Friday, May 16, 2008

ANNE SAKER The Oregonian

The Oregonian

A nail salon makes its first impression on the nose. Even regular customers can feel overpowered by the smell of the chemicals necessary for that professional finish.

On a typical visit, a customer might spend two hours exposed to that smell while getting a manicure or pedicure. Yet day after day, thousands of Oregon women, a large number of them immigrants from Vietnam, must tolerate air quality that could make them sick.

“I don’t even smell it anymore,” says Yen Pham, who for 14 years has been cutting hair and doing nails at her own salon, Beyond Beauty, at East Burnside Street and Northeast 82nd Avenue in Portland. “Customers come in, they say, ‘Oh, so strong!’ I’m so used to it, I don’t notice it.”

But a small group of Oregon government workers and nonprofit advocates did. Since last summer, they have been trying to figure out what to do about nail salon air quality and hazardous waste — and how to protect workers.

“No one really has the teeth to regulate this industry,” says Patricia Huback, an air quality analyst with the Department of Environmental Quality. “It’s a giant loophole.”

Huback got interested in the subject while visiting family last summer in Atlanta. Her sister wanted to get her nails done but didn’t want to take her 4-year-old son into the salon because the smell made him cough.

“I started thinking about that,” Huback says. “Who does regulate this? If I don’t want my own nephew to go in there, what about the workers?”

When she returned to Oregon, she organized a meeting that led to the formation of the Oregon Collaborative for Healthy Nail Salons. It was modeled on similar groups in Washington, California, Massachusetts and Texas aimed at improving nail salon air quality from different approaches.

Nail products contain chemicals such as toluene, formalin (a form of formaldehyde), acetone and phthalates. The Food and Drug Administration does not test or approve beauty products, so it falls on manufacturers to tell customers and workers about the chemicals in their products. They are not required to do so, although California passed a law last year directing manufacturers to list all ingredients.

The scope of the air quality problem isn’t well-defined, but the outlines are ominous: The findings of about half a dozen epidemiological studies suggest that long-term exposure can cause ailments from dizziness to headaches to asthma.

More troubling, the studies indicated that long-term exposure poses the greatest risk to workers of child-bearing age — the industry’s predominant work force. Because the chemicals can be absorbed through the skin as well as the lungs, pregnant women also may be exposing their fetuses.

Manufacturers contend that, if handled correctly, the chemicals are not dangerous. Studies of California salons conducted in the late 1990s found exposure levels well below federal thresholds.

Doug Schoon, a chemist who works for the industry, believes that groups like the Oregon collaborative draw conclusions by relying too much on what they smell in salons.

“At a nail salon, you may go in and smell something stinky, but the odor is far more than the exposure,” Schoon says. “Anything that smells bad people think is dangerous. And that’s just not the case.”

But Huback, other collaborative members and industry watchers say government exposure limits are outdated and don’t adequately account for nail salons, which are often small and usually located in rental spaces where upgrades to ventilation systems cannot easily be made.

“The laws on the books and the regulations and the standards are fairly meaningless,” says Jeff Cardarella, whose Madison, Wis., company, Modern Solutions Inc., sells an air-filtering machine just for nail salons. “The enforcement is nonexistent. You have this growth of this industry and these dangerous pollutants, particles and gas exposing women of child-bearing years.”

At the end of April, Oregon had 4,594 licensed facilities that offered nail services, and 14,744 licensed nail technicians, nearly 1 percent of the state’s total nonfarm employment.

Ninety percent of nail-salon workers are women between 18 and 35. The state does not ask licensees to list nationality, but the industry publication Nails magazine estimates that nationally, Vietnamese immigrants represent about 43 percent of all nail technicians. In California, they represent 80 percent.

The members of the Oregon nail salon collaborative realized they needed to include at least one worker in their efforts, and they recruited Yen Pham.

With a dazzling smile, perfect French manicure and long, wavy hair, Pham, 39, stands as an advertisement for her work. The Vietnam native and U.S. citizen is the mother of three and owns Beyond Beauty with her husband. They have two employees.

She says that for Vietnamese women, the nail business is “an easy way for us to go to school, learn a skill, go to work right away. Vietnamese women want to have their own businesses. This is a way to do that.”

What drew the collaborative to Pham, though, was her own effort to address salon air quality.

