Tobacco Documents Online

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- - B} llildred Hamilton Euaminer staU r•riter ! FTHE fedetal Ciuan Air Actwere I; applied to mast offices, there (: wouid be a snoR alert. The ayr is /i THAT diRy.'fiat'a the word from Dr. Stanton Glantz of the Univet's} iy of Glifontia at San Ftancisca. Moo indoor air pollution comes ti from cigam=sazWkA, but sotne of the other villains include emissions fl ~ f -off'xe sopiersa parttrie f carbon modwxide exhaled by ' w,orkers and trapped by poor ventiii- tiaon-even thestagnan! watarfumes ~# itnm moldy coils on cooiing syzxetns. !~ r All are health hasards However. most of the 5,000 annual lung cancer :deaths caused by "3econd•hand :smoke" are among non-6mokets : focced to work beside 9nokers • James Repace, environmentai poli- : cy analyst of the Fnvtrontnental Pro• tection Agency, here isd week from .his U'ashington, D.G, office, pointed ,lo the 5,000 deaths as he talked about , .the the dangers ol 'lsecond-hand amokd' .and ways to minimize indoor air pollu- tion. • 'Tobacco smoke," he said, "Ls head and shoulders above everything else .as a carcinogen, and as the sxuse of ir- 'titating respiratory probkms af notr smokets in the otfice." :, Pubiic awarene~ and remedial d- forts by experts are slowly increasing around the country. A medical condi- tion known as "the tight building syn- drome" is oox a recognized aDment. Two occupational health clittics, one at UtSF and one at San FYancisco ' Gessenl Hospitzl, deal with iL Suspect buildings can now be moan- itored by industrfal bygieaists and epi. demlologists. Architects and interior 1 designers are giving more atlentSon to I, Zhe:r seleciion o( materials and me- ' cltattical engineera are ittcteasingty aware of ventilation challenges. Pro- fessional societies in the building 141 are also reassessing air standards and federal and state iegislators are looking at possibie controls. `Cbngress has given the EPA $2 million for research on air pollution and has asked us to cotne up with tec- ommeadations," Repace said. 'ihe Bay Area. meinwhile, is home to the Indoor Air Pollution Cwlition, an informal association of employers, employees, unions, environmental groups and. the American l.ung.lssd ciatifltt. lt's headquartered at the . Northern (alifotaia Occupational HeaJth C7enter Q521 Channing Way, Berkeky 9472D. phone 64255071. "Riis 'San Frutcf.sco led the way witb ita law regulating smokinQ in the work- place" t pace made pwple realize it is possibie to get such a law. Now there ace many simi- iar movesacross the coutttty• They csttt come too t+ooo, be add- ed. "A pemon spends ffi percentol his time at work and athotne. Mieoff100 atatasphe'elt fourtimPs as itnportattt as bonle exposure for'Veco0t#•hand atnoke' beeaux the offkx sawke dew sity is far higlter." A recent national survey of aitke workers, conducted by Honeya'efl, re- veaie9 that 67 peroentalted poorven- ttlation a problem and said they had difficuitydoing their work because o[ . tlte air quality ln their offices. Women are at greater tisk this and • ot h er studies show.'Rtey are ooncen- trated in lowes-paying jobs with less mobility, shared space and poorer air quality, and they report high job•relat ed stress from their dual hotnt~and- work demands. .~. Office pollution, until the reoettt rash of nosttwkiitg ordinances, has been something of a no•tnatt's laud. Repace noted. "I think the EPA has done a rmtarkable job cianiag up outdoor pollution. 7lte National lnsti- tute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Occupational Safety and Health Admittistration ca_tcm- tnte on tndustrial workplacea, so the office worker has to take reapon.vbiii-' ty for himselL." i Mast offices don't provideade• quate ventilation, a move he linked to the energy crisis of the 297as ttfien outside air sources were shut off to cut taosts "We know this is fairly common. You can tell by the stuffy air.lbat's when tobacco smoke becomes unbear6 ' able and is associated with ratriaogen tisk.' : CaUing "arwkeiess" ashttays'fan- cy garbage Replace said inaezting ventilation and controlling pollutants offer the only answers. "But it would require?2s sirchangrs per hourto ro- duce the ri,sk of lung cancer from to. bacco smoke to acceptable leve3s'Ibat would create an enormous xind- :co:at.'Tbe current requirement of theAmetfon Sodetyof Heating, Re• frigeration and Alrconditfoning Fng} neecs, be" astigiWy ieas tltan one air cnangeperhottr. "Aardeaners would oost=A00 per smoker, so k comes down ta taa ning snokin& 1]>is is also better for tbe emaoyer beause it beips the non$noker, it l>elptbe smoket who sawkes lessaquits, and it saves mon- ey. $elNQ!'al et'CnCtnitatud7eSt~hOW tbat smoftes take tiiviee tbe amotutt of sick leave." Glant4 poirtting to the 1,800 toxic ehesnicals ln "seoottd-battd smoke," spoke from this badtgrottnd: At UaF, heis an associate professoror medicine, a member of the CYrdio• Vascuiir Research Institute and chair- ' man of the bioengineering graduate program. He afso is president of Cali- ' fornizin for NonSnwkers' Rights. 