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Anatomy of a nightmare
A shocking chemical overexposure in a university lab 
March 24, 2004 See also :
When Michelle De Paola, 27, was hired to work at New York University's College of Dentistry Anatomy Lab two years ago, it fit perfectly into her career plan. The job as a "diener," a lab technician who prepares cadavers for dissection, was building her resume toward becoming a funeral home director. But when De Paola was unknowingly overexposed to formaldehyde in the NYU lab located below a student dorm, it shattered not only her career, but also her health. Now De Paola's union is charging NYU with more than a dozen safety violations - most shockingly, that the administration failed to respond to De Paola's ominous physical symptoms and left her marooned for days in the lab where the overexposure occurred. "This is the absolute worst nightmare," De Paola told New York Teacher from her home in Brooklyn, "except I woke up and I'm living it." The woman described by colleagues as "vibrant" now gets winded when she walks. She must sleep sitting up because the weight of her chest on her damaged lungs is too much to bear. Her doctors say her respiratory system is permanently disabled. Since formaldehyde is a carcinogen, she has a greater chance of developing certain types of cancers. While she grieves for her health, her career is also gone. Although she was close to getting her funeral director's license, "now I can't even go to work in an office of a funeral home," De Paola said. The risk of further exposure to formaldehyde is too great for her now-compromised health system. Warning signs Although she didn't know it at the time, when De Paola was at work in the NYU lab on Dec. 18, 2003, she breathed in formaldehyde fumes at seven times the rate considered safe. Incredibly, union leaders say, after NYU found out about the potential for overexposure, it took no steps to investigate and correct the problem and kept her working in the lab, continually exposed to formaldehyde. "This is yet another instance where management is clearly more interested in covering up their violations than in the health and safety of students, staff and faculty," said Local 3882 President Stephen Rechner. "We are making sure this will not be covered up." That vow by De Paola's local union - the 1,700-member Union of Clerical, Administrative and Technical Staff at NYU - is shared by its statewide affiliate, New York State United Teachers. NYSUT is supporting Local 3882 with expert help in pressing a complaint to OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency "to ensure that what happened to Michelle will not happen to any other staff or students," said NYSUT President Tom Hobart.
In a letter to Local 3882, NYU Director of Environmental Services Louis Ortiz maintained that the university "acted and continues to act responsibly to protect the safety and health of its employees." NYU spokesman John Beckman, in an interview with New York Teacher, acknowledged that a worker was exposed to seven times the permissible limit of formaldehyde, and said: "Obviously we're concerned about what happened. However, the university has had in place for many years a monitoring program so that we know our employees are safe. Our past readings for this facility have been far below normal, so we had no reason to suspect there would be a problem." NYSUT health and safety specialist Wendy Hord countered that "virtually everything that OSHA requires the employer to do in a lab, the university failed to do." OSHA stands for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which regulates safety procedures for workers. Among other things, OSHA requires employers to monitor formaldehyde exposure. In De Paola's case, she wore a dosimeter - a passive monitoring device that contained a removable cartridge registering formaldehyde exposure. NYU was supposed to collect the cartridge, analyze the results, and take a series of actions as needed to safeguard employees at risk. Michelle De Paola had a dosimeter on in December when a shipment of cadavers arrived from Albany Medical College in upstate New York. The nightmare begins In a brightly lit basement of a Hunter College dormitory, NYU rents lab space from mid-December into March for the storage, dissection and disposal of cadavers used for instruction at NYU's dental college. De Paola was the sole lab technician at the seasonal lab, although many others - faculty, students, and funeral home workers - came and went in the lab. Lab operations changed significantly in the 2003-2004 session. Thirty-two cadavers were ordered and received, double the usual number within the same physical space. "After suggestions by faculty to 'enhance the dissection experience,' two cadavers were placed on each table, instead of one as was previously done," De Paola said. Noted NYSUT's Hord: "Since university management knew they had doubled the potential exposure in a contained space, the university should have expected there would be a problem in the first