 delegates

A letter sent today to all 308 delegates to the 2017 Australasian Conference on Infection Prevention and Control.

Dear Delegate,

I wish to draw your attention to the presence of Hygiene Solutions Ltd at ACIPC17. This UK company presents a serious threat to healthcare providers in Australia and New Zealand . Extensive evidence from both published papers and from disclosures by former employees of the business has revealed numerous fraudulent practices and reckless and irresponsible actions by this company. One well documented example is a very substantial and clearly correlated step increase in C. difficile infections in the University College London Hospitals on the implementation of the Deprox system, followed by an equally clear decrease when this system was abandoned 2  and a half years later. Approximately 70 additional cases over baseline occurred over the 29 months of Deprox operation. See: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/freedom-information-request-reveals-exact-c-richard-marsh/

In brief, the history of these issues is as follows:

In response to insoluble technical problems with residual H2O2 vapour, the system manufacturer, Specialist Hygiene Solutions Ltd, secretly and drastically cut the disinfectant vapour concentration settings on the entire fleet of almost 200 systems, leaving the process almost entirely ineffective against the deadly HCAI pathogens it was claimed to eliminate. See:

https://deproxfraud.info/2017/03/13/leaked-emails-prove-test-cheating-bodily-harm-and-massive-fraud/

Thus not only were tens of thousands of patients needlessly put at risk of debilitating and possibly fatal infections, but the health services of the UK,  Australia and New Zealand were defrauded of over £20,000,000.

Further to this, the Deproxin solution contains silver nitrate, which is forbidden in the EU for fogging applications on account of its toxicity to lung tissue and mucous membranes. Several Deprox operators have suffered chronic respiratory illness as a result of being exposed to the residual fog after a room has been treated. These persons are actively seeking legal compensation for these injuries.

See: https://deproxfraud.info/2017/11/07/2-more-deprox-operators-hit-with-throat-and-lung-damage/

The UK market is now largely aware of the dangerous and fraudulent nature of Hygiene Solutions Ltd, which has crippled their sales prospects in that area – hence their presence at ACIPC17 in an attempt to open up the Australasian market.

My simple request is that any healthcare institution contemplating doing business with Hygiene Solutions Ltd should thoroughly research the health and safety, and the germicidal efficacy of the products offered.  Independent confirmation should be sought, as the directors of the company have no hesitation about fabricating evidence.

No less than 39 examples of these fabrications can be found here:

https://deproxfraud.info/deprox-fraud/

The Health and Safety Executive is leading an investigation in to Hygiene Solutions Ltd in the UK.  The officer coordinating the operation is Mr Martin Ball;

Martin Ball | HM Inspector of Health and Safety

CRD Compliance Team

Health & Safety Executive Chemicals Regulation Division

5S.1 Redgrave Court, Merton Road, Bootle, Merseyside, L20 7HS.

Tel: 0151 951 3512

martin.ball@hse.gov.uk

Summary of issues

  • The process is only capable of a small fraction of the claimed disinfection efficacy.
  • Rooms and equipment cleaned with Deprox remain dangerously contaminated with pathogens, and are a serious and potentially lethal threat to patients.
  • Residual chemicals of H2O2, AgNO3 and PbO are way in excess of legal limits and several operators have suffered permanent respiratory damage.
  • The fraud is accomplished by a complex and sophisticated web of misinformation, outright lies, rigged tests, and claiming test results from competitor’s machines as their own.
  • Healthcare providers in the UK, AU and NZ are being defrauded of tens of millions of pounds.

Sincerely,

Richard Marsh

http://www.deproxfraud.info

Rick fentiman

 

Response to my letter to #ACIPC17 Delegates, from an administrator within the North Sydney Local Health District

#acipc17

 

 

Hygiene Solutions posts fake email addresses at ACIPC17

Hygiene Solutions has two new e-publications for ACIPC17, these are in the Sponsor e-satchel section on the ACIPC17 app. ( https://guidebook.com/guide/102693/poi/8908501/ )

All but one of the website addresses given on these documents is fake:

www.hygienesolutionsau.com

www.hygienesolutionsnz.com

www.hygienesolutionsus.com

Only the UK website actually exists:

www.hygienesolutionsuk.com

wrong address

 

by drecosse

Catalyst hoax exposed!

