You're boss might be making you sick-UGH!

[Guest guest]

Woeful workplace?

It might be the building that's making you sick, or it might be the bosses

By Carey Goldberg, Boston Globe Staff | April 3, 2006

Five minutes after you get in to the office every morning, your head starts

pounding. You try to concentrate on the urgent requests from your boss but

just can't focus. You're sniffling and wheezing again, too, and there seems

to be a 100-pound weight pressing down on your shoulders.

You could have ''sick building syndrome, " a set of symptoms that have become

increasingly common as modern, closed-in office buildings and schools have

multiplied.

But the problem may be not so much the building you work in as the bosses

you work under.

A major new study of British civil service workers suggests that those pesky

symptoms may be exacerbated by merciless management and, indeed, that

workplace stress may be even more harmful to workers' health than poor

physical conditions in the building.

The study, the largest so far to look at sick building syndrome among the

general population, by no means denies that real, physical causes can also

play a role, said one of the paper's authors, epidemiologist Mai Stafford of

the University College London Medical School.

But it did find that ''the nature of the work -- in terms of job stress and

job demands, having control at work, and having supportive colleagues and

supervisors -- was very much more important for health symptoms " than

physical conditions, she said.

So when complaints of ''sick building syndrome " arise, management might want

to look not only at ventilation but also at how it treats employees,

Stafford concluded.

The new study fits into a body of work going back to the 1980s, said

environmental health professor Jack Spengler of Harvard, a leading expert on

indoor air pollution. In the late 1980s, Danish researchers looking into

sick building syndrome in town halls found that ''the people who had higher

stress were reporting more symptoms, " he said.

But though researchers generally accept that sick building syndrome can be

linked to workplace stress, the exact mechanisms remain unclear, he said,

and papers like Stafford's are mainly ''helping to generate hypotheses that

need to be tested. "

For example, he said, it is known that stress increases the hormone

cortisol, which could make people more sensitive to building problems like

mold or poor ventilation. So studies should be done that follow people over

time, measuring the cortisol levels in their saliva to see whether there is

in fact a link between stress and symptoms, he said.

Even if further research does confirm the link, however, that will not make

workplace stress problems easy to solve, experts say.

''We've always considered that there may be some psychosocial component to

indoor air quality issues, " said Driscoll, an epidemiologist in the

hazard evaluation program at the National Institute for Occupational Health

and Safety, which investigates complaints of harmful workplace conditions.

In practice, though, when the institute responds to complaints about

specific buildings, it tends to look mainly at physical factors such as

mold, ventilation, and carbon dioxide levels. But Driscoll said the British

study might spur him and his colleagues to include tips on reducing

workplace stress in their recommendations to building owners.

What remains to be determined, he said, is the extent of the psychological

effect, and its mechanism. And one more critical question: how best to

intervene.

The British paper, published in the journal Occupational and Environmental

Medicine, is the latest to emerge from a pioneering long-term study of

thousands of civil servants that has found striking links between work

conditions and health.

Known as the Whitehall study, it is perhaps most famous for its finding that

the lower civil servants were on the status scale, the likelier they were to

die prematurely. It also linked low status and high stress with

cardiovascular disease.

Stafford and her colleagues mined Whitehall data for reports of symptoms,

including recent headache, cough, eye irritation, runny nose, and fatigue,

that are usually associated with sick building syndrome. They also

physically inspected buildings for hazards like poor ventilation and

airborne bacteria.

The study looked at more than 4,000 middle-aged workers in 44 buildings

around London -- none of them known as ''sick. " It found that a mix of

stringent job demands and weak workplace support was the factor most closely

linked to the symptoms.

In all, one in five women and one in seven men said they had at least five

of the symptoms. People who faced unusually hot or cold offices, humidity,

airborne bacteria and dust showed somewhat higher levels of ''sick building "

symptoms.

But, surprisingly, workers in buildings with other physical problems --

lousy air circulation, high carbon dioxide levels, fungus, and noise --

tended to report lower levels of symptoms, though the differences were not

statistically significant.

