Michelle Murphy, Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers

Michelle Murphy, Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 2006)

MICHELLE MURPHY HAS drawn on her own extensive academic studies and practical career, as well as knowledge based on work with colleagues to write a thorough work on the problem of sick building syndrome. This syndrome is comprised of a wide variety of symptoms that can affect people to different degrees, and was initially recognized in the early 1980s, although there are still those making arguments against the existence of the problem. We live in a chemical-laden world, with homes, transportation, and workplaces surrounded in a dizzying array of furnishings and clothing made of synthetic materials, with little research available on the interaction of products and the way they may act over time. This situation is compounded by the increased tightening up of air leaks to conserve energy, but without compensatory changes in standards and practice of air exchange. There is also a pervasive overlay of scented products that are touted as vital for personal grooming and maintaining a fresh-smelling home and office environment. The result is a veritable chemical soup in which many of us spend the majority of our time.

Sick building syndrome falls outside the accepted boundaries of illness in the biomedical world that demand specific tests and results to establish an agreed-upon definition of health, making this illness a contested diagnosis, and subject to argument against the reality of a problem. Standardized tests of air quality may not capture the presence of noxious substances that affect health, especially if the emissions are intermittent, and sampling procedures are deferred. Symptoms can vary among persons and across time, but the aggregate experience of affected people can provide a picture of the problem, and one of the criteria for discovering sick building syndrome is related to 20% or more of the building's occupants reporting diminished health.

One of the major features of Murphy's book is the revelation of sick building syndrome's disproportionate effect on women. This is related to the fact that women are a majority of the working staff in many of the affected buildings, with work sites surrounded by a wide array of synthetic furnishings and electronic equipment that emit toxic products. The gendered nature of work is also explored, with many women in subordinate positions and little control over their work pace and physical environment. Many of the women's work spaces are poorly laid out, with furniture that does not fit the individual who may spend the bulk of the day doing repetitive tasks. It is unfortunately common to downplay women's experience of poor health, and to psychologize problems rather than investigate physical sources of the trouble. The tendency to blame the individual sufferers for their problems relieves building owners and operators of responsibility for remediation of toxic emissions. This is compounded by the political ramifications of industrial hygiene standards that are set by vested interests, and by a lack of workers' political clout in insisting on healthy levels of air quality.

There are also political implications in the relationship between research in environmental pollution and government offices and the funding for investigation of sick building syndrome and other related problems. It is difficult to believe in the neutrality of science when many of the government advisors are closely linked to corporations that supply recommendations on health issues that may be linked to chemical toxins. Remediation of environmental pollution could affect corporate profits. Murphy certainly has not covered up the risk of harm to those affected by sick building syndrome, especially when the Environmental Protection Agency cannot keep its own buildings safe for workers, and regulations are poorly enforced, while whistle blowers find themselves out of their jobs or research funds.

Indoor air pollution is an increasing source of problems to many people, and Murphy's questions about the effects of various airborne bacteria and moulds are important, particularly in the area of home or workplace air quality following flooding or even undetected water leaks. The public is becoming more aware of problems, and the emergence of social health movements to investigate some of the ways a society can cope with air pollution-related illnesses is evidence that people will not necessarily accept shifting blame for illness upon those who are unable to defend themselves against government and big business.

Multiple chemical sensitivity is another condition that is covered in this book, and is experienced by people who react to very low levels of chemical substances in their environment, well below the threshold of detection by the average person. Murphy addresses this condition as part of the greater picture of our total environment at home, in the workplace, and in the general surroundings as chemical substances accumulate in the body. The fact that many of the substances are imperceptible to the average person and to standardized testing procedures leads to denial of claims of illness, and back to the medicolegal judgment of the existence of a health problem or psychological origins of the illness.

This book is of interest to workers in many fields, particularly women. The information is understandable to a casual reader, but also has sufficient depth to be valuable to people looking for more extensive details, and is reinforced by a comprehensive bibliography. Specific topics can be followed in the index. This book should be on the shelf in workplace and public libraries, both as a resource for people affected by sick building syndrome and those who want to raise their awareness of the possibility that their work or home environment may be at risk of indoor pollution. The book is valuable to people studying social health movements and social epidemiology, tracing the ways in which a particular society defines the presence or absence of a legitimate illness. It would also be beneficial for personnel in occupational health services, workers' compensation services, and disability insurers' offices to read the work thoroughly and make decisions on treatment and compensation based on contemporary work in the field, not old biomedical models that are inapplicable to the problems encountered in sick building syndrome. Many of the people making decisions that affect the well-being of people with sick building syndrome and related illnesses lack current knowledge in the field, and there is an urgent need to make informed recommendations for treatment, remediation of the indoor air quality, and compensation for those whose health has been compromised. The sole drawback that I have perceived in researching this book is in the cost of a library cloth edition, but this could be balanced by purchasing more than one copy of the paperback edition. This book captures many of the concerns that this reviewer has researched for academic papers as well as looking for answers in personal environmental health issues and workplace air quality after more than 20 years in hospital employment. The reader-friendly format leads the way to further studies in the area of indoor air quality, gender-biased organization of tasks in the modern workplace, and the intricate relations between government and corporations in decisions on our everyday environment.

MARILYN THORLAKSON

Athabasca University