Sources close to Hygiene Solutions Ltd.  have revealed that the 45 minute deactivation phase of the Deprox cycle, which is claimed to bring the hydrogen peroxide level down to 1ppm, was recently doubled to 90 minutes.

This is a tacit admission that the catalytic deactivation units, added in great haste last year are hopelessly inadequate.

The change pushes the vaunted Deprox cycle time to over 3 hours – this is not competitive in the face of the Bioquell BQ-50, which for a typical side ward with ensuite (50m3) has a cycle time of just 1 hour 20 minutes. Given the cost of a hospital bed in the UK is about £400/day, this difference is very significant.

When Deprox was introduced, it had no catalyst whatever, and the hydrogen peroxide concentration when the room was re-entered was typically around 10ppm – ten times the legal limit.

As increasing evidence accumulated that Deprox operators were suffering serious respiratory damage, Hygiene Solutions endeavored to conceal the problem by turning down the amount of H2O2 the machines emitted. All Deprox machines were turned down to just 1/6th of the original H2O2 aerial concentration. This indeed left the concentration below 1ppm on re-entry, but of course it didn’t decontaminate the hospital room.

In early 2016, Richard Marsh who had worked briefly as a consultant for Hygiene Solutions Ltd, attempted to warn the NHS and the HSE of this highly  dangerous practice, which was leaving 1000s of hospital rooms contaminated with C. difficile and MRSA across the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Hygiene Solutions directors Rick Fentiman and Mark Fentiman of course categorically denied the claim, but hastily recalled all the Deprox units and retrofitted a crude catalyst, consisting of a commercial bathroom extract fan and a carbon palladium filter. According to a former employee, the catalyst was attached with cable ties and insulating tape.

These catalysts worked well when fresh, but quickly became hopelessly contaminated with dust and silver nitrate  – their efficiency dropping to zero within a few dozen cycles.

Hygiene Solutions, ever innovative, came up with a new strategy. Where customers were using hydrogen peroxide meters to check the rooms before re-entry, the units would be turned down to the low 1/6th of nominal concentration. Where the customers were NOT checking before re-entry, they would leave the machines at the higher level. If one of these customers should complain of respiratory problems on re-entry, one of the directors would visit them with a “turned down” Deprox unit and an H2O2 meter, and demonstrate that the levels were within the safety limit.

In February 2017, Richard Marsh published “How to test your Deprox” This gave simple instructions to Deprox users whereby they could check the H2O2 concentration level that their machine was set to. This made Hygiene Solutions smoke and mirrors tactic rather risky – hence the recent decision to double the deactivation cycle time.

The conversation with a former Deprox operator reproduced below will give a taste of the utterly irresponsible attitude of the directors of the company.

Lying rick fentiman mark fentiman

And further…

Lying rick fentiman mark fentiman too.PNG

by PBCCleaks

Two more operators…

Exchange of messages between Richard Marsh and a former Deprox operator. This brings the total of Deprox operators suffering chronic respiratory damage to four – the two mentioned below, plus Gordon Cunningham, plus Maria Cardioso from Worcester.

For the background to this issue, see Toxic Legacy

 

Deprox 1

Deprox 2

Deprox 3

Deprox 4

Reproduced below is a doctor’s letter to Hygiene Solutions Ltd, requesting information  to assist in treating  Maria Cardioso, an ISS Mediclean hospital cleaner who was operating Deprox units in the Worcestershire Royal Hospital. This was in January 2015. The operators above were still operating Deprox in 2016 without PPE and without being warned by Hygiene Solutions Ltd about the danger of the silver nitrate in the Deproxin fog they were inhaling.

maria-cardoso

Standard safety label for Silver Nitrate specifically warning of toxicity to lungs and mucous membranes.

AgNO3

by PBCCleaks

The pig got up and slowly walked away…

pig

In a knee-jerk reaction to my last post, Hygiene Solutions yesterday deleted the Sydney NSW street address from their website. Australia and the USA are left with only phone numbers, which are connected to a UK call centre, and the New Zealand contact has been deleted in its entirety.