Spengler and Harvard colleagues have recently completed another broad study

of sick building syndrome in the general population, looking at 100

buildings across the United States, he said. They examined, in part, whether

many people have preexisting conditions that could predispose them to the

syndrome and found that in fact, more than half the population have

allergies, chronic headaches, asthma, and other conditions that could make

them vulnerable.

He and colleagues are also performing a new experiment at Harvard, he said:

They surveyed more than 100 employees who are about to move to the

Blackstone Building on Memorial Drive, a state-of-the-art building boasting

everything from advanced ventilation systems to excellent access to

daylight.

By October, Spengler plans to check the employees again to see whether their

symptoms have improved. That study should provide some answers, he said,

since workplace stress will presumably stay the same between buildings.

But Joanne Crawford, a lecturer in ergonomics at the University of

Birmingham who has done relevant research, said the interplay among physical

conditions, workplace stress, and symptoms is likely to be complex.

''I think we've got to be clear that it's not just psychosocial or physical;

there are some interactions going on. And we're not there yet in terms of

understanding it. "

Carey Goldberg can be reached at goldberg@....

--------------------------------------------------------------

C. May

May Indoor Air Investigations LLC

1522 Cambridge Street

Cambridge, MA 02139

617-354-1055

www.mayindoorair.com

www.myhouseiskillingme.com

[Guest guest]

I totally agree!! How can my illness, possibly, be blamed on my boss?!! I

think they are really grasping at straws!!!! Total nonsense that wasmost

likely paid to be written!!

Who knows? All I can say is here is one more medical paper that

seems to be suspect to me.

[Guest guest]

This article just infuriates me on many levels. Did anyone stop to

think that there may be additional stress on the job if one is sick

all the time? There is an overabundance of honest medical

information out there that shows mold harms health. I guess

according to this article, an employee can contract chronic sinusitis

from a bad boss? If this medical article sticks, can you imagine all

the people who can apply for workers comp because their bosses are

bad?

I am trying to get through the actual study and will need more time

to fully understand it, but there is absolutely no discussion as to

whether these employees live in sick homes. They do discuss the

lesser paid - lesser status employees get sick more so perhaps

because they don't make much money, they may not be able to afford

safe homes/apartments.

Who knows? All I can say is here is one more medical paper that

seems to be suspect to me.

Mulvey son

-- In , " Jeff May " <jeff@...> wrote:

>

> Woeful workplace?

>

> It might be the building that's making you sick, or it might be the

bosses

> By Carey Goldberg, Boston Globe Staff | April 3, 2006

>

> Five minutes after you get in to the office every morning, your

head starts

> pounding. You try to concentrate on the urgent requests from your

boss but

> just can't focus. You're sniffling and wheezing again, too, and

there seems

> to be a 100-pound weight pressing down on your shoulders.

>

> You could have ''sick building syndrome, " a set of symptoms that

have become

> increasingly common as modern, closed-in office buildings and

schools have

> multiplied.

>

> But the problem may be not so much the building you work in as the

bosses

> you work under.

>

> A major new study of British civil service workers suggests that

those pesky

> symptoms may be exacerbated by merciless management and, indeed,

that

> workplace stress may be even more harmful to workers' health than

poor

> physical conditions in the building.

>

> The study, the largest so far to look at sick building syndrome

among the

> general population, by no means denies that real, physical causes

can also

> play a role, said one of the paper's authors, epidemiologist Mai

Stafford of

> the University College London Medical School.

>

> But it did find that ''the nature of the work -- in terms of job

stress and

> job demands, having control at work, and having supportive

colleagues and

> supervisors -- was very much more important for health symptoms "

than

> physical conditions, she said.

>

> So when complaints of ''sick building syndrome " arise, management

might want

> to look not only at ventilation but also at how it treats

employees,

> Stafford concluded.

>

> The new study fits into a body of work going back to the 1980s,

said

> environmental health professor Jack Spengler of Harvard, a leading

expert on

> indoor air pollution. In the late 1980s, Danish researchers looking

into

> sick building syndrome in town halls found that ''the people who

had higher

> stress were reporting more symptoms, " he said.

