Word: antonios
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...will get it; others won't. Symptoms are usually confined to the workplace, but in some cases, like Polansky's, they can hang on for years, even after a worker has left a building. According to Dr. Claudia Miller of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, repeated exposure to toxins given off by molds and bacteria may hypersensitize people to the point that they react to even low levels of these toxins. It may also weaken their tolerance to everyday chemicals in car exhaust, perfumes, cleaning agents and some foods and drugs...
Bernice Polansky's mysterious symptoms began creeping through her body in 1989, four years after she started working at Southwest Airlines' 24-hour San Antonio, Texas, reservations center, an amphitheater-like building housing 600 agents. First came the headaches--every day, two hours after she arrived at work. She noticed other agents bringing aspirin to work. Anyone who ran out could go down to the central-console area, where supervisors were dispensing aspirin from large bottles. Polansky joined the aspirin poppers...
However, interviews with 14 current and past employees, as well as building-inspection reports obtained by TIME, suggest that Southwest's San Antonio center is a "sick building" whose closed-circulation air supply has been contaminated by toxin-producing molds and bacteria...
Southwest's San Antonio mold problem dates back to the 1980s, but the first clean-up attempt wasn't made until 1994. By that time, workers say, fungi were literally dropping out of the ceiling vents into their coffee. When the fabric used as a wall covering was removed, the wallboards underneath were coated with black mold. All the renovations, including removal and replacement of mold-infested carpeting, ceiling tiles and wallboards, and chemical scouring of the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system, were done while employees were working...
...part because of information gathered by TIME, Southwest has hired an environmental-engineering firm, Air Quality Sciences of Atlanta, to conduct a complete hygiene inspection of the San Antonio center. The building undergoes annual cleanings and monthly inspections, asserts Ginger Hardage, vice president of public relations for Southwest. "We are known as a company that cares for its people," she says...