The post had pointed out that the Hygiene Solutions 65 Atkins Road, Ermington, Sydney, NSW 2155 address is owned by Greg Hales, son of controversial ‘Exclusive Brethren” cult leader Bruce Hales.

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/65+Atkins+Rd,+Ermington+NSW+2115,+Australia

Here is the million dollar question:

Who is disowning who?

Is Rick Fentiman ashamed of his links with the Hales cult, or are the Hales’ embarrassed to be associated with the fraudulent and dishonest activities of Hygiene Solutions?

One evening in October
When I was about one-third sober
And was taking home a load with manly pride
My poor feet began to stutter
So I lay down in the gutter
And a pig came up and lay down by my side

As I lay there in the gutter
thinking thoughts I could not utter
I thought I heard a passing lady say,
“You can tell a man who boozes
by the company he chooses…”
And the pig got up and slowly walked away

Before…

Hygiene Solutions old

After…

Hygiene Solutions new

 

by PBCCleaks

CANBERRA SHARK ATTACK!

Deprox hales acipc 2017

On 2nd February 2017, in response to publication of the whistleblower exposé of the Deprox fraud, Specialist Hygiene Solutions Australia Pty Ltd declared voluntary liquidation, and Australian Deprox distributor Acute Healthcare hastily dropped the product from its catalogue.

However, in order to to maintain product registration with the ARTG (Australian Register of Therapeutic Devices) Hygiene Solutions (UK) must have a registered Australian company as sponsor.

It has emerged that a second business, under the name Specialist Hygiene Solutions Australia has been created with a new ABN  – this is a partnership, rather than a limited company – and this new entity has taken over sponsorship of the Deprox and Deproxin products.

Unfortunately, Australian business practices are less than transparent, and short of legal action it is impossible to identify who the beneficial owners of this Australian partnership are. The only identity given is “The Trustee for the RS & HR family Trust and others”  Like Panamian bank accounts and Cayman Island investment trusts, this legitimised  anonymity is very convenient for individuals wishing to invest in unethical or fraudulent trading, as funds can be easily laundered through a web of interconnected Australian family trusts.

However, a search of the history reveals that the original name of “The Trustee for the RS & HR family Trust and others” was “THE TRUSTEE FOR RS & HR FAMILY TRUST & THE TRUSTEE FOR THE AT SITE SUPPLIES TRUST & THE TRUSTEE FOR THE HALES TRUST”

Furthermore, a search of Australian trademarks reveals the following:

Deprox 4

The  LinkedIn profile shows that  Gregory Hales was a director of At Site Supplies, and is currently the director of SafeSmart Access. Both SafeSmart Access and Hygiene Solutions limited share the same Sydney, NSW address.

SafeSmart Access

Deprox hales

It seems likely  therefore that the Australian Deprox operation is run by Gregory Jay Hales, a prominent member of the so called “Hales Exclusive Brethren” a highly controversial religious sect headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

Australian relaunch in Canberra

Rick Fentiman, Hygiene Solutions Ltd director and self-appointed “Cambridge University Microbiologist” will be exhibiting at the Australasian College of Infection Prevention and Control (ACIPC) exhibition in Canberra, 20-22 November 2017. He will doubtless be bringing his “Proxcide” Mk. III Deprox prototype, as well as the Deprox and Ultra-V systems to display.

Hygiene Solutions Ltd has also splashed out $10,300 to become a “Bronze Sponsor” of the ACIP exhibition, over and above the $6,600 for the booth. This level of investment suggests a major push in to the Australian market, and it is rumoured that the Fentimans may be relocating to Australia along with their business, thus evading a number of impending legal actions in the UK. Given Australia’s historic function as a penal colony, this move would seem to be entirely appropriate.

Deprox 1

Any hospitals considering these systems should first give sober consideration to the tragic experience of the UCLH hospital in London, where a C. difficile epidemic following the introduction of the Deprox system led to an estimated 12 deaths over a period of 3 years.