Five years ago, she installed a ceiling vent to draw away fumes, although she says she’s not sure it’s big enough for her space. The nail tables have built-in fans to fight dust, but the fans exhaust the air back into the salon.

The collaborative has come up with a half-dozen ways to deal with salon air quality and developed a pamphlet to guide workers on the safe handling of chemicals. The information is available on the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division’s Web site — but the state doesn’t have the software yet to translate the pamphlet into Vietnamese.

The state agency that licenses salons and OSHA are offering salon owners advice about ventilation and such protective equipment as masks and gloves. Multnomah County is studying the possibility of assigning someone to do further salon assessments, and nonprofit groups such as the Zero Waste Alliance are looking into grants to pay for other ways to reach salon workers, such as a teaching film.

The nail business made $6.16 billion in 2007, according to Nails magazine, down from $6.84 billion in 2004. Pham says she’s noticing the drop-off as people trim what they spend in her salon for nice nails.

“That’s OK,” she says, “I like cutting hair better anyway.”

Anne Saker: 503-294-7656; annesaker@news.oregonian.com

Over the next three months, she developed a bad cough. Doctors at first suspected pneumonia, but it worsened in spite of antibiotics. When she collapsed at her desk in October 2006, barely able to breathe, she learned she had what doctors call “occupational asthma.”

In other words, she was allergic to work.

This time of year there is a lot of sneezing and coughing in the workplace — spring is allergy season. But for some, the cause of the misery is not what’s outside, but what’s within.

While it sounds like a punch line, or a handy excuse for avoiding the office, workplace allergy, specifically occupational asthma, accounts for about 10 percent of asthma cases in the United States, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Occupational asthma alone is estimated to be responsible for 24.5 million missed workdays nationwide annually, said Dr. Karin Pacheco, an occupational medicine specialist at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, which specializes in respiratory illness.

Work-induced allergy is fairly simple to diagnose: the symptoms worsen as the workday progresses, and lessen after you leave. And you feel fine on weekends and vacations.

Much more complicated is what to do about it. The only cure is to avoid the allergy trigger. That may be possible when your trigger is peanuts, but how do you earn a living when your trigger is the place you work?

An allergic reaction is an overreaction of the immune system, causing everything from rashes to life-threatening anaphylactic shock. Sometimes the reaction occurs the first time a substance is encountered, but allergies more commonly develop after repeated exposure.

Although even immunologists use the terms allergy and sensitivity interchangeably, there is a difference. Allergic sensitivity means an allergy to a specific allergen like ragweed; sensitivity refers to a nonspecific irritant. The headache you get after being exposed to pungent room freshener, for instance, indicates a sensitivity to an irritant, while the swelling of your throat when you eat shrimp is an allergic response. In other words, an allergy can kill while a sensitivity just makes you miserable.

Nearly every workplace has potential triggers. The Mayo Clinic Web site (mayoclinic.com) lists 16 professions at risk for occupational asthma, including veterinarian (exposure to dander), cabinet maker (wood dust), cleaning staff (disinfectants), baker (dust from flour and grain) and hairdresser (chemicals and fumes).

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (osha.gov) has guidelines for handling these and other substances, and masks, ventilation systems and exposure rotations go a long way toward reducing allergies at work. But some people suffer even with the best of practices.

Severe allergies fall under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires employers to make reasonable changes in the workplace to enable an employee to do the job. And allergies developed at work often fall under workers’ compensation laws. But both routes can be complex and capricious, and redress is often dependent on the attitude of the employer.

Mark Strikwerda, 55, said that his employer, the North County Fire Protection District in Fallbrook, Calif., did all it could to help him. He began fighting fires 32 years ago and was healthy until March 2005, when, following a particularly smoky blaze, he developed what he called “the worst sore throat.” The throat pain ebbed, he said, but he was left with a cough he could not shake. By June, he appeared so ill that firehouse medics drove him to a hospital, where the oxygen level in his blood was found to be low.

After being told he had occupational asthma, Mr. Strikwerda spent nine months on paid disability, trying to find a medical regimen that would return him to work. Eventually he took an office job with the fire department, but not only is he not permitted to fight fires, he cannot even stand near the idling trucks: exhaust undoes him.

While he describes his job as “a gift, and I’m grateful for it,” he said that a firefighter who can’t fight fires is like “a thoroughbred who isn’t allowed to run.” He plans to retire soon.