>

> But though researchers generally accept that sick building syndrome

can be

> linked to workplace stress, the exact mechanisms remain unclear, he

said,

> and papers like Stafford's are mainly ''helping to generate

hypotheses that

> need to be tested. "

>

> For example, he said, it is known that stress increases the hormone

> cortisol, which could make people more sensitive to building

problems like

> mold or poor ventilation. So studies should be done that follow

people over

> time, measuring the cortisol levels in their saliva to see whether

there is

> in fact a link between stress and symptoms, he said.

>

> Even if further research does confirm the link, however, that will

not make

> workplace stress problems easy to solve, experts say.

>

> ''We've always considered that there may be some psychosocial

component to

> indoor air quality issues, " said Driscoll, an

epidemiologist in the

> hazard evaluation program at the National Institute for

Occupational Health

> and Safety, which investigates complaints of harmful workplace

conditions.

>

> In practice, though, when the institute responds to complaints

about

> specific buildings, it tends to look mainly at physical factors

such as

> mold, ventilation, and carbon dioxide levels. But Driscoll said the

British

> study might spur him and his colleagues to include tips on reducing

> workplace stress in their recommendations to building owners.

>

> What remains to be determined, he said, is the extent of the

psychological

> effect, and its mechanism. And one more critical question: how best

to

> intervene.

>

> The British paper, published in the journal Occupational and

Environmental

> Medicine, is the latest to emerge from a pioneering long-term study

of

> thousands of civil servants that has found striking links between

work

> conditions and health.

>

> Known as the Whitehall study, it is perhaps most famous for its

finding that

> the lower civil servants were on the status scale, the likelier

they were to

> die prematurely. It also linked low status and high stress with

> cardiovascular disease.

>

> Stafford and her colleagues mined Whitehall data for reports of

symptoms,

> including recent headache, cough, eye irritation, runny nose, and

fatigue,

> that are usually associated with sick building syndrome. They also

> physically inspected buildings for hazards like poor ventilation

and

> airborne bacteria.

>

> The study looked at more than 4,000 middle-aged workers in 44

buildings

> around London -- none of them known as ''sick. " It found that a mix

of

> stringent job demands and weak workplace support was the factor

most closely

> linked to the symptoms.

>

> In all, one in five women and one in seven men said they had at

least five

> of the symptoms. People who faced unusually hot or cold offices,

humidity,

> airborne bacteria and dust showed somewhat higher levels of ''sick

building "

> symptoms.

>

> But, surprisingly, workers in buildings with other physical

problems --

> lousy air circulation, high carbon dioxide levels, fungus, and

noise --

> tended to report lower levels of symptoms, though the differences

were not

> statistically significant.

>

> Spengler and Harvard colleagues have recently completed another

broad study

> of sick building syndrome in the general population, looking at 100

> buildings across the United States, he said. They examined, in

part, whether

> many people have preexisting conditions that could predispose them

to the

> syndrome and found that in fact, more than half the population have

> allergies, chronic headaches, asthma, and other conditions that

could make

> them vulnerable.

>

> He and colleagues are also performing a new experiment at Harvard,

he said:

> They surveyed more than 100 employees who are about to move to the

> Blackstone Building on Memorial Drive, a state-of-the-art building

boasting

> everything from advanced ventilation systems to excellent access to

> daylight.

>

> By October, Spengler plans to check the employees again to see

whether their

> symptoms have improved. That study should provide some answers, he

said,

> since workplace stress will presumably stay the same between

buildings.

>

> But Joanne Crawford, a lecturer in ergonomics at the University of

> Birmingham who has done relevant research, said the interplay among

physical

> conditions, workplace stress, and symptoms is likely to be complex.

>

> ''I think we've got to be clear that it's not just psychosocial or

physical;

> there are some interactions going on. And we're not there yet in

terms of

> understanding it. "

>

> Carey Goldberg can be reached at goldberg@...

