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Another reason to take an extra long holiday break
this year: Some commonly used office items -- carbonless (self-copying)
paper, photocopiers, display terminals -- can cause a range of health
problems, results of a study suggest. Exposure to self-copying paper may
trigger headache, eye problems, or respiratory symptoms such wheezing
and acute bronchitis in workers. Photocopying appears to be linked to
nasal irritation, and working at a video display terminal may be linked
to eye symptoms, headache, and lethargy.
The investigators found that handling self-copying
paper increases the risk of chronic respiratory symptoms as well as respiratory
infections, such as sinusitis and acute bronchitis. For example, workers
who handled self-copying paper on a regular basis were at more than 80%
higher risk for sore or scratchy throats than unexposed co-workers. Workers
in regular contact with self-copying paper also complained more often
of eye and skin irritation, headache, and lethargy. They speculate that
self-copying paper contains solvents and other chemicals that are inhaled
by workers or absorbed via the fingers into eyes and skin.
The actual mechanisms by which these chemicals might
trigger symptoms are not known. However, previous studies seem to have
ruled out an allergic response as the culprit, pointing instead to the
chemicals' toxic effects as a probable cause of illness. The researchers
also found that workers who spent a lot of time around copy machines were
at high risk for nasal irritation. Previous research has suggested that
photocopiers emit chemicals, such as volatile organic compounds, ozone,
particles, and resin.
Finally, they found that exposures of at least 11
hours per week to video display terminals -- computer monitors -- was
associated with a more than 50% rise in the incidence of headache, compared
with workers with little or no exposure to computers. Employees who spent
their workdays staring into computer screens were also at a 26% higher
risk for fatigue compared with other workers, according to the researchers.
Many of the symptoms experienced by the study subjects fall into a general
pattern of work-related illness commonly known as 'sick building syndrome.'
While computer screens and photocopiers have been
linked to the syndrome in the past, the researchers say associations with
self-copying paper have not, to our knowledge, been addressed before.
Based on their findings, they suggest that reduction of exposure to carbonless
copy paper would be beneficial for office workers.
American Journal of Epidemiology
December 1999;150:1223-1228.
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