Other employers are not quite as accommodating. An investment banker in Washington, who asked for anonymity for fear of being seen as “difficult” by future employers, described in an e-mail message the months he spent sneezing in a dank basement office.

“Soon I felt lightheaded and wheezy,” he wrote. “People coming into my office would comment that something wasn’t right about the air quality. Then for five days straight I had a bloody nose, ultimately warranting a visit to the ear, nose and throat doctor.”

His constant complaints inspired the installation of another filter on the ventilation system, which improved the situation somewhat. After he left the job, he wrote, “the company deemed my old office uninhabitable and no one has worked there since.”

Conflicts over work-related irritants and allergens can end up in court. Last July, Susan McBride, who works in the planning department of the City of Detroit, sued the city in United States District Court for violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Ms. McBride, her lawsuit says, suffers from severe migraines, dizziness, nausea, earaches and sinus and breathing problems when exposed to strong scents, and she regularly became ill at work when a colleague arrived wearing perfume. The colleague refused to stop spritzing (though she did agree to unplug an air freshener) and the women’s bosses refused to ban scents in the office.

The case created a burst of comment on Web sites like overlawyered.com and breathefreeordie.com. The chatter on Overlawyered tended to suggest that Ms. McBride was an example of all that is wrong with the legal system; Breathe Free respondents seemed inclined toward canonizing her. Dozens of workers contacted her lawyer, Ann Curry Thompson, who is now bringing similar suits in Texas and Ohio.

Ms. Thompson said Ms. McBride is still going to work, armed with antihistamines, painkillers and inhalers. No trial date has been set.

As for Ms. Mulcahy, she wore a mask at the office, hoping for a return to good health when the dust literally settled. But she still coughed, and when she requested an air quality test and asked whether the ventilation system was clogged, “they started treating me like a potential lawsuit, giving me bad reviews and sending me for meetings with H.R.,” Ms. Mulcahy said.

So she left in February for an office that does not make her cough as often, though she knows that as a general rule, once allergic is always allergic. “I still can’t go into a restaurant with candles, or walk by the horses in Central Park,” she said. “For the rest of my life I’ll be reminded of that one job.”

By LISA BELKIN

Published: May 1, 2008

by Building Inspector and Indoor Air Specialist,

A Report by Women’s Voices for the Earth

Health Hazards Associated withToxic Exposure in Nail SalonsA look at the health hazards associated with toxicexposure in nail salons and recommendations forimproving conditions for nail salon employees andcustomers. By Alexandra Gorman and Philip O’ConnorWomen’s Voices for the EarthFebruary 2007 Acknowledgments:The authors are grateful to the many peoplewho contributed either directly or indirectly tothis Report, including Bryony Schwan, ExecutiveDirector, The Biomimicry Institute; Dori Gilels,Executive Director, Women’s Voices for the Earth;Felicia Eaves, Women’s Voices for the Earth;Julia Liou, Planning and Development Manager,Asian Health Services; Stacy Malkan, Health CareWithout Harm; and Elizabeth Katz, CIH, CaliforniaDepartment of Health Services OccupationalHealth Branch. We especially thank Cora Roelofs,ScD, Work Environment Department, Universityof Massachusetts, Lowell, for her helpfulsuggestions, edits and overall content review. Wealso appreciate the thoughtful and insightful ideas,contributions and comments of the members ofthe Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the CaliforniaHealthy Nail Salon Collaborative. We are gratefulto the Mitchell Kapor Foundation for theirfinancial support of this project. Finally, we wouldlike to acknowledge the generous contributionsof Cedar Tree Foundation, Thanksgiving Fundand Tides Foundation Reproductive Justice Fundfor their general support of WVE’s programs andorganizational development.

By Alexandra Gorman and Philip O’Connor: Women’s Voices for the Earth, February 2007

By Alexandra Gorman and Philip O’Connor: Women’s Voices for the Earth, February 2007

By Alexandra Gorman and Philip O’Connor: Women’s Voices for the Earth, February 2007

By Alexandra Gorman and Philip O’Connor: Women’s Voices for the Earth, February 2007

By Alexandra Gorman and Philip O’Connor: Women’s Voices for the Earth, February 2007

By Alexandra Gorman and Philip O’Connor: Women’s Voices for the Earth, February 2007