My guest today is Charles Levenstein, Ph.D., MSc , an economist,  policy analyst and co-author of The Toxic Schoolhouse. We’ll be talking about chemical hazards endangering students, teachers, and staff in the education system of the United States and Canada. Dr Levenstein is Professor Emeritus in Department of Work Environment, retiring from teaching in 2003.  He is adjunct professor of occupational health at Tufts University School of Medicine and one of the leading researchers concerned with social factors in occupational and environmental health. For several years he was co-director of the Organized Labor and Tobacco Control Consortium, funded by the American Legacy Foundation at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.   He subsequently became a consultant to Dr. Edith Balbach’s NCI-funded research on tobacco industry relations with trade unions.  He has served as member and chair of the environmental health and safety committee of the Massachusetts Teachers Association.  He has been engaged in intervention research in immigrant communities and in the economic evaluation of occupational health and safety interventions. Until recently, Dr Levenstein chaired the advisory committee for United Steel Workers Federally-funded health and safety projects; he continues to chair the advisory board of The New England Consortium, an NIEHS-funded collaboration of health and safety advocacy groups, trade unions and academics.  He is Editor Emeritus of New Solutions, a quarterly peer-reviewed journal of occupational and environmental health policy and is co-editor of the Baywood series on Work, Health and Environment. Dr. Levenstein is a recipient of the American Public Health Association’s award for lifetime contribution to occupational health.

 

 

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Toxics in Schools

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Dr. Charles Levenstein

Date of Broadcast: April 07, 2015

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free. It’s Tuesday, April 7th, 2015. It’s a beautiful spring day in Clearwater, Florida. The sun is shining. It’s actually getting a little warm here. People here are here now on spring break. The beach is full of tourists this week and last week. Obviously, this is a beautiful time in Florida.

So today, we’re going to talk about something that we haven’t talked about before on this show, which is toxic exposure to children in schools. I think that this is a very important subject because first of all, children have a much more difficult time with toxic exposures than adults. It’s bad enough for adults, but children have a greater impact.

If you think about a child and an adult standing in the same room, having the same exposure to toxic chemicals, the child’s body is smaller and so the proportion of toxic exposure to body weight is much, much greater for a child. They breathe faster than adults do and so they’re inhaling more of the toxic chemicals they’re being exposed to in the air than adults would be inhaling.

They’re just more sensitive in every way to it. Their bodies, their detox systems are not fully developed. And yet, we send children to school every day right into a toxic environment. You might have a toxic free home, but it’s unlikely that your child has a toxic free school unless they’ve done something about it.

My guest today is an economist, a policy analyst and co-author of a book called the The Toxic Schoolhouse, which very thoroughly explains the problem and what people can do about it. This is something that every parent needs to know about and that every school should be paying attention to.

I’d like to welcome Dr. Charles Levenstein. Welcome to the show.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Thank you, Debra. I’m really glad to be on the show.

DEBRA: Thank you.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: I hope what I say can be of help to people.

DEBRA: I’m sure it will be. I’ve taken a look at your book and there’s just so much information in it. First, I want you to tell us about yourself, your background and how you got interested in toxic schools.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Okay. Well, I’ve been spending years – I was on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell in a new department called the Department of Work Environment. In 2003, I was a Professor of Work Environment when I retired.

At that point, the union, which I have been a member of for many years, the Teachers’ Union asked me if I would help the union to develop environmental policies for the schools because they were greatly concerned about exposures to the children and to the teachers and other staff. So I got recruited.

At the time, I didn’t know much about schools. A lot of what I did in those years is to learn about what was going on in the schools, what the efforts were to deal with problems in them. So I educated myself about it and worked with the Environmental Health and Safety Committee in order to try to improve the situation.

The first work that we did was because there were a lot of complaints about indoor air in schools. There were dusts and fumes and odors that the teachers were concerned about and they were sure that the children were being affected by it. There also has been a great increase in asthma both amongst children and among adults in the society. So people were afraid that the indoor air pollution that was going on was having some impact on them. So that’s really the first issue that I became involved with. Shall I say more about that?

DEBRA: Well no, I just wanted to know briefly your background just to start with.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Okay.

DEBRA: And then, we’ll say that you ended up, the end of the story there – or maybe it’s not the end, but somewhere along the way in your story – you were the co-author of a book called The Toxic Schoolhouse.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Yes. I have been the editor of a journal called New Solutions. In the journal, what we tried to do is to get environmental activists, labor activists and public health people together talking about issues on not just about schools, but other places.

Madeleine Scammell who’s a professor at Boston University and I did a special issue of New Solutions on schools and health. We gathered material from a lot of different authors. When we went through it, we realized that this really was not comprehensive. We needed more information. We talked to the publisher of New Solutions, Baywood Publications and suggested that we expand this and make a book. So that’s what you’ve seen, The Toxic Schoolhouse edited by Madeleine and myself, but with authors from all around the country.

So we are hoping that this is not a definitive book of all time, rather it is a first, I think, important step in trying to talk about what the exposures are or some of the exposures are, what people have been trying to do about it and what the central problems are in the schools. That’s what we were after really.

DEBRA: I think that you really did a good job. Obviously, I haven’t read the whole entire book every single word because I couldn’t possibly do that with every guest.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Yes, sure. I understand.

DEBRA: But I’ve looked at a lot of it and you bring up some very good points. I just wanted to start asking you questions about things that you cover in the book.

The first question, chapter one, the first thing that you asked is “Who’s in charge of children’s environmental health at school?” I think that’s an excellent question. Who is in charge? Who’s looking to make sure that the children are not being exposed to toxic chemicals?

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Because I’m an academic, that’s also the most obvious questions for me to be asking. I want to get information. Who do I go to?

The Healthy Schools Network people wrote the chapter on who’s in charge because they also had that question. And the answer to the question is that no one is in charge. That’s very, very disturbing. We had thought that they would be either some state agency or some federal agency that would be concerned about the school environment. And we could not find any single agency that was in charge of it.

So if you were concerned about indoor air, that was one kind of problem. If you were concerned about the use of pesticides, how to control vermin in the schools, that’s another issue. If you were concerned about lead in drinking water, it was a separate issue. If you were concerned about asbestos, there were other agencies involved with it. But there was no coordinated overall agency that was in charge and that was thinking about this.

So we were concerned because we have been working on legislation in Massachusetts to improve indoor air. It was very receptive. The legislation was very receptive to this when we went to talk to them. We did a couple of hearings with them. The only block came when it came up to money. They would say, “Oops, what is this going to cost to deal with it, to improve the indoor air school environment?” And because there had been so much deterioration in the conditions in the schools, it was a colossal amount of money. That’s when our legislators’ support backed off and fell away.

There was not only no coordinated effort, even in the legislature, there was interest and concern, but resistance because of the financial aspect of it.

DEBRA: Well, that is entirely understandable. But I’m looking at it. I don’t have children, so I don’t have children in school. But if I did, my question would be – since I know so much about this subject – I would say, “Listen. There are all these chemicals in the school room that can cause things like neurological effects, which affects the brain, which affects the ability to learn. Exposure to lead reduces IQ for one thing.”

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: That’s right. Yeah.

DEBRA: “So how are the children supposed to learn in a toxic environment? It’s affecting their ability to learn.”

Before you say anything about this, we need to go to break, but we’ll talk about this more when we come back. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dr. Charles Levenstein. He is an economist, policy analyst and co-author of The Toxic Schoolhouse. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dr. Charles Levenstein, economist, policy analyst and co-author of The Toxic Schoolhouse.

