Some persons suffering from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity may have developed their conditions or worsened them due to exposures to the toxic chemicals given off by photocopiers and laser printers in their office jobs.
By guestblogger M.R.E. Due to exposure to photocopiers and laser printers, I have suffered a devastating respiratory condition which produces in an extreme degree: difficulty for breathing, chest pain and oppression, fatigue, cough, mucosal dryness, inability to sneeze and plenty of disturbances in the throat, nose, mouth, eyes, skin, stomach and other systems plus an extreme, lasting intolerance to all chemicals in the air. After a lot of troubles it was diagnosed in two university hospitals as non-specific bronchial hyper-reactivity and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). The syndrome was caused by the irritant vapors released by a photocopier and a laser printer in my jobs and this appears very obvious from the full details of my story, too long for this page. Although my illness was initiated within 24 hours of intense exposure to these gases, it has not been officially recognized as occupational for any purpose. As many other sufferers with MCS, I have lived a nightmare of sickness and social neglect, but thanks to my family, who financially and psychologically supported me, I did not fall into marginality and eventual tragedy. From my own experience of nearly three decades with this problem I see that the following points should be carefully taken into account: A large number of reports (see Medline and Toxnet for a reliable source of information) warn about different risks from photocopiers and laser printers. These machines used to emit a mixture of ozone plus dozens of volatile organic compounds released from the melting of the plastic toner, the bleaching agents coming off heated paper, metallic vapors from the drum and physical particles of toner and paper. However, some of the most influential technical reports may have underestimated the real risk by only focusing on one, two, or a few of the individual substances and not on the combined, synergistic effects of the cocktail of varied, unidentifiable chemicals released by the worst of these machines. In general, only partial assessments of ozone or physical particles of toner have been made and there is no information about the effects on laboratory animals exposed to the full emissions of these machines in real conditions of use, as the secretaries and administrative staff were encountering in their jobs. Most people, particularly in the 1980s and 90s, were not aware of any potential hazards from the strong, pungent smells then emitted by these machines (now the machines have technical improvements to reduce toxic emissions). Employees were breathing these vapors, highly concentrated in unventilated places, often for hours, weeks and months. Any symptoms, any health disturbances happening to ignorant users would have been considered as anything unrelated to a toxic/irritant exposure and would be blamed on viruses, pollens, urban smog, defective genetics or psychosomatic disturbances to name a few, whatever best applied to each case. Anyone should realize that among the millions of office users during several decades, with all sorts of machines working all the day in all sorts of more or less ventilated spaces, it is statistically impossible that at least some persons would not have been negatively affected by printing equipment; not to mention those suffering from previous respiratory sicknesses. Indeed, there are some cases well reported in the medical literature. These represent the limited amount of persons in which a link was established between their health problems and the machines in their job and who insisted to have their cases well studied. It appears these identified cases may be just the tip of the iceberg; I personally remember some old colleagues suffering from at least two health symptoms, which I also developed years later, and who never associated them to their constant work with these machines. I am sorry to say that the medical establishment has only very little knowledge of the effects of chemicals inside the body and even less when they enter through the airways (we sufferers of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity know this too well). Unfortunately, when a health complaint does not show an obvious physiological cause, it is too often considered by physicians to be of mental origin. So we can safely assume that a number of office employees with undefined ill health will have been labeled “psychosomatic” or something of the kind, while in fact they were starting to have a series of health complaints and building up a progressive intolerance to chemicals initially started by some massive exposure to printing equipment in their jobs. In this way, a respiratory anxiety due to inhaling offensive chemicals might get mutated into a psychological anxiety, a respiratory intolerance to chemicals into a chemical phobia, and the intolerance to atmospheres full of perfumes and fumes in subways or lifts might receive the name of agoraphobia. This describes a likely scenario where other cases of illness similar to the one described here might be occurring. Some of the gases released by these machines, among them ozone, can reach the low, small airways and produce there different lesions which can be quite atypical. Remarkably enough, the medical tests routinely performed in people who complain of respiratory