 

by PBCCleaks

Anatomy of a cyber-attack

It is hard to operate in cyberspace without leaving a trail. The September 25th cyber attack on deproxfraud.info, and whistleblower Richard Marsh’s personal Facebook, Google, Gmail, Twitter, Dropbox, Vimeo, WordPress, YouTube and Twitter accounts shows a particularly grubby set of fingerprints that the Norfolk CID will doubtless be familiar with…

Richard Marsh is resident in Saskatchewan, Canada, and has been since January 2017. Thus when social media sites detected “persons unknown” logging in to the administration areas of his websites and pages from locations in Norfolk UK, they automatically sent out Security Alert emails to the page or website owner.

From the flurry of security alerts received on the 25th and 26th September, an exact timeline of the hacker’s activity can be constructed. Note that the email times are for Saskatchewan, which is 7 hours behind the UK. The hacker started by illegally accessing Richard’s Twitter account at 20.33 from a location in King’s Lynn, Norfolk. This generated the security alert below at 13.33 Saskatchewan time.

fentiman hack

September 25th, 2017

13.33 Twitter new login from King’s Lynn, Norfolk

13.40 Facebook password reset

13.47 Twitter password reset

13.54 Twitter email address changed

14.34 WordPress (deproxfraud.info) email address changed

15.22 Vimeo account deleted

15.23 Gmail account security alert: Sign in from a Blackberry device in the UK

18.31 Dropbox account accessed from Terrington St. Clement, Norfolk

19.33 New email address “rubbish@sasktel.net” added to LinkedIn account

September 26th, 2017

01.58 Romer Photonics Company page removed from LinkedIn

05.16 Facebook account login from Whittlesford, UK

The directors of Hygiene Solutions Ltd and their partners in crime might like to contemplate the fate of young Gareth Crosskey, who was sentenced to a year in prison for hacking a Facebook Account.

fentiman hack facebook

by PBCCleaks

If you can’t beat them…

…cheat them!

Trials in real hospital environments present the most accurate and convincing measure of the comparative efficacy of the various area decontamination systems offered. Highly qualified microbiologists go to great lengths to ensure that both the environment in the rooms and the test organisms are matched as precisely as possible for the different systems being compared, and that the tests are as far as possible closely representative of genuine hospital situations.

It is obvious that these tests are only meaningful if the decontamination systems under test are also operated exactly as they would be in everyday use, i.e. using the same methods and timing as the manufacturer recommends.

Unfortunately, a small minority of manufacturers are prepared to abuse the trust of the scientific community, and deliberately move the goalposts to give their equipment an unfair advantage.

A recently published comparative test of the Surfacide versus the Ultra-V UV-C systems, conducted by the UCLH Clinical Microbiology Lab is a sad example of this deceitful and unfair practice. As might be expected of the UCLH, the preparation of the rooms and the microbiological testing was done carefully and thoroughly. The test however was sabotaged by Ultra-V manufacturer, Hygiene Solutions Ltd, who rather than operating their machine in line with their published procedures, instead took the following measures in an attempt to cheat the competition of a fair outcome:

  1. They extended the exposure time four fold, from the claimed 20 minutes to over 80 minutes.
  2. They repositioned the unit several times during each process – contrary to their published claim that the unit will decontaminate a whole room from a single central location.

The Surfacide system, meanwhile, was operated exactly as the manufacturer describes – without relocation, and with the exposure set by the integral measuring system.

In spite of this grossly unfair advantage, the Ultra-V still gave a significantly inferior performance to Surfacide – particularly in respect of C. difficile spores, where the following log reductions were obtained:

IPS Infection Prevention 2017 #IP2017 Ultra-V Surfacide C difficile

For C. difficile with low soiling, the Ultra-V in spite of its unfair advantages, averaged a log reduction of just 0.58 as compared with Surfacide which averaged a useful, if not dramatic, log 2.5.

What then would the results of a FAIR test have been? Or in other words, what can we expect the Ultra-V to achieve in real, everyday use? Numerous studies demonstrate that log reduction with time is essentially linear in the range of log 0 to 5. As Ultra-V is actually only used with a 20 minute rather than an 80 minute exposure, we can expect the log reductions in 20 minutes to be about 25% of the figures obtained in the test.