Dr. Levenstein, before the break, I was bringing up about how children can learn if their school room is filled with toxic chemicals that are affecting their brain function. So I’m going to let you answer that. But also, let’s just talk about now what are the toxic chemicals that children are being exposed to at school.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: One of the major issues is lead in the water. It comes in schools all across the country. Some of it is directly from the pipes, but some of it is from the water fountains in which the pipes are welded together with lead-containing material.

What can you do about that? Well, one at a time, what you can do is you can run the water first. If the water has been standing around, then run the tap first for a while and then drink the water because that will get rid of some of the lead. But that’s a very small part of an answer to this problem.

Let me tell you. When I first got involved with this, I decided…

DEBRA: I want to ask you a question just about water.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Yeah.

DEBRA: So looking at it from my viewpoint, if I was a mom and my kid was in school, here’s what I’d say. I’d say, “Look. We can get a very effective water filter that will not only remove lead, but remove all other toxic chemicals from the water for about $300. Let us parents get together and get that water filter so that our kids don’t have to drink lead in the water or anything else.” Are people not saying this? Are our parents not looking for solutions for their children?

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Part of it is that parents don’t know because there is little monitoring of this problem going on. If the parents were informed, I think that they would be concerned and they would be raising these issues through PTAs with the administration of the school.

And also, the teachers don’t know. We’re also trying to educate the teachers about this. So if neither the parents nor the teachers know, then the administrators have a set of priorities to include things like lead or PCBs or asbestos for that matter.

All these problems are well-established. There’s not really a new need for new science on lead or on asbestos. There’s still need for science on some other materials. But nevertheless, for some of the most basic and ubiquitous problems, the science is out there and someone should be taking care of it in each of the schools, but also in the school system as a whole.

There is no systematic monitoring that goes along with these things. There’s no audit that’s required. On asbestos, it’s supposed to be – do you want to talk about that or you want to stick with lead?

DEBRA: Sure. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, go ahead. I’m so…

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: On the asbestos issue, there is a law, the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Law, which is supposed to be enforced either by EPA, US-EPA or by the state.

When we did a survey in Massachusetts to find out what was going on, we found that 90% of the schools were not in compliance with the law. For someone who has worked in the private sector, I was shocked because you don’t have standards that 90% of the business systempay any attention to.

So when we looked at it, we found what was it that they were not doing? What are they out of compliance with? The major thing that they didn’t do was they’re supposed to inform parents and they’re supposed to inform teachers and other staff about the conditions in the school.

Once a year, there’s supposed to be an audit. And the administration of the school is supposed to inform them about that. That’s what the key violation was.

If that information doesn’t go to the parents or to the teachers, then they don’t know. They assume that everything is fine, that the kids are okay and that they themselves are okay and nothing happens. So the violation of this information providing aspects of laws is really quite fundamental.

DEBRA: I’m just astounded to hear this, but I shouldn’t be. I guess I shouldn’t be because I’ve been doing this work for 30 years. I’ve been talking and talking and talking, writing and writing and writing and being on TV and on radio and everything. And still, the number of people that I think actually knows anything about this is a very small percentage. I meet people every day who have never heard of these problems.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: I am sympathetic to parents who are working all day long and count on the schools to take care of the kids and they count on the schools to be a safe place and they don’t really want to think about it too much. Unless some acute problem shows up, then they assume that things are okay.

The problem is a lot of these substances don’t have an immediate effect. They have long term effect. So it’s even hard to tell whether kids who are exposed when they’re little in school, 10 or 20 years later, develop disease or cancer or whatever. It’s very hard to keep track of that. It is easier to study the teachers because they are there day in and day out and they don’t move as much and they have longer term exposures.

So we have been arguing the need for the studies of cancer in teachers, mesothelioma, which is what you get from asbestos, there really needs to be serious attention to that.

Some of the parent advocates are concerned about that because they say, “Well, what about the kids?” Well, it is hard to do the studies of the kids because we have to track them over long periods of time. But the teachers are there.

When we started to look, for instance, at mesothelioma, the asbestos-related cancer in the schools in Massachusetts, we discovered that there were 19 teachers right off the bat who had that cancer. And when we pushed to the Department of Public Health and the State to look for more, we got it over a period of 10 years, we discovered that they were about 50 staff, teachers, administrators and custodians who have mesothelioma.

Now that rattled the leadership of the union for sure because they didn’t know that. No one was telling them that, but it meant that their members were getting really seriously ill from this stuff.

DEBRA: I need to interrupt you because we need to go to break, but we’ll talk about this more when we come back.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Okay.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dr. Charles Levenstein. He’s the co-author of The Toxic Schoolhouse. It’s a very interesting book about how our children and teachers were being exposed to toxic chemicals. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dr. Charles Levenstein who is the co-author of the book The Toxic Schoolhouse.

Before the break, we were talking about – what were we talking about? We were about to talk about something.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: What I was thinking about was the importance of providing information to parents and to teachers and to the people in the environment. I was thinking about how important that was because in the absence of pressure from either the workers there or from the parents of the kids, the administrators have pressures from school boards and from the community for other kinds of results and they don’t think about the impact, for instance, of lead on learning. It’s not at the top of their political agenda.

DEBRA: No, but I guess my viewpoint is different because I spent all of my adult life studying toxic chemicals in the home and in the world and their health effects and how they affect our bodies and our minds and our ability to think and learn and all of those things. But for somebody who hasn’t done that, I can see that something might be more important.

But to me, I can’t imagine that anything is more important than addressing toxic issues because toxic chemicals affect our ability to be healthy, our bodies to be healthy. They affect our abilities to think clearly, to be able to remember things. All of these different functions that go into learning or working or earning a living or being happy in life, all can be damaged by toxic chemicals and all are being damaged by toxic chemicals.

If schools are concerned about test scores, the first thing I would say to them is get the lead out of the school because lead affects IQ. It affects development. I mean, there’s no safe level for lead.

It just seems like that in the world – this is what I talked about in the summit. But in the world, people aren’t aware. I think everybody needs to be aware that these toxic exposures are going on, that they’re affecting our health, happiness and ability and they need to be at the top of the list.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: I agree with you. I think they should be at the top of the list. And I wonder why they were not at the top of the list.

One of the things I did was to look for whether courses on the management of facilities of the buildings were in graduate schools of education or the administrators and the people who run the schools and the people who are in charge of all this, do they know anything about this? I could not find one course on the management of the facility.

I finally found some things. The Association of School Business Officials has some short courses on that. But we really need the principals and the superintendents to know about this, not just the accountants. And there is no course. So part of the reasons why we’ve been forced to educate ourselves is because there is no place where that is happening already.

I’ll give you an example of a different kind of chemicals, PCBs. PCBs are endocrine disruptors. They’re carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. An endocrine disruptor means that they can affect your reproductive system. They can affect growth and the like over a long period of time.

Now if a school was built in United States between roughly 1950 and 1975, all those schools used PCBs in the caulking around the windows or in the fixtures, in lighting fixtures.

By the end of the late 1970s, there was so much concern about the health effects of PCBs that essentially, it was banned in the United States. It was not banned in the sense of pulling it out of the places where it existed, but it was the further production of it and use of it was banned.

So 1975 until 2000, let’s say, the caulking around those windows has been disturbed. It has dried up and it’s fallen out. It’s contaminated the earth around the school building. Some of it has gotten into the air filters. It went into the air system and the air conditioning. It’s a hazard!