> --------------------------------------------------------------

> C. May

> May Indoor Air Investigations LLC

> 1522 Cambridge Street

> Cambridge, MA 02139

> 617-354-1055

> www.mayindoorair.com

> www.myhouseiskillingme.com

>

[Guest guest]

I forgot to post it here but there was a short excerpt on news, I

don't remember which channel, that if you are sick, study shows it

could be due to workplace stress. Picture excerpt was of people

blowing their noses and sneezing!! Ridiculous, to say the stress

would cause you to sneeze and have nasal congestion.

>

>

> I totally agree!! How can my illness, possibly, be blamed on my

boss?!! I

> think they are really grasping at straws!!!! Total nonsense that

wasmost

> likely paid to be written!!

>

[Guest guest]

This is article I heard about on one of the news shows, trying to

say 'sick building' syndrome may actually a response to stress in the

office, i.e. 'emotional sickness'/'not really sick'. etc.

> -- In , " Jeff May " <jeff@> wrote:

> >

> > Woeful workplace?

> >

> > It might be the building that's making you sick, or it might be

the

> bosses

> > By Carey Goldberg, Boston Globe Staff | April 3, 2006

[Guest guest]

Barb...Think it through again..

Stress can trigger an asthma attack... stress can cause blood sugar

levels to increase and for a diabetic can trigger an insulin

episode. High blood pressure which is stress related can cause a

heart attack.

Now for some facts.... Many municipal police and fire departments

accept any workers compensation claim from their fire and police

officers for a heart attack as job related no matter where the

attack occured. The ADA requires a cancer or a heart patient be

given special on the job considerations like no overtime..

preferred hours.. etc.

Let's not deny work can become stressful and the stress can bring on

sickness.

Ken

==========================

> >

> >

> > I totally agree!! How can my illness, possibly, be blamed on

my

> boss?!! I

> > think they are really grasping at straws!!!! Total nonsense

that

> wasmost

> > likely paid to be written!!

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Talking of stress on the job... much of it comes from lack of accommodations and

grief and hassles that we are given for having MCS in the first place. It goes

WAY beyond ordinary stress... but the bottom line is it is a physical illness

causing the problem... not " stress " that can be managed. There is no managing

the stress caused by the reactions and the lack of understanding and the boss

who " tests " you by secretly exposing you.

[Guest guest]

Mustn't judge,

I am sure they have the best of intentions at heart. Them, the quacks

at quackwatch, Dr Edell at health central, Fumento at reason

magazine, M. Whelan, the TV man stossel at ABC,

Dr gott's just to name a few.

All Stellar people

If I had more energy I would love to collect articles like this and

throw them back in their faces via a law suit if the truth ever comes

out.

On Mon, 03 Apr 2006 21:36:16 +0000, you wrote:

>This article just infuriates me on many levels. Did anyone stop to

>think that there may be additional stress on the job if one is sick

>all the time? There is an overabundance of honest medical

>information out there that shows mold harms health. I guess

>according to this article, an employee can contract chronic sinusitis

>from a bad boss? If this medical article sticks, can you imagine all

>the people who can apply for workers comp because their bosses are

>bad?

>

>I am trying to get through the actual study and will need more time

>to fully understand it, but there is absolutely no discussion as to

>whether these employees live in sick homes. They do discuss the

>lesser paid - lesser status employees get sick more so perhaps

>because they don't make much money, they may not be able to afford

>safe homes/apartments.

>

>Who knows? All I can say is here is one more medical paper that

>seems to be suspect to me.

>

> Mulvey son

[Guest guest]

>>>On Behalf Of kengibs

Stress can trigger an asthma attack... stress can cause blood sugar

levels to increase and for a diabetic can trigger an insulin

episode. High blood pressure which is stress related can cause a

heart attack.

Now for some facts.... Many municipal police and fire departments

accept any workers compensation claim from their fire and police

officers for a heart attack as job related no matter where the

attack occured. The ADA requires a cancer or a heart patient be

given special on the job considerations like no overtime..

preferred hours.. etc.