troubles are unreliable to visualize and evidence lesions at those deep levels. Good physicians know this and try to bypass the failures of the ordinary screening methods, but the majority are not aware that their diagnostic tools can fail in certain specific circumstances, and may send their patients away with a psychological drug and a recommendation to “keep on with life and relax.” An attitude like this common one can multiply the negative effects of the initial chemical exposure. In many cases, women may be more at risk than men from the same level of chemical exposure. On average, we have smaller lungs and less water to detoxify incoming substances. Gender differences have not been considered when performing studies for the determination of maximum exposure limits to a variety of chemicals and other toxicological tests of substances present at the workplace or in consumer products. The (limited) tests performed to establish the security of a (limited) amount of chemicals common in our environments have massively ignored women and their different physiology and biochemistry. Additionally, women have the reputation of suffering more “mental illness” than men and the symptoms of young women often get labeled as psychosomatic without any deep medical enquiry. Further, many women are under-paid and with little financial capabilities for having their ill health carefully assessed. By doing superficial, unspecific, unsuitable medical tests, the health disturbances produced by irritant toxic gases, which vanish after a few minutes without leaving physical traces of their presence into the damaged tissues, can be perpetuated. And the polluters—in this case printing machines—can keep the reputation of being harmless forever. One other aspect of this problem is the familiar sick building syndrome. No doubt the lack of natural, good ventilation in modern buildings is a risk for health, but lack of proper ventilation per se will not produce severe health disturbances in normal circumstances or else subway-underground workers or miners would collapse all the time. With enough ventilation even cyanide can be harmless. The solution proposed for many cases of ill health attributed to sick building syndrome has usually been to increase the ventilation, thus acknowledging that there was in these buildings something that needed to be ventilated away. In many cases of sick buildings, photocopiers and laser printers have been specifically mentioned as one of the possible causes/contributors to the problem. It is likely that a number of cases of persons taken ill in offices with strange, poorly diagnosed symptoms and syndromes may have more to do with the presence next to them of constantly running printing machines than with insufficient ventilation of the premises. Obviously it is always convenient for influential interested parties to divert attention from the fact that employees were breathing concentrations of toxic gases from a machine and let the problems get settled with a few common sense recommendations. I am trying to raise awareness about this subject and request collaboration for widely releasing the warnings that some persons suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity and other symptoms associated to the sick building syndrome, asthma of obscure origin, and other unclear health complaints, may have developed their conditions or worsened them due to exposures to the complex mixtures of chemicals given off by photocopiers and laser printers in their office jobs. Further, I am trying to raise awareness to the possibility that they may not have realized the situation and may have continued exposing themselves to environments dangerous to them with potentially severe outcomes. However, some of these persons might have noticed that the machines were the cause of their ill health and yet they have encountered from others denial and refusal to acknowledge the situation as it happened in my case. Because of that, I would very much appreciate hearing about other possible cases of persons who believe printing machines damaged their health or who suffered obscure symptoms never well understood and at the same time were intensely breathing the concentrated vapors of these machines. Please be kind to report here any interesting cases for further comments and follow-up. Until now, persons made ill by these machines have no recognition of their cases, but if a sufficient number of stories were gathered the authorities would feel obliged to carefully look into them and eventually release guidelines for adequately treating sick persons and for preventing new cases to happen by misuse of these office machines. Despite reassuring reports from the relevant authorities, photocopiers and laser printers can be a health risk when a combination of different unfavorable circumstances happens. And they can happen, even now. Anyone who wishes so please feel free to copy and paste this text into your social networks for warning other office employees. Thank you, M.R.E. [Editor's note: See also Laser Printers Create a Toxic Office] If you enjoyed this post, you might like these related stories:
The following is information for the readers of The Canary Report concerning potential risks of exposure to photocopiers and laser printers. I have suffered a devastating respiratory condition from exposure to these types of machines, and so I am trying to raise awareness about this health hazard to hopefully receive feedback and get in touch with other persons who suffer the same.