We have had some people – it’s one of the chapters in the book – a guy from Harvard School of Public Health who have gone out and have done measurements to see how much of this is there. Is it a hazard? In some places, it is. In some places, it isn’t.

But the resistance of school officials to looking for it and to finding out about it is enormous. It truly would be expensive to deal with. There is no question.

One of the richer school districts in Massachusetts, they found out about it. They did the measurements. They changed all the windows over the summer and they dealt with the problem.

Less affluent school districts don’t want to know. This denial is a big problem. They just don’t want to know about it because of the implications for what they’re going to have to do.

So we got into trouble with some of them because one of our members forwarded samples to see whether there were PCBs in the caulking and the school said he was trespassing. There was a big scandal about it.

What are you going to do if the schools themselves are not doing the job and don’t want to know? But the state departments of Health are very concerned about school budgets and taxes, so there’s a resistance of knowing too much. We’re worrying because it does affect the teachers and it does affect the other staff in place and it affects the kids – long term effects on the kids. It is deeply concerning.

We had hopes that the control of asbestos was going to be a model for dealing with it. But then it turns out that they don’t enforce the asbestos laws. There are laws.

I initially thought that what I was supposed to do is share with the committee and to propose legislation to improve the situation. And then I realized that we have some laws, but they weren’t being enforced or they were being enforced in a lackadaisical manner because there was no pressure from parents or from the union to at least raise help about it.

So what I’m saying is that parents need to be informed about this and the PTAs need to be pushing to get the school systems to make changes.

DEBRA: I think that’s the place to start. We need to go to break. But we’ll talk more when we come back.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Okay.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dr. Charles Levenstein. He is the co-author of the book The Toxic Schoolhouse. And he’s working to try to get these toxic chemicals out of our schools and protect our children, which is a very good thing to do. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dr. Charles Levenstein. He is the co-author of the book The Toxic Schoolhouse.

There are a couple of things I want to say. We’re coming to the end of our hour, but I want to get these two things in.

The first one is an e-mail that came in this morning. I subscribe to a lot of different feeds and different places. One of the stories that came in this morning was about fields of toxic pesticides surround schools in Ventura County, California. It talks about how this is an area that particularly grows strawberries and we’re coming in strawberry season now. They’re talking about all the different pesticides that are used on these strawberries and how the children are being affected and increased asthma, et cetera.

As they go to school, these strawberry fields, they’re being sprayed with all these pesticides that are going – I mean, not the children particularly. But if they’re spraying the fields that are right outside the school door, you know that’s going to come into the school room. And certainly, pesticides are used in most, if not all schools in addition to all these other toxic chemicals.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: That’s right. I mean, in terms of spraying the field, the danger is that it can also get into people’s homes because of the drift of the pesticides in the air.

In the schools, we actually were successful in getting legislation to require the schools to develop plans for Integrated Pest Management, which meant the reduction in the use of the most toxic chemicals.

So, one of the tasks in doing the book was to find out, well, we know that there are real problems with the asbestos legislation. What about this requirement?

It’s being enforced by the Department of Agriculture for the state, which is interesting. I hardly knew that there was such a thing in Massachusetts, but there is. We called them up. And they said, “Oh, it’s very successful. Ninety percent or more of the schools have filed their Integrated Pest Management plans.” So we said, “Well, are they actually doing it or they’re just giving you pieces of paper?” At which point, we were told there are no inspectors.

The answer is apparently, they’re in compliance, but as far as we know, we have no way of knowing if they are actually in compliance because there’s nobody going out and checking.

Now, maybe I’m just a nasty urban person, but I think that you have to check when you got a law. You have to know if it’s being enforced or not. I don’t think that parents think a lot about the use of pesticides in the school environment. But in fact, it’s inside and outside. Inside, there are animals that kids bring at lunch. There are insects. They get around. Frequently, they’re in cafeterias. And then outside on the grounds, there are small animals and pests and the like.

So it’s great to have a plan. It’s great to require the schools to have plans. But it is also important that these things be audited. They will not be audited unless the parents put pressure on it. It’s that simple.

DEBRA: That’s exactly right. Of course, parents could just go and audit the schools themselves. They could just go and ask what’s going on and find out why there are toxic chemicals there.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Yeah. I mean, it’s not exactly an audit to ask. But it is actually a good idea to ask because the parents asking means that the administrators are saying, “Uh-oh, we better pay attention to this.”

The other issue around this is the use of cleaning materials. And we have been very active in promoting green cleaners, that is the use of less toxic materials to clean the boards and to clean the classrooms.

I was watching a school system getting an award for being so good about introducing green cleaners. I went up to congratulate the guy who was in charge of that. He was a facilities director. I said, “That’s really wonderful that you’re doing this. Have you been working with the Teachers’ Union at all?”

And he said, “No. The teachers are a real problem.” I said, “What? What do you mean by teachers are a real problem?” He said, “Oh, the teachers bring in their own cleaners because they don’t like the green cleaners.” I realized no one had bothered to sit down with the teachers and explain to them what was going on and why they were doing it.

He said that the teachers are saying, “Well, that nearly doesn’t work so well. Who knows that that stuff works?” And the answer is you have to educate everybody.

DEBRA: You do have to educate everybody.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Including the staff.

DEBRA: Right. You do. Everybody, all along the chain here needs to be engaged in this.

I want to just bring up something else because we’ve only got about six minutes left and that is you talked earlier about doing studies. I just want to share with you and the listening audience who may be considering what we’re talking about here that I’ve been studying this subject for more than 30 years. I started because I got really sick from toxic chemical exposure. Once I figured it out, I said, “Well, I got to find out where the toxic chemicals are if I want to be well.”

There’s an idea called the Precautionary Principle. So I look at studies, I read a lot of scientific studies, but I’m not so reliant on having a scientific study come and examine my house to see if I’m getting sick. The Precautionary Principle says, “If there is evidence of harm, the precautionary thing to do is to not use it.”

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: It seems like a pretty straightforward solution to a problem. Now if you’re still sick after you stopped using it, then you know there was something else that caused the problem.

DEBRA: Right. That’s exactly right.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: But with the large numbers of kids being affected, I think you are – the Precautionary Principles should hold.

DEBRA: I think so too. And this is what I…

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: I want to experiment on the children of the country. That’s a crazy way to behave. We should be very, very…

DEBRA: Right! But that’s what’s going on. It’s like our children are the lab rats for finding out are there toxic chemicals in the school and how long do we need to wait.

I mean, if you’re telling me that there’s lead in the drinking water, I can tell you that there’s safe level for lead. There’s ample evidence to show the dangers of lead. There’s no question that lead is toxic and that it disturbs the way children think and feel and learn.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: That is also true with asbestos.

DEBRA: Right.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: There is no question that it is a serious health hazard for humans. There is no question. There is a question of exactly how PCBs work, but basically it has been established that it is a human carcinogen and it is an endocrine disruptor.

DEBRA: Yes.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Now what does that mean?

If you look at studies across the country, you will see that teachers are at a higher risk of breast cancer than one would expect. So when you ask the question why would that be, there’s no answer to that. They don’t answer.

DEBRA: Could it be that combination of PCBs and pesticides are a problem and all the other toxic things?