Let's not deny work can become stressful and the stress can bring on

sickness.Ken>>>>>>

Hi Ken:

Thank you. I agree with you. Chronic stress in itself does not cause toxic

mold illness however stress does have a major impact on our body. We can

Google can find thousand of sites that will discuss stress and its affect on

our physical body. I don't think there is anyone who hasn't experienced the

effect of chronic stress and we who are ill from toxic mold, have lost much,

unable to work, lost family and friends, living without bare necessities,

having to be so careful not to get exposed, unable to find appropriate

medical care....we know the effects of chronic stress and it's impact.

See

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health & res=9D0CE3D8173DF934A2

5751C1A9649C8B63

Or http://tinyurl.com/zd9hj

" Doctors sometimes dismiss stress-related complaints as ''all in the

patient's head.'' In a sense, they are right. The brain, specifically the

amygdala, detects the first signs of danger, as demonstrated in now-classic

studies by Dr. ph LeDoux of New York University. Other brain areas

evaluate the threat's importance, decide how to respond and remember when

and where the danger occurred, increasing the chances of avoiding it next

time.

So it is not surprising that when the stress system is derailed, the brain

is a target for damage. A decade of research has demonstrated that sustained

stress and the resulting overproduction of cortisol can have chilling

effects on the hippocampus, a horseshoe-shaped brain structure intimately

involved in memory formation.......

Why do some people seem more vulnerable to life's pressures than others?

Personality and health habits play a role. And severe stress in early life

appears to cast a long shadow.

Dr. Meaney of McGill University and his colleagues have found that

rat pups intensively licked and groomed by their mothers were bolder and

secreted lower levels of the stress hormone ACTH in stressful situations

than rats lacking such attention -- an equanimity that lasted throughout

their lives. (Cuddled pups, the researchers found in another study, were

also smarter than their neglected peers.)

In humans, physical and sexual abuse and other traumas in childhood have

been associated with a more pronounced response to stress later in life. In

one study, Dr. Nemeroff, a psychiatrist at Emory University, and his

colleagues found that women who were physically or sexually abused as

children secreted more of two stress hormones in response to a mildly

stressful situation than women who had not been abused. "

Rosie

[Guest guest]

I would be more than happy for people to make these assertions despite

vociferous protests by the victims, if the people making these

assertions (and their johns) had as much to lose from being wrong as

the people they are making them about.

On Tue, 04 Apr 2006 03:30:14 +0000, you wrote:

>Stress can trigger an asthma attack... stress can cause blood sugar

>levels to increase and for a diabetic can trigger an insulin

>episode. High blood pressure which is stress related can cause a

>heart attack.

>

>Now for some facts.... Many municipal police and fire departments

>accept any workers compensation claim from their fire and police

>officers for a heart attack as job related no matter where the

>attack occured. The ADA requires a cancer or a heart patient be

>given special on the job considerations like no overtime..

>preferred hours.. etc.

[Guest guest]

What I have realized since advocating for MCS recognition is that ANY position

can be supported. An experiment could be conducted and either side could be

supported. Even if the experiment shows one thing, supporters of the other side

can show why the experiment was inaccurate, biased, etc. Words are our power

and I love the language you used in your post below!

Lourdes " Sal " Salvador,

Re: [] Re: You're boss might be making you sick-UGH!

I would be more than happy for people to make these assertions despite

vociferous protests by the victims, if the people making these

assertions (and their johns) had as much to lose from being wrong as

the people they are making them about.

[Guest guest]

I agree stress can wear down your immune sysem and you can get sick

on account of that, but what I was objecting to was that they

referred to label of 'sick building syndrome' as something that

could be caused by stress instead of something wrong with building,

which I disagree with.

Sick building syndrome we all know includes things such as feeling

ill when you are there and symptoms are relieved by leaving.