place." And although De Paola would not be notified of this until late January, the upstate medical college supplying the cadavers had subcontracted the embalming out to a mortuary school which had used a formaldehyde concentration at least double the strength used in the past. (One source told New York Teacher that the formaldehyde may have been four times more concentrated than the usual solution.) The added load, union officials charged, exacerbated existing safety problems in the lab. Slippery floor What sent De Paola to her union initially was a seemingly routine safety concern when she cut her arm with a Stryker autopsy saw on Jan. 12. She had lost her footing on the lab floor that was slippery from cadaver fluids. Local 3882 shop steward Michele Cox, an administrative aide at the dental college in lower Manhattan, said De Paola had "already made an injury report, and just wanted to check with me from the union standpoint. I pointed out all the things she should document." Cox was not surprised at De Paola's calmness in reporting the accident - she knew De Paola for her taking-care-of-business work ethic and demeanor. "More than half the time, you tell people to document something, and nothing ever comes of it," Cox recalled. That wasn't to be the case this time. When De Paola mentioned she was losing her sense of taste and smell, and maybe she was coming down with the flu, Cox was concerned. But at that point, neither Cox nor De Paola had any idea that De Paola's symptoms were related to safety breaches at the lab. Then on Jan. 16, De Paola received a seemingly routine e-mail suggesting she call the NYU Department of Environmental Services on Jan. 20. The department was alerting her to a high reading for formaldehyde exposure on the date of Dec. 18 based on the monitoring dosimeter that De Paola wore. She was informed a month after the fact that she had been overexposed to formaldehyde at a rate of 5.06 parts per million - seven times the allowable limit. NYU spokesman Beckman said, "The university notified the employee the day we were notified," adding that for much of the time between Dec. 18 and Jan. 16, NYU was closed for the semester break. During that time, however, De Paola continued to be exposed. "I was working" during the month that elapsed between exposure and notification, De Paola said, adding that she was in the lab on Dec. 22, 23, 31 and was back to full-time Jan. 5. Losing a sense of smell Shocked and worried about the potential dangers, De Paola immediately contacted her union. Local 3882 turned for help to NYSUT and the state Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. What emerged in the union's subsequent investigation was a list of at least 15 safety violations of OSHA standards "that suggested NYU showed shocking disregard for employee safety," said NYSUT First Vice President Antonia Cortese. On Jan. 16, De Paola told NYU specialists that she was experiencing symptoms that could indicate formaldehyde overexposure: loss of taste and smell, headache, stomach ache, rash, and sinus and respiratory symptoms. Again on Jan. 18 she raised concerns about her symptoms to environmental specialists and administrators: "Although I informed my employer that I was experiencing signs and symptoms ... associated with formaldehyde exposure, no additional monitoring was conducted," De Paola said. "I continued to perform my usual tasks in the lab on Jan. 19, 20, 21, 26 and 27 without being monitored." "NYU provided no medical evaluation as required by OSHA," Hord said. "Most outrageously, when an employee reports significant irritation of the eyes, the kind of symptoms that would raise red flags, OSHA requires medical evaluation with possible removal. Without the proper respirator, it's unbelievable that NYU let her continue to work." On the union's advice, De Paola sought medical evaluation at the Occupational Health Clinic at Mt. Sinai, a legislatively created network of clinics under the auspices of the state Department of Health. Doctors told her: "You can't go back to work in the lab." The union prevailed on NYU to remove De Paola until a medical evaluation was completed, both requirements of OSHA standards. The union's subsequent investigation documented safety problems at the NYU lab that include:
Broad-based concerns The union's concerns extended beyond De Paola's case, as others may have had high exposures as well. NYSUT shared its concerns with the local representing graduate students, who are not monitored for exposure; and with DC-37, whose members include custodians and maintenance people who clean the floors. NYSUT also alerted its affiliate at the City University of New York, the Professional Staff Congress, out of concern that the ventilation system may not be separate from other parts of the building, where PSC members work at Hunter College. "And the safety of the students who come and go in that building is critically important," said NYSUT's Cortese, who promised that NYSUT will continue to press for a full accounting on ventilation and other concerns.