I just want to throw in also to this discussion that toxic chemicals, like you have mentioned earlier, are not chemicals that you might see an immediate effect for. I think that what most people say is, “Oh, I’m not sick. There’s nothing bothering me.” But what the piece of information that people don’t have is that toxic chemicals get in your body by the various ways that you’re exposed to them and they start to accumulate and you don’t get sick until they accumulate to a certain degree. They have to accumulate and when you get to that level, then you get really sick. But just because you don’t have symptoms doesn’t mean that that accumulation isn’t going on.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: It’s a lot easier to mobilize people if there is an acute effect. So we had a discussion of PCBs with a group of teachers who are working and the first thing they asked, “Does it give you headaches?” And the answer is no. It doesn’t give you headaches. “Are there any symptoms in the short run of this?” And the answer is no, there are no symptoms. So we’re arguing for a control of an exposure and it’s going to cost money to do that to get rid of the stuff for which there is no immediate impact. It is a long term effect.

DEBRA: It is a long term effect, but people are not thinking about the long term effect.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Yes.

DEBRA: Anyway, we’ve got less than a minute here. I don’t want to interrupt you from talking about something.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: That’s okay.

DEBRA: I just want to say thank you so much. This is a very, very important subject. I think that we’re just scratching the surface here. But I’m going to talk about it more on the show and see what I can do to start spreading the word.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Okay. You should tell people that the book is available from Baywood either as an electronic form or in paperback. We would love to get people’s comments and criticisms and suggestions as to the direction on which to go to move forward with this.

DEBRA: And you can go to Toxic…

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Thank you.

DEBRA: You’re welcome.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Yes.

DEBRA: Thank you. If you go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, I have a link directly to the book.

CHARLES LEVENSTEIN: Great, okay.

DEBRA: So you can get it there and listen to the show again if you want and other shows. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Thanks for listening. Be well.

My guest today is Professor Anne Steinemann, who has for many years been a champion for those sensitive to toxic chemicals in consumer products. She tests everyday consumer products to find out what toxic chemicals are actually present in them, many of which are not listed on labels or MSDS sheets. In this recorded interview from Australia, we talk about toxics she found in both standard and natural/organic products, our rights to toxic free public places, and our power as consumers to change the marketplace. Anne Steinemann is Professor of Civil Engineering and Chair of Sustainable Cities at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is an internationally recognized expert in areas of engineering and sustainability including environmental pollutants, infrastructure systems, and health. Her recent research addresses indoor air quality, exposure assessment, consumer product analyses, drought planning and forecasting, hazard mitigation, and healthy buildings and communities. She serves as adviser to governments and industries around the world and has directed major federally funded research programs. Her work has resulted in new federal and state legislation, agency policies and industry practices. Professor Steinemann has received the highest teaching awards at the college, university and national levels. She has published over 50 journal articles and two textbooks. Professor Steinemann’s research and journal articles have received significant international media coverage spanning more than 1,000 major newspapers, magazines and broadcast stations across six continents. Dr. Steinemann received her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University.  www.drsteinemann.com | www.drsteinemann.com/publications.html

 

 

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Surprising Hidden Toxics in Consumer Products

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Dr. Anne Steinemann

Date of Broadcast: March 03, 2015

DEBRA: Hi. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free.

This is a very special and a little bit different show today because usually I do the show live. But today, my guest is Professor Anne Steinemann. She is calling from Melbourne, Australia where if we were to do it live, it would be 2:00 in the morning or something.

So I agreed that we could record it. If it sounds different than usual – and we don’t have our usual ins and outs with the commercials. I don’t know how this is all going to go. But I’m sure we’re going to have a great interview.

I’m so excited to talk to Anne because she really is a pioneer in the work that she does. What she does, I’ll say it simply and then she’ll tell us more scientifically what she does. What she does is she tests consumer products to find out what’s really in them. I want to just keep talking about our subject now, but I’ll wait.

So let’s introduce her, then she and I can talk together. This is Professor Anne Steinemann, Professor of Civil Engineering and Chair of Sustainable Cities at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

She has been internationally recognized in the areas of engineering and sustainability including environmental pollutants and structured systems, health and some other things that are not the topics of the show.

Hi, Anne. Thank you so much for being with us.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Debra, thank you so much. I’m such a big fan of you and your work. I think the website and the work that you do are just extraordinary. You’re the pioneer. You’re really the international leader on this. So thank you so much. I’m thrilled to be on your show.

DEBRA: Thank you. Thank you. So let’s just start out. Before we talk about your study – and actually, I’ve been talking to Anne for a number of years. She’s been writing different studies. She’s been doing different studies and writing papers. She’s just come out with her most recent study.

The whole basic idea of why she does this – I’ll say it and I’ll let her say it – is because there’s a problem. I keep talking about this problem and that is that there isn’t enough disclosure about what’s in products for us to really know what the toxic chemicals are.

And I say this over and over. It’s my work. It would be easy if somebody were to just say, “Here’s the list of ingredients and I can go look them up.” The problem is that we don’t get that list of ingredients as consumers.

So Anne, why don’t you just continue and talk about this?

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Thank you so much. I’ll tell you what motivates my work. We know these products have potentially hazardous chemicals in them because people are reporting adverse health effects. The effects can be things from migraine headaches to dizziness to seizures to breathing difficulties to rashes to even losing consciousness. So I really look at the human reports. It really motivates my work.

I started doing this work probably about 25 years ago. I started publishing the studies about a decade ago. I’m trying to figure out what’s in these products that’s making people sick. What is it?

As an engineer and a scientist, I really want to figure it out. If you look at the labels, they typically list a couple of very benign sounding ingredients. And these products that we’re talking about – let me just mention – they’re consumer products, things like air fresheners to deodorizers, hand sanitizers, personal care products, laundry supplies (which includes dryer sheets and fabric softeners and detergents), cleaning products (all sorts of cleaning products from window cleaner or floor cleaner, bath cleaner, multi-purpose cleaners). So these are common consumer products that are used everyday in our homes, our workplaces and our schools.

I was receiving e-mails from people. I have received over 3000 e-mails from people, telling me that they’ve been getting sick from these common products.

So along with this, I’ve also then worked in exposure assessments. So as an engineer, engineers are concerned with pollutants and health. So I was looking at what are the major sources of pollutants as we go through the day.

Well, it turns out it occurs indoors and the primary sources of our exposures are consumer products and building materials. Paradoxically, these are sources that do not need to disclose all their ingredients. This is so ironic because the primary sources of our exposure to toxic chemicals are precisely the sources that don’t need to disclose all their ingredients.

Anyway, that’s what really propelled me into doing these studies. It’s really trying to figure out what’s being emitted from these products that’s causing people to be sick and not just mildly sick, but very seriously ill. These types of effects can be disabling and life-threatening.

These types of products have also caused people with chemical sensitivity a significant hardship. The people can’t go into public places because of the use of air fresheners or scented cleaning products. I have received hundreds upon hundreds of stories that are just tragic stories. It just gets to my heart. People want to go visit their dying parents in the hospital, but they can’t because the hospital uses air fresheners or scented hand sanitizers, things like that. Your listeners know this very well.

So that’s the motivation for the research.

DEBRA: Thank you. I understand that because that’s pretty much my motivation for my research too, because I got sick and I knew other people who are sick.

When I found that I could at least identify as much toxic chemicals so that I can remove them from my home and I started recovering my health, I said, “Wow, if somebody hasn’t told me this, then I was being exposed to toxic chemicals. I wouldn’t be sick if I wasn’t exposed to them” I would have done something. I did recover my health because I eliminated toxic chemicals.

But here’s something very, very important. And that is they do damage. You can remove the toxic chemicals after the effect, but I spent my whole life – even though I’m no longer chemically sensitive. I’m no longer chemically sensitive because I live in a very non-toxic home. But my body is damaged. I’m struggling with the damage that was caused every day.