Replotting the bar graphs from the UCLH poster presentation gives the following comparison, which represents the real relative performance of the two systems:

IPS Infection Prevention 2017 #IP2017 Ultra-V Surfacide C difficile NHS.png

It is clear at a glance that for MRSA, and K. pneumoniae , Ultra-V averages well below log 2, and its efficacy against C. difficile is negligible. However, the Hygiene Solutions website boldly makes the following claim:

Ultra-V

Ultra-V 2.PNG

What independent research is referred to here? – Just ask Hygiene Solutions –  they will send you a copy of the sabotaged UCLH study analysed above…

by PBCCleaks

NHS study.

Ultra-V efficacy “insignificant” in 75% of terminal cleans – NHS study.

Hygiene Solutions own Corrado Gilbert, along with Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust Infection Prevention Nurse Matthew Reid and others published the study below in the Journal of Infection Prevention.

Two observations:

From the table at the bottom of the Abstract, we see that the mean CFU drops from 15.71 to 2.92 as a result of the Ultra-V process. This is a 5 fold reduction. Hygiene Solutions website promises a log4 to log6 efficacy for Ultra-V, i.e. a 10,000 fold to 1,000,000 fold reduction. How do Hygiene Solutions account for the difference?

From “Results” we see that only 25% of the rooms had a statistically significant reduction in CFU. How do Hygiene Solutions explain the 75% of rooms that had no significant reduction in CFU?

Ultra-V

The original article can be downloaded below. See page 16 of the pdf.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1757177415599501

Alternatively the abstract is also published here, and can be accessed without subscription. Scroll down just over a quarter of the page to find the article.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5074091/

by PBCCleaks

Victory! Judge dismisses gagging order.

The Honourable Mr. Justice B.A. Barrington-Foote has dismissed Hygiene Solutions’ application to register a gagging order against Richard Marsh, and awarded costs to the applicant.

Canadian justice has thus defended the right of a whistleblower to speak out in defence of the life and health of hospital patients worldwide. The deproxfraud.info website will continue its exposure of the fraudulent and astonishingly ineffective Deprox and Ultra-V hospital decontamination systems and the criminal activities of Hygiene Solutions’ directors.

Justice.PNG

Justice

by PBCCleaks

Whistleblower attacked…again.

Stung by the damning exposure of the Ultra-V’s incredibly poor performance against C. difficile (log0.1 – log1.1) Hygiene Solutions Ltd. director, Rick Fentiman made a further attack in the Regina Court of Queen’s Bench on Friday against whistleblower Richard Marsh.

Fentiman’s lawyer, F. William Johnson QC spoke for almost a hour, on the theme “Corporations have a right to defend their reputation.” Judge The Hon. Brian Barrington-Foote, was not persuaded, and has reserved judgement.

Fentiman is attempting to register a gagging order that would prevent Richard Marsh from disclosing any further information about “Hygiene Solutions Ltd, its directors, employees or Deprox product.”  As a precaution, Richard has put in place a comprehensive backup plan to ensure that deproxfraud.info continues to publish unhindered even if the gagging order is passed.

This contingency plan depends on the fact that the gagging order is specific to Richard Marsh, and limited in its scope to Saskatchewan. The first two elements in the plan have already been enacted:

  • The ownership of the website has been transferred to an anonymous third party in Asia.
  • The Editorship of the site has been transferred to Dr Ecosse, who is not a Canadian resident.

The final element, which will only be put in to effect should the gagging order be allowed, is to transfer authorship of the blog posts to Dr Ecosse. It should be noted that Dr Ecosse has very deep personal reasons of his own to take issue with Hygiene Solutions, he is in no sense acting as an agent, and is certainly not being remunerated for his efforts. Dr Ecosse is also exceptionally well qualified to review and comment on the fraudulent activities of Hygiene Solutions Ltd. from a medical and scientific standpoint.

Whistleblower3 Ultra-V

Once this final step has been taken, deproxfraud.info will continue to publish indefinitely without any input whatever from Richard Marsh, and Hygiene Solutions’ lawyers will have the interesting task of tracking down Dr. Ecosse, who may prove to be rather elusive…

Whistleblower Ultra-V