De Paola is deeply grateful for union support as she awaits the results of the OSHA investigation. "I knew my union was there for me, but I never knew the strength I would get from it," De Paola said, noting Cox and union staffers Trudy Rudnick and Greg Succop helped her throughout the process. "What is most impressive is that Michelle worked with us to make sure other workers don't have to go through what she did," said Rudnick, noting that De Paola is involved in mobilizing other lab workers around health and safety issues on campus. Local 3882 has a long history of advocating for the health and safety of workers. One contract provision, which Rechner said the university violated in this instance, requires NYU to provide the union results of tests measuring levels "of potentially harmful substances" within 24 hours. Besides the OSHA complaint, the union has filed an Environmental Protection Agency complaint and, at the urging of NYSUT's health and safety specialist, is investigating conditions at all NYU labs. The EPA complaint was generated after the union learned that "fluids from cadavers, which are hazardous substances, were routinely mopped up and poured down the same sink where students and lab techs washed their hands," Succop said. The union also found out NYU and the EPA were negotiating an agreement that would allow the university to self-monitor and disclose its own environmental and health problems in exchange for the EPA waiving any penalties. This is not an uncommon arrangement between EPA and universities. "We found out about it on Feb. 11, the day before they were signing the deal," said Rechner, president of the 1,700-member local. "We made as many signs as we could" and picketed. The informational picketing did not stop the deal, which has only strengthened the union's resolve, Rechner said. "This event makes clear that NYU is not committed to the environment nor the health and safety of workers and cannot be depended upon to objectively evaluate conditions of their facilities," he said. Cortese said all workers need to take heed of this story. "The labor movement learned its most tragic lesson - in what is now NYU's Brown Building - with the March 25, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which killed 146 young girls and women," she said. "That lesson is: Never assume that your employer has your best interest, or your safety, in mind." What next? As New York Teacher went to press, Local 3882 was focusing on safety in all labs while awaiting the results of the OSHA investigation. Although De Paola has resigned her NYU position, she continues working with the union as she contemplates an uncertain professional future with compromised health. "The funeral service/medical field is what I've wanted since my junior year in high school. This is a highly specialized field and it's all I knew," De Paola said in mid-March. In the meantime, one change has already taken place. On the door of the anatomy lab, a sign recently appeared. It says: "BIOHAZARD. Universal precautions must be observed." Ironically, what should have been posted, according to the OSHA standard, were the words: DANGER: Formaldehyde irritant and potential cancer hazard. Authorized personnel only. - Betsy Sandberg What other NYSUT members say about formaldehyde "Formaldehyde is more common than people think," said Dan Jaeger, technical director of the anatomical gift program at SUNY's Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. "It's in nail polish and plywood, but there it's in such minute amounts it's not going to hurt you." Jaeger, who is also a funeral director, has worked around formaldehyde for years and says it's not to be trifled with. Jaeger is a member of United University Professions, the union representing academic and professional faculty at the State University of New York campuses. "Those of us who work with it must be more cautious. It is a carcinogen and you don't want to be breathing it in," he said. Ellen McTigue, an oncology nurse who runs a cervical cancer prevention clinic at SUNY's Brooklyn Health Science Center, said formaldehyde "is commonly used in a lot of phases of health care. Nurses are exposed in the collection of specimens. Anyone who transports the specimens to the labs is exposed" as are the lab workers. McTigue has potential exposure every time she takes a specimen for a biopsy. "My exposure is brief and sporadic. But even then, I still take care to minimize my contact and make sure my room is well-ventilated," said McTigue, membership chair for the Brooklyn UUP chapter. Those who have worked with formaldehyde for years recall a time when the dangers of exposure were not recognized. "When I took my gross anatomy lab course in 1977, we didn't even wear gloves," said Michael Lyon, an associate professor of otolaryngology at UMC Syracuse. Lab safety checklist The first safety question for anyone who works or teaches in a lab could be: "Does my employer have a chemical hygiene plan as required by OSHA?" That written program establishes procedures, equipment, personal protective devices and work practices capable of protecting employees from health hazards associated with chemicals in the workplace. The goal is to keep employee exposures below permissible exposure limits. Below is a checklist developed by union safety and health committees.
Worried? Check with your local president if you have concerns about lab safety. |
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Union at work