And we need to not be damaging people’s bodies, people’s health. It should be that everybody gets to live in a safe environment at home and not that we should be exposed to toxic chemicals and then have to recover from that.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Right, exactly. So I think my research is designed to help those people who are of course already sensitized and feel the effects, but also those people who may not be aware what they’re being exposed to. It’s to prevent the next generation of chemically sensitive people and to really try to help people.

I agree with you completely that if we live in a safe environment, people feel great. I’ve seen how if we get rid of the air fresheners, get rid of the scented cleaning products, people recover their health.

DEBRA: They do. They do.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Exactly! If you think from a workplace perspective, economically, it makes so much sense. You can keep people healthy and productive just by removing these products. I mean, what a benefit!

Another reason I did this research was I’m still trying to unravel the mystery of why fragrance products are so problematic. People who are fragrance-sensitive are not necessarily sensitive to natural aromas, things like a banana or something like that, but it’s the synthetic bananas exactly.

So I think there’s a synthetic chemical problem, a petrochemical problem. This is our alert to say, “The human doesn’t feel well with synthetic chemicals. Let’s try to figure out why this is.”

The other issue here is that – for instance, let’s say an employee or just a person is trying to talk to management saying, “Can you please remove the air fresheners from your restrooms?” and the manager says, “Well, I’m looking at the label. This air freshener just says that it’s all organic essential oils. What could be wrong with that?”

But what they don’t realize is first of all, that’s not disclosing all the ingredients. And second of all, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any potentially hazardous chemicals in there.

So I’m also trying to provide evidence for people to claim their rights to fragrance-free places, so they could say, “Well, that’s actually not the case. Believe it or not, these products do not disclose all ingredients. They don’t disclose all the potentially hazardous ingredients.”

DEBRA: Okay. Let’s talk about labeling for a minute before we go into your study. Tell us about how these things are not on the label and also about the MSDS. I’ve been studying your study and you have some very interesting numbers about how few ingredients are actually on the MSDS.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Okay. So here is the situation. There is no law in the U.S. or any other country that requires the disclosure of all ingredients in a consumer product.

Now foods do need to list all their ingredients. However, they don’t need to list ingredients in flavors. That’s a related story to fragrances because flavors and fragrances are essentially the same types of chemicals. But foods do need to disclose all ingredients.

However consumer products – when I say consumer products, I mean things like the air fresheners, the cleaning products, the soaps, the hand sanitizers, the cleaning supplies – they don’t need to disclose all their ingredients. In fact, they can just say “fragrance” instead of disclosing the ingredients in the fragrance.

And one of the problems here is the public risk perception. If you look at a laundry detergent label and it says something “Biodegradable surfactant,” if it was something on the label, you might mistakenly think that’s all the ingredients. “Oh, it just had biological surfactants.” That sounds benign and simple enough. But that’s very misleading because what’s happening is people are looking at – if there’s a couple of ingredients, they think they see all ingredients.

So anyway, back to the regulations. There is no law that requires disclosure of all ingredients of consumer products or any ingredients in a fragrance. So basically, it’s a non-disclosure law on top of another. So that’s the labels.

And the same with material safety data sheet, there is no law that requires the disclosure of all ingredients on the material safety data sheet. Even though it has that box that says to list ingredients, it doesn’t need to list everything.

While the companies are required to test their products for potential hazards, there’s essentially no follow up or monitoring. So it’s a self-regulating process. The chronic problem with material safety data sheets is there’s not really a way to check to make sure they’re accurately disclosing and testing all of their ingredients.

DEBRA: Yeah. My point about material safety data sheets is that I look at them, but I don’t look at them from the viewpoint of saying, “Well, if there is no toxic chemicals listed, then it means that they’re not there.”

I look and I see, “Well, if there are toxic chemicals there, then we really need to pay attention to that. We need to say, “There are toxic chemicals in this product and not use it.”

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: That’s right.

DEBRA: The problem is on the other side. So we can use MSDS sheets and labels as warnings, but we can’t use the labels of MSDS to say that the product doesn’t contain toxic chemicals.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: That’s right.

DEBRA: The only way we know they’re there is because you are testing them.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: It can rule a product out, but it can’t rule a product in. If it discloses something, so again, we rule it out, but you can’t rule it in.

One of the other interesting things about toxicity – this is again what I’m trying to investigate – these products are obviously causing hazardous effects because people are getting sick from them.

What does this teach us about toxicity? Well, toxicity is not just individual chemicals even though that’s the way we test and regulate individual chemicals (that’s what I’ve seen), but we have very little information and knowledge on the toxicity of mixtures. So we have synthetic chemicals individually in synthetic mixtures. These are mixtures not known to nature and chemicals not known to nature.

I say the ultimate tests are humans. If humans are having adverse effects, that means there’s something that’s toxic in them.

So I look it the other way around because traditionally the argument is “Well, the levels are within regulatory limits.”

Well, first of all, our indoor air environments aren’t regulated necessary for those chemicals. And the levels, they’re so generous, so you didn’t really say much.

But I look at the other way around, saying, “People are having effects. What are the levels? What should we be regulating for?”

So aside from the individual chemicals is the fact that there are mixtures of chemicals. And then there’s this whole area of secondary pollutants.

The chemicals that I’m going to get into the results of the study in a minute, the most common types of chemicals emitted from fragrance products are things like limonene, alpha-Pinene, beta-Pinene. These are called terpenes. There’s a lot of chemicals called terpenes.

Terpenes can have inherent toxicity and be potentially toxic in and of themselves. But then when they react with ozone in the air, which is readily available in the air, they immediately generate a range of secondary pollutants. It can be even worse – things like formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and ultrafine particles.

So in a way, you have a class of chemicals that may have toxicities. But then they react with air and they generate this whole host of additional types of pollutants.

So again, we’re really trying to investigate what is it that might be causing these effects are the mixtures. But again, I think taking a chemical-by-chemical approach to regulation isn’t really going to be – that misses the bigger picture. And I think maybe probably the bigger picture is the petrochemical problem, the synthetic chemical problem.

DEBRA: Many years ago, when I first started researching – I wish I had a copy of this study. I couldn’t find it. I remember in one of my early books, I wrote about a study they did on rats where they were studying different food additives.

When they gave the rats one food additive or a color – I think it was food color – then nothing happened. And then they gave the rats two food additives and they got sick. And then they gave them three food additives and they all died.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: That’s very interesting.

DEBRA: Yeah. I mean, I’ve never seen a test like that, but that’s the way we should be testing. None of us are being exposed to formaldehyde in isolation and with the other chemicals.

So you could look at – you’re going to tell us about what you found in these consumer products – a mixture. But we’re not just using one consumer product. We’re using 2 or 3 or 4 or 10. And then we’re going and sleeping in a bed, we’re putting on clothes, we’re going out driving our cars and we’re exposed to so many chemicals that you can’t ever really evaluate in a lab or in a study what those things are together.

And then you have all the different factors of what makes somebody be able to tolerate those or not tolerate those – your age and the condition of your body and how much you’re being exposed to it and how often you’re being exposed to it. All these factors, you can’t calculate it.

So my approach has always been to find whatever toxic and just eliminate it. The fewer toxic chemicals that we can have in our lives, the better off we’re going to be.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Right! I think the humans are the ultimate integrator. Human canaries understand the effects of these products. We may not be able to identify certain bad actors. But collectively, if people are reacting to it, there’s something going on. We really have to listen to people.

DEBRA: That’s really true.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Yeah, absolutely. I like to use a… I’m conscious of the time. I want to let people know where to get a copy of the article if they’d like one.

