Sick-Building Syndrome

SICK-BUILDING SYNDROME

Environmental Medicine

When the carpenter, electrician, and plumber finally packed up their tools and left Joan in her new kitchen, she breathed a sigh of relief. After two months of making do with the microwave oven on the dining-room table and the camp stove on the porch, she was ready to do some real cooking. But this was not to be. As soon as she set foot in the new kitchen, she began to sneeze. An allergy sufferer, Joan recognized the sneezing and watering eyes, but the headaches, dizziness, and sore throat were something new. She was reacting to formaldehyde, a chemical preservative used in many building materials such as adhesives, furnishings, and particleboard. After six weeks of open windows admitting the chilly autumn air, the chemical had "gassed off" and the family could use their new kitchen. Joan was lucky, but others were not. Formaldehyde may have the potential to "sensitize" persons. It might be one of a handful of chemicals that can be a forerunner to "chemical sensitivities" and even cancer. In the early 1980s a new and controversial branch of medicine began to center on the links between health and environmental factors. Pollution-related health hazards were problems for decades, but the 1980s saw a growing concern about air pollution inside the home or workplace.

Indoor Air Pollution

The formaldehyde used in building materials and foam insulation was not the only problem. Many new homes and office buildings were made with many synthetic, chemically treated building materials and finishings. Air breathed in these buildings was contaminated by many things, including death-causing carbon monoxide from incomplete burning of fuel, and nitrogen dioxide, produced during burning of natural gas, which was thought to cause increased respiratory problems in children in winter. The air in tobacco-free homes and buildings could be filled with as many as 150 contaminants—from stove gases, furnaces, solvents, paints, furnishings, mold, and pesticides. Many of these chemicals occurred as ingredients or by-products of common items such as household cleansers, construction materials, and cigarettes. The new buildings were models of energy efficiency, with little outside ventilation. As a result, chemical contaminants were being trapped in-doors. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) studies of American homes found chemical levels that were two to five times higher indoors than outdoors. Officials estimated as many as 30 percent of new office buildings displayed "sick-building syndrome" symptoms, and newspapers and television broadcasts showed workers complaining that working in their new offices made them ill. The EPA ranked indoor air pollution among the nation's top five environmental health problems.

Radon Contamination

Synthetic chemicals were not the only culprits. People in several states found high concentrations of the radioactive gas radon in their homes. Radon is a product of the radioactive breakdown of radium found in certain rock formations. The colorless and odorless gas can enter a building through cracks in the foundation, and can build up to potentially dangerous levels in closed areas. Long exposure to radon can lead to lung cancer. U.S. Centers for Disease Control scientists estimated that high radon levels could cause as many as thirty thousand lung cancer deaths in the country each year. In the fall of 1985 the EPA announced plans to conduct a national survey on radon and present a five-year plan to lessen its health hazard. Pennsylvania became the first state to help home owners to measure radon levels and increase ventilation to disperse the gas.

Public-Health Implications

As the average life expectancy in the United States rose, more Americans died of cancer. Although some cancers were genetically linked, most cases were believed to be related to the environment in some way. Some of the polluting items in the work-place could have accounted for a percentage of the cancers. In 1980 fewer than 4 of every 300,000 Americans died from the respiratory disease asthma. By 1990 the figure increased 46 percent to nearly 6 deaths in 300,000, with some 4,000 asthma deaths a year, according to the CDC. No one knew for sure just why the increase occurred, but some researchers suspected outdoor and in-door air pollution. Statistics showed higher rates among minorities and city dwellers who were more likely to live and work in "sick buildings." Similar trends occurred in traditional allergic disorders that experts said had experienced an unprecedented rise since the 1970s. Federal statistics indicated about 40 million Americans were allergy sufferers. Many in the medical community turned their attention to the role of the environment and to environmental medicine in the nation's public health picture. Prevention, rather than treatment, seemed to be the key. By 1989 there was a body of information on how to reduce human exposures to toxic contaminants. Many sick buildings in the workplace solved their air-quality problems by properly maintaining their HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) systems. Careful selection of building materials, equipment, and cleansing supplies could also limit the level of indoor contaminants. Although there was no single easy cure for sick buildings, indoor pollution was easier to control than outdoor pollution. By 1989 many Americans looked forward to the 1990s as an "environmental decade" that would help to improve the quality of the indoor air they breathed.

AMERICAN HEALTH HABITS

A 1986 Harris survey commissioned by Prevention magazine reported only 40 percent of Americans "try a lot" to avoid cholesterol in foods. Sixty-two percent of adults older than twenty-four were overweight, and only 8 percent of all respondents said they exercised strenuously daily, a drop from 12 percent in the 1983 survey. Reflecting an awareness of osteoporosis, 57 percent said they tried to include adequate amounts of calcium in their diets, up from an earlier 50 percent. Safety habits showed a marked change, with 41 percent of respondents saying they always used their seat belts, up from 19 percent in 1983. Observers said the growing number of states with seat belt laws accounted for the difference.

Source:

Facts On File, 1 August 1986, p. 563.

Sources:

Health & Medical Horizons 1986 (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 264-265;

Nicholas Tate, The Sick Bui/ding Syndrome (Far Hills, N J.: New Horizon Press, 1994).

THE HEIMLICH MANEUVER

Help! Someone's choking! But don't slap her on the back; it might force the foreign object causing the distress deeper into her throat. In July 1985 the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association endorsed the Heimlich maneuver, or "abdominal thrust." Dr. Henry Jay Heimlich, the pioneering chest surgeon who developed the technique in the early 1970s, had the rescuer reach around the choking person and put a fist—thumb side against the abdomen—at the bottom of the victim's rib cage. Grasping the fist with the other hand, the rescuer bent the victim forward, and gave one or more quick upward thrusts into the abdomen, pumping air out of the lungs to expel the foreign material.

In September the U.S. surgeon general also endorsed the maneuver, and in early 1986 the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended a modified form to help children who were choking victims. Millions of people learned the technique, including a five-year-old boy in Lynn, Massachusetts, who saw the maneuver on a television episode of Benson and saved a choking playmate.

Sources:

Gwenda Blair, "How to Save a Life," McCall's (August 1994): 50+;

Health & Medical Horizons 1986 (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 258-259.