Illnesses Tied To Chemicals In Some Carpets, Researchers Say

So you're contemplating remodeling. Before you get too far along in the process, ask yourself the big question: To carpet, or not to carpet?

Society, in general, answers in the affirmative. Sure, carpet, why not. It's cheaper than installing wood floors, it's soft and cozy and everyone else has it. Indoor air experts, on the other hand, are more likely to answer in the negative. "I would not put wall-to-wall carpet in my house," says a toxicologist I interviewed.

Why not? There appear to be two problems with