If you Google my name, Anne Steinemann, you’ll come up with my website. It has a lot of my publications on it that are relevant to this topic. Just click on Publications and it’s the first one in the list. You can get the full article with all of the data. www.drsteinemann.com, www.drsteinemann.com/publications.html

Debra, I don’t know if it’s posted on your site as well.

DEBRA: Actually, I will have it on my site. People can go to Toxic Free Talk Radio. It will be in the description of this show. I’ll have your links.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Excellent! That’s very helpful. Thank you.

Yeah. There are I guess two main piece of law, the results of the study, but also the broader implications of it. This study, why it’s different or a step beyond the previous studies that I’ve done where I’ve analyzed products, I looked at products called certified green and organic and I also looked at fragrance-free products in addition to the fragrance products and found some really interesting things.

DEBRA: Oh, good! Why don’t you tell us about the study?

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Okay, great. So this time, I analyzed 37 common consumer products – the same types that I mentioned, air fresheners, laundry products, cleaners and personal care products. I analyzed them for VOCs, volatile organic compounds. These are things like fumes.

I did not analyze them for SVOCs, the semi volatile organic compounds, petrochemicals like phthalates. So this is just the VOCs, which means there’s potentially more chemicals in these products than just what I found.

So of these 37 products, I found 156 different types of VOCs. Now collectively, that was more than 556 VOCs altogether from these products.

Now what’s interesting is of these 156 VOCs, 42 are classified as toxic or hazardous under federal laws. They were to be regulated for coming out of a smokestack or tailpipe, but they weren’t regulated in these products.

Now what’s interesting…

DEBRA: That is just astounding to me.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Yeah. Well, that’s the untold story here.

DEBRA: If something is regulated, why is it not regulated across the boards? I mean, this is something that I found when I was trying – I still am trying to find out what’s in consumer products – but I would go and I’d look at the regulation and I’d look at the label and I’d find out things. Formaldehyde coming off of a particle board is regulated if it’s in a four-by-eight sheet, but not if it’s cut up and made into a table.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: That’s interesting.

DEBRA: That’s ridiculous.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Very, very interesting. It’s the same thing with air fresheners. You’re looking at acetaldehyde, one of my study’s looked at acetaldehyde coming out of dryer vents. So it’s comparable to tailpipe emissions. The tailpipe emissions are heavily regulated. But when we’re looking at dryer vent emissions – actually, that’s my next study. We’re going to be analyzing even more extensively dryer vent emissions. So that one’s coming up. I’ll be doing that.

Back on the findings, these 37 products, collectively, they emitted more than 559 VOCs collectively. Those represent 156 different types of VOCs. And of those 559, 230 of them are classified as toxic or hazardous under federal laws regulated in other media and other forms.

Now what’s interesting is fewer than 3% of all these ingredients were disclosed anywhere on any product label or material safety data sheet and fewer than 6% of the hazardous ones, potentially hazardous ones were listed anywhere. Basically, we have no information on these products.

About half of the products were so called green products. They made some claims of being green, organic, all natural, non-toxic or with essential oils. They also had claims like organic fragrance, natural fragrance. Some of them were green certified by certifying bodies. And essentially the emissions of potentially hazardous chemicals were no different than their regular counterparts.

So this is something that your listeners probably already know. It’s probably the myth of green.

But the bigger story is that if it had a fragrance in it, it didn’t matter whether it was called green or whether it was regular. It emitted the same types of potentially hazardous chemicals.

So this is not to say that all green products are the same as the regular products. I’m saying green fragranced products were no different than the regular fragranced products. That’s an important point.

I’m not saying the truly green, natural ecological simple-based products from things like vinegar and baking soda. Those are green. I’m talking about products that call themselves green or green certified or organic or natural fragrance, but they have a fragrance in them.

There were no significant differences in types of potentially hazardous chemicals or the concentrations between the green fragrance products and the regular fragrance products.

One of the problems with that is the green certifying regulations allow fragrances in them. Actually, the EPA just came out with a revised version of their design for environment. I understand that there’s an option for fragrance-free, but this is just relative. You find a lot of these green certified products. I don’t want to name the certifying body or bodies.

The other big problem I see – and I didn’t really emphasize this in the article because I didn’t really want to go after certain organizations. They’re trying to do a good job. But there are all these green cleaning guides on the internet now like, “How do you evaluate your product? How green or safe is your product?” Well, those organizations do not analyze the products. They go off of labels.

I have talked to these organizations and written to them. I was saying, “How can you provide these assessments of A+ or A or the top rated? When I’ve them, I found potentially hazardous chemicals, ones that have no safe exposure level. And I know that people who are chemically sensitive react to these products and you rate them as the highest products.” They don’t analyze your products.

So I want to put a caution out there against using these green cleaning guides or product evaluation guides put out by a couple of organizations in the US. I’m very concerned that they put out ratings and they never chemically analyzed the products. Even though they may have very sophisticated algorithms for how they decide toxicity, they’re just going off of the listed ingredients, fewer than the 3% of the listed ingredients. I mean. How can you extrapolate doing all these analyses based on less than 3% of the real ingredients?

Anyway, that’s something I’m very concerned about. People are getting misinformation from these green cleaning guides because they don’t analyze the products.

DEBRA: I’m concerned about that too. I’m concerned about it too because it’s very difficult to give something a rating.

What I do is I look at as much information as I can get. I wish that I could just have you right next door here and analyze every product. And then I could say, “Okay. Anne and I have found the least toxic ones on the market.”

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: I know that I could find a way to bring a human experience because I find that – I’ll call them ‘my people’ or ‘human canaries’. They can say, “This is great. This is an A plus.” Or “This is really bad. This is a D minus.” They know what’s relatively safe, what they can be around and what’s not. So they’re really the ultimate toxicity testers.

Especially in the scientific studies, we can’t really do human subjects testing on people if we know the exposures are going to cause them to be sick. But at the same time, I want to be able to tap this expertise. There’s a wealth of expertise we have across the country with people who are chemically sensitive.

DEBRA: I think that if somebody who is chemically sensitive can tolerate something, it’s probably pretty safe for other people.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Exactly! The way I’d like to have green certifying process is if chemically sensitive have to say, “This is safe.” And then okay, it’s green. The same thing with the green building. “Yes, this building, I can handle. This is a good building.” And I’d say, “Okay, now we can call it a green building.”

DEBRA: I have to say because we’re talking about green that one of the reasons why – I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years, so I’ve gone through different phases in my career. There was a time when green things came out that I thought, “Oh, this is really important. We need to be green.”

But as I did the studying about it, what I found was that most people who were concerned about green or concerned about energy efficiency and resource use and all these kinds of things, which is a fine thing to do, many times the toxicity question was left out completely.

There was a point I think about five years ago now, four or five years ago where I said, “Wait a minute. I need to just put all that green thing aside. There are plenty of people who are working on green issues. And I just need to stick to the toxic issues.”

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: That is right.

DEBRA: If we don’t pay attention to what’s toxic, it doesn’t matter if we recycle or not because we’re all going to be sick and dead. I’m saying this bluntly, but this is actually true. If we don’t pay attention to…

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. There are a lot of green buildings that may be good for energy efficiency, but are not good for health.

DEBRA: Yes. And that’s exactly when the whole field of indoor air quality came from, some decades ago. When people started filling up their houses for energy efficiency, people got sicker and sicker and sicker and so people started investigating and finding there are all these toxic chemicals in people’s homes. They were not evident until people started filling them up for energy efficiency.