Certainly stress can be reduced when we leave work but sniffles are

not going to go away since when we leave work because we are leaving

the boss. They are apples and oranges of difference. Key is you

feel better when you get away from building and this is repeated

every time you go there. If you immune system is run down and you

get the flu on account of that, then you are going to be sick with

the flu when you go to work and also when you go home for a week or

more and then be over it. You might then get 'something' else more

easily than someone else but not every time you go there and every

time you leave, etc. Not 'sick building syndrome'. If they said

stress at work can make you more prone to illness, I think everyone

would agree with that but that was not gest of article.

>

> >>>On Behalf Of kengibs

> Stress can trigger an asthma attack... stress can cause blood

sugar

[Guest guest]

I'm not saying that this is the case with this one, as I don't know,

but it seems to me that the forces of 'fear uncertainty and doubt' are

increasingly desperate. But they are VERY well financed and they

really know their job. Spread doubt.

Yes, workplace stress is harmful. Maybe very harmful. But it isn't a

poison, literally. Mold is.

Especially, TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT.

[Guest guest]

Okay, here is an analogy. A business owner was doing some work that

required that they open up the door to the buildings basement in front

of their building. The law required that they put a small fence with

warning signs around the open hole, but they decided not to because

their work 'would only take half an hour' and they couldn't find the

fence and flag. In fact, they didn't have one.

A blind man, taking his usual route down the street falls in to the

open basement door in the sidewalk and breaks his neck, and dies,

leaving his family without their father.

In court, the business owner says that the fall is the blind mans

fault because he was blind to the open hole.

However, he was clearly violating the law by not putting up the

required warning fence and flags, which would have prevented the

accident.

Who is wrong, and why? Why do laws like this need to be enforced?

How much should the damges be in a civil suit? Why?

[Guest guest]

Okay, you people may think I'm a REAL nut for this one, but I actually

suspect that the next 20 or 30 years will see the elimination of the

'job' as we know it due to the widespread adoption of workplace

automation. Ultimately, this will be a good thing because people were

not meant to do drudge work, but it brings up the utterly terrifying

question of how will people support themselves (or afford to buy -

perhaps a more important question, because the economy depends as much

on consumption as well as production!) without 'jobs' in the 20th

century sense.

And of course, without jobs, the motivation for society to fund public

education goes away. (the engine behind public education's adoption in

the 20th century was the need to train workers for the labor intensive

factories that fed the boom years in America after the Great

Depression, and the social contract depended on it to no small amount

- the idea that people could work hard and pull themselves out of

poverty..or at least their children out of poverty)

[Guest guest]

Oops.. the point I was going to make is that jobs will become

increasingly stressful as more and more people compete for the

shrinking pool of them as machines and deskilling and commoditization

take over more and more of them.

" But we will be more productive " they say..

*sigh*

The 21st century could be the beginning of a real golden age for

humanity.. or the beginning of sheer hell.. all depending on the

choices we make..

How we deal with the mold issue is just one of them, but I suspect it

will prove to be a very important one..

[Guest guest]

If all the drudge work disappeared, people in their 'free' time would

find something else to produce.

--- In , LiveSimply <quackadillian@...>

wrote:

>

> Okay, you people may think I'm a REAL nut for this one, but I

actually

> suspect that the next 20 or 30

[Guest guest]

>If all the drudge work disappeared, people in their 'free' time would

find something else to produce.

I agree with you 1000%. I want schools to start preparing for this day

by teaching people both basics that they need now, for work or

whatever, and also HOW TO LEARN.. the art of lifelong learning..

What I fear is basically fascism.. the decision by the powerful that

people without jobs (or people with chronic diseases, or people of x

race or skin color, or ???) are 'worthless' or 'parasites' and that

they need to be killed (or sent off to meaningless wars)

If history is a teacher, the danger of this happening is very large..

Basically, the question is whether our (and others) government and

industry exists FOR the people, or the other way around..

Democracy is fundamentally all about building a society that works for

a country's people.. but there is a very real danger as wage work is

needed less and less - ordinary people are losing the political clout

they once had... Salaries are falling for many people, relative to the

cost of living, for example... (supply and demand)

At least, that is the way it seems to me.