'Pubtic heahh poiicy is mind bog- , gling." he said.7here are hundreds of ' sdeenttfic pal+en on tbe dangtr of "sea : ond-hand amoke," butno government action has been takea In contrast, oth- ~ ercotttaminants6avebern banned af- ter "twoor threestudtas" '17te cigarttte sttpker, he said, is af: fected by the i'nm gas and the eoncen. trate of tus' Second•band smoke' it { different, not as hot and in much smaller partides SOme think its car- cinogens are more readily absorbed, . so it iamore dangerous." One ma jor focus in the Indoor Air Pollution Coalition i threeyear work for better indoor air quality has been to develop a atandard, Patty Quinlan sald. 'We submitted a petition to the state 06HA, asking for better ventili- tion and lovrer expontre limits of con. taminants, and it agreed to iook at minimum ventilation standards." 7he engineering soc'sety.ASHRAE, !ndoor pollution warning signals Here are the warning sig- Sinus congestion nala of indoor air pollution, Cough according to Prevention mag- Sore throat azirw Shortness of breath lrtucous•membrane irrila- Abnormal taste tion i Dizziness Eye ifritation I Fatigue Headache ~ Nausea Odor Wh ersensi- arnd h e in 9 yp e z office is a rnsource;" eaid industrial h Skin irritation and rash ~ tivity i gienst Patty Quinian of the center's Labor Occupational Health Program.

shesaid, now has a minlm+unatan- dud requiring 5 cubk feet per minutt of fresh outaide air in a building where smoking isn't permitted and 20 cubic feet per minute where there is smohis:g.'The society is noww consider Ing revising this with a higher level be cause of other contaminants besides smoke - potiution from the otcu- pants them.se3ves, the furnishings and equi,.•-•`^"'t.' After workers moving into a new state building became sick, the state architect's office checked and found serious ventilation problems. "ri now has a'bakeout' program," Quinlan said. A seriea of tests for contaminants are run. There is a period ofbigD heat and the building is flushed with out side air.'this eliminates many of the toxic gas probleins. The practice is be- ing copied in some private buildings. Today's new sealed buildings re• qu'sre increased cooperation by archi• tecss, builders, interiar designers and mechanical engineers, noted Marsha Racklkk, interior designer with the uM firm of Skidmore, Owings and I+lelrill. 'Tlsete is concern about materials and ventilation. Some toxic materials give off gas quickly. so by the time the building is ready, they are no longer toxic. Some give off gas iater. There are many new man-made products, and sometimes combinations cause probtenes,Basicafty, nostandaMs are set now, but l sec.stricter controls in the future." Some of the tight building syn- ., drome victknss turn up in the Occupa- tional and Environmental Medicine Clinic headed by Dr. Robert Harrison at U(SF. In evaluating and treating patients with work-related in juries and Wnesses, Harrison said,'A siAnifi- cant percent, at least 10 percent, are related to the tight building syndrome or indoor aic poUution. 'Zitts has been growing in the W two or thrrec yeus Decause of car struction to conserve energy with win- dows that won'topen.'ZLe ventUation is notaiways adeqoate, and the ntate- ria}s giveoff kiw-ieveitoxiccbemi- Mkw ?~''A` rash of ccmp4aints about a new Bay Area of fice building last summer fed to a buildingttudy. Rbe air levels ot chemirsis werefound to be below OSHA cedings, but they were high enough enough to cause pessicteat. 2ingering irritation from a combina- tion of fumes from materials and vea- subsequeatcbanges were titatJoaM made in the b~ ventilation aya- tesn. i 3lre cliaic tphone 86618411~ inoper- ationsince lastJuty.isopen tothe puts tic, and Harrison is available to answer questions. More evatuatioas are done al San ; _Francisco.Generat Hospitai, w6ere Dr. : thartes Becker heads tbe Occ:upation- . ai HeaIW Qinic (82153911. . : in San FYancisco, the antismoldug ordinance is "going great,'said la- spettor Pad Schv~~abacher of The - Qty s environmental bealth oUice. In tts year of opention, he has received 190 complaints, out of 102,000 work- placea. "We bad one administrative bearing tn resotve a sase. Nobody has gone to the district attocney.nobody has been taken to court. The worst problem was misunderstanding by big companies, but they have cowe into tine. It's aselt-enforring ordinance: We have to'bave a complaint Defore wecanact." Glantzpotnted out that 7.4 million workers in California are now covered by non4mokers' rights The Gn Ange- jes law west tnto effect in mud-Apcil. There are workptace smoking bans in San Diego, San Jose, Palo AUo. AUper- tino, Mountain View and at Stanford ~ University. Other tegil bans are in the works from New Yorlc to Florida. "At a recent health conference," Glantz said, -it was predicted that 10 . years from now, no one will smoke at work, or in planes." f i V -P. 30--~3