So if somebody wants something that’s not toxic, do not buy anything that says that it’s green and expect it to be that because that’s not the criteria.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: That’s right. Exactly! I want to make sure I cover two more things here while we have time.

People probably go, “Fragrance-free, what did you find in the fragrance free?” Well, I analyzed name-brand fragrance-free versions. So I analyzed the fragrance version of the laundry products and the fragrance-free version of that laundry product. And they were name-brands. I also analyzed fragrance-free green products.

Now what I found was that the fragrance¬¬-free products did not have the terpenes. So they didn’t have the fragrance chemicals, which can be problematic for people. But fragrance-free doesn’t necessarily guarantee non-toxic. That makes sense because the basic product can still have potentially hazardous chemicals in it. But then the added fragrance is a whole another level of potential toxicity and potential hazard.

So fragrance-free was not just simply fragrance minus – the fragrance version minus fragrance chemicals. I mean, there are some other things in it. But all that said, at least it didn’t have the fragrance chemicals.

And this is consistent with the reports I’ve gotten from people. I hear a lot, “I can handle it. If my neighbour uses fragrance-free detergent, then I’m fine. But I can’t use these name-brand fragrance-free detergents because I break out into rash.”

Maybe it’s something where you don’t have all the volatile compounds, so you’re okay around it if somebody else uses it, but you can’t really use it on yourself because it may have other things like nano particles or micro plastics or a lot of SVOCs or something else in it. And these are the name-brand fragrance-free products that I mentioned.

Also, this is on a tangent, but everything is related. I’m getting so many e-mails from people. I might also say that I’ve done this research on my own. No money for it from anywhere. I’ve done it because I feel it was just societal important. It’s giving me no conflict of interest. It’s exciting and at the same time overwhelming to get thousands of e-mail. That’s why I put my articles out there.

I just want to address the question that often comes to me in e-mail. If someone is getting sick from these fragrance products in some environment, what rights do they have? If they’re in the work environment…

DEBRA: Yes, let’s talk about that. Talk about that.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: I’ve dealt a lot with this, helping people get – I’m just one person, I wish I can help everyone. So I’m just going to give you the general advice.

If it’s in a workplace, you have rights. You do not have to be exposed to fragrance products. You have rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Don’t let anyone tell you, “Well, fragrance sensitivity isn’t a disability.” The ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act is symptom-based, not disease-based. So if you have disabling symptoms – and disabling is very broadly defined. I mean, if you get migraine headaches, difficulty breathing, dizziness, lots of cognitive function, feeling woozy, those are disabling.

So you don’t need to “prove” that fragrance sensitivity is a condition or that it’s classified as a disability. If you have adverse effects like the types I described, the types of typical fragrance exposure, it’s considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

All you need to get an accommodation is you have your doctor write a letter. There are lots of good – I want to give you some advice of who to contact. Write a letter saying, “So and so is my patient. And she has a disabling condition and here would be a reasonable accommodation.”

The other thing is you need to be a qualified individual, meaning that you can do your job if you have the accommodation. That means you can do the essential functions of your job, the essential functions if you have the fragrance products removed or you have some accommodations.

Now where to go for advice is a great organization called the Job Accommodation Network, JAN. If you Google them, you’ll pull them up. I think they’re partially supported by the EEOC and they help with workplace accommodations.

That’s for the workplace. In other venues, you are still covered under the ADA. JAN is for workplace accommodations.

So if you look with the Americans with Disabilities Act, there are several titles of them. Some are for public places, some are for private venues. But again, you are entitled to an accommodation.

For instance, if you’re trying to shop at a grocery store and they have an air freshener in their restroom and you can’t use the restroom because of it, you can talk with the management and say, “I am an individual under the American with Disabilities Act and I request a reasonable accommodation. Just get rid of the air freshener,” things like that. You have a legal right to be fragrance free accommodations.

Now it has to be reasonable. So it may not be possible for an entire building to become fragrance-free, but they can certainly provide you a bathroom that you can access that doesn’t have an air freshener just for an example.

DEBRA: All of this is very interesting because I’m thinking about going into a public building, that there’s a difference between what are the fragrances of the chemicals that might be there in the public building itself versus the fragrances or chemicals that people might bring in. If somebody wears perfume into a building, that’s different than having an air freshener in the bathroom.

There’s just no reason why any building cannot be fragrant-free. If all the products exist for everything that they need, it shouldn’t be considered a special accommodation. It should just be that all public buildings are fragrance-free.

Now when I was born all those many decades ago, people smoke in public buildings. Now people do not smoke in public buildings. We should be able to move things forward so that public buildings cannot have toxic chemicals in them no matter what it is, whether it’s fragrances or cleaning products or anything. Building owners should just get enlightened and say, “I’m not going to poison people who come in my building.”

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: I think it will get to that. I call it the the problem with second hand scents. It’s just like second hand smoke. So eventually, we’ll get to that.

But people need to speak up to realize you have rights. In America, you have good rights. So you’re very well protected with the laws in America. You have to speak up. And eventually, unfortunately, it usually takes a couple of lawsuits to turn things around, but things get turned around.

Employers and managers of buildings and public places have to realize that they cannot just say, “We’re going to put these products out there. If people have adverse effects, too bad.” No, you do have rights.

DEBRA: Yes. Yes. This is so interesting. I’ve seen so much change in the last 30 years that I really think that it is possible to change. I think that people are becoming more aware, not only of the problem, but the fact that we do have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness here in America. How are we supposed to have life or liberty or be happy if we’re being poisoned?

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Right. Yeah. Let me go back to what I was talking about before. How do you request an accommodation like the typical one, the air freshener in the grocery store restroom? How do you approach it?

There are many different ways. It really depends on the manager you’re talking to, but oftentimes, an informal gentle approach may work. Just say, “I have this condition and I can’t breathe. My throat closes up whenever I use the bathroom. It’s considered a disability under the ADA?” Let them know you have a legal backing too. It would be considered an accommodation if you could turn it off.”

I’ve never had a case, and I’ve been working in this area for 20 to 25 years, where they’ve refused to provide an accommodation for someone. And I had even gotten air fresheners turned off and removed from major places like airports. So sometimes, it just got through.

I’ve got on my list a lot of airports that have now disconnected or removed their air fresheners just because I talked to them and I go, “You’ve got a liability risk. You’re going to have people coming in here getting sick or having asthma attacks or seizures because of these air fresheners?”

Also explain to them giving them the data that are on my website (I have a fact sheet on air fresheners under my resources page) that air fresheners do not clean. They’re not designed to clean the air. They’re trying to mask an issue. So the best approach is ventilation.

But I think owners of buildings and managers of buildings and stores don’t want to have liability, liability under either the ADA or having someone having adverse effects there on their premises because that affects their insurance as well.

DEBRA: Yeah.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: So they’re all right. Sometimes a very nice approach works. If the nice approach is not working, then I often find a letter, just a letter.

Again, there are a lot of people out there who’ve had success with writing letters. I probably should develop some templates and put them up on my website. But the best approach really – because every situation is different and so there is no one right approach. But just do realize you have rights.

DEBRA: Good. So I just want to let you know we have just about 10 minutes left. So I want to make sure that you get to say everything that you want to say.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: You’ve been wonderful, Debra. I’m still trying to think if there’s anything that I haven’t yet covered. This is why…

DEBRA: Let me ask you a question while you’re thinking.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Great.

DEBRA: Okay. So what did you find in your testing? Was there a difference between scented products that were scented with essential oils versus products that were scented with synthetic?

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: No, no, no. Unfortunately, not. No, no. I mean essential oils, there’s been other studies on essential oils. I don’t know what the problem is. I mean, I’m going to get into the chemistry of essential oils, but they’re extracted many times with solvents or they’re diluted with solvents. So there are solvents and petrochemicals in essential oils.

But the other thing is that the product may say it has essential oils, but it may also have fragrances in it. So it doesn’t necessarily disclose that it doesn’t have other fragrance chemicals in it.

DEBRA: Yes. So when you’re testing – I know that for myself when I was first chemically sensitive that the synthetic fragrance that I knew was synthetic fragrance, that would always make me sick. One of the first clues for me was that if I put my perfume on, I get a headache.

And then I found a little place in San Francisco that would scent their shampoo with vanilla and mint. That was wonderful! As long as I knew it was a natural fragrance – well, I didn’t even need to know if it was a natural fragrance and it was high quality and there were other synthetic fragrances with it – I had no problem with it at all.

So it may be that the types of – I’m asking a question now. It may be that the types of products that you were testing had essential oils and something else. But might it be possible that some products that are very carefully made only with essential oils might be okay?

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Well, I actually tested some of those products, the ones that were the little homegrown shops essential oils. There’s been a lot of other research on essentials oils. So in their case, the people doing essential oils probably didn’t use solvents to extract some or dilute some, but maybe that the essential oils that these other products that I tested are using are essential oils that have the petrochemicals.

I mean essential oils, things like benzene and toluene, these are serious petrochemicals – I mean, benzene.

And even in the distillation process, just saying they’re distilled doesn’t necessarily guarantee that there are no solvents in it. I’ve talked with people who had done distillation and then in the end, they put in solvents to help the extraction.

So I think it’s important that people that are using a product with essential oils – again, listen to your body. Your body knows.

DEBRA: …because a lot of times, they are used therapeutically. That’s probably a different grade of oil than what you’re going to find in a cleaning product.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Right. If you listen to your body – what I’m trying to do too is to have – people often say, “This product is making me sick, but it shouldn’t because it has essential oils.”

I’m saying, “Well, listen to your body. There’s a reason that maybe it is.”

DEBRA: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What else would you like to tell us?

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: You’ve been great, Debra. I just want to thank you for the wonderful work that you do. As I mentioned in the beginning, I see your website as truly a go-to site. You’re the authoritative voice on this topic. So I really appreciate all the work that you do.

DEBRA: Thank you. I try to be very careful. I try to be very careful, but it’s very, very difficult. I think the most that I can do is – I wish I could test every single product and find out what’s really in it. But really, what it comes down to is that I can say these products don’t have a whole list – I don’t even keep a list. I really am looking at each thing individually. But if it’s obvious there are toxic chemicals, I eliminate those.

What I’m trying to do is identify the ones that are coming from reputable companies who have the intent of having things be as least toxic as humanly possible and that they’re really trying for that and that they’re testing their products themselves and things like that.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Right. Exactly.

DEBRA: I’m trying to educate people as much as possible so that we can all make wise decisions. But it’s really, really difficult when we can’t just get the information.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Absolutely right! I’m anticipating another question that your listeners may have. So why didn’t I disclose brand names?

So the scientific reason is that I didn’t need to disclose brand names for purposes of research, but there is a broader reason and that is I didn’t want people looking at brand names and saying, “Oh, I won’t buy brand A. I’d buy brand B instead that you didn’t test.” And basically brand B maybe just as, if not more, potentially hazardous as brand A.

But the point is that every product I tested emitted potentially hazardous chemicals. I didn’t find a single one that didn’t. So I don’t want people to run away from the products that I named to other ones thinking that they’re somehow better because it was this whole class of products.

There’s a third reason actually. That’s legal liability.

DEBRA: Yeah.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: I think I’m probably the only one doing research on this topic. There’s a reason for that. I have to be very careful not to be sued.

DEBRA: I think I’m the only person that is doing the kind of work that I’m doing. There are certainly other organizations that are working on toxics, making this connection between the toxic chemicals, the health effects and where it is in a product.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Exactly.

DEBRA: Where is your exposure? How are you going to reduce your exposure?

And there are, as you mentioned, lists that have been compiled. But those lists are just rating them. You could look up a brand and say, it will tell you, “This is really toxic.” I’m selecting and saying, “Go on this direction. These are less likely to hurt you.”

As I said earlier, whether or not something is toxic to you individually, it depends on so many factors about your own body, as well as the inherent toxicity of some things.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Exactly. Exactly.

DEBRA: There’s nobody in the world that can say any product is safe for everyone. Everyone needs to evaluate it for themselves. And that’s really the bottomline of it.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Right, absolutely.

DEBRA: Yeah. So how did you end up in Australia?

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: I’ll tell you. It was this position. It’s a great position. I’m here as a Professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia, which is considered the best university in Australia. They want me to lead an international research program on healthy buildings. They’ve been extremely supportive of my research on this topic and so I thought, “Great.”

Yeah! No, it’s wonderful! It’s exciting. I feel like I can do research that will help people around the world. Again, they’ve been supportive. It’s a great university, great colleagues. They want to support research that’s going to make a big international impact and I said, “This will.”

DEBRA: This will, this absolutely will.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Exactly! So they’re very interested in healthy buildings, healthy products, doing research on that topic.

DEBRA: That’s right. If you are going to have a healthy building, you’ll have to put healthy things inside of it.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Exactly. Exactly.

DEBRA: It’s all one unit…

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Exactly. So I’m really hoping to make – exactly! I’m hoping to do the research studies and get them out there and do the international work that’s going to help people.

DEBRA: Well, you already are. You already are.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Thank you.

DEBRA: I’m just so pleased that you’re doing this because it really does show what’s actually going on. You show what the problem is and that we need to have better solutions. We need to have better labeling laws.

I would actually prefer having labeling laws to the laws that people are trying to pass about tighter regulations. I’d like to know what’s in a product so that I can choose to not use it.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Right. That’s right.

DEBRA: And I think that that’s the most important thing myself. It’s not that I don’t think that we shouldn’t have tighter regulations, but we have a right to know. We have a right to be healthy. We have rights to be able to make choices.

And we can’t do that with our consumer products, the things that we have in our homes day in and day out. We don’t know what they are. You’re shining a light on it and saying, “Look. Here, this is what’s in the product that’s not on the label.”

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Thank you.

DEBRA: I’m so proud of you.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Well, no. I’m so proud of you. And I’m so proud of everyone out there. People who are chemically sensitive, I just admire you so much for what you go through during the day. You’re the real heroes. You have strength that no one else does and no one else knows about. You’re trying to get through everyday life in society with all this stuff around.

That’s why I’m proud of all the work that you do because you’re really a pioneer. You’re a heroine. You’re out there, doing the work, but so are your listening audience.

DEBRA: Yes.

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: My hats off to all of them, yes!

DEBRA: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we’re down to the last minute now. And we can’t go over because….

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: We can’t go over. Debra, thank you. Be optimistic, be positive. Things will work out. We’re going to get information. Things will turn around. Things always get better.

DEBRA: Yes. And everybody should know that there are people working on this. Anne and I are working on it and other people. And you all as consumers have power. And now, we only have 20 seconds left. So I’m going to say thank you so much. You’re listening to Toxic Free…

DR. ANNE STEINEMANN: Thank you, Debra.

DEBRA: You’re welcome. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today has been Anne Steinemann.

You can go to Toxic Free Talk Radio and get all her links. Go to her website and find out everything.

Here we go! It’s coming down. Five, four, three, two, one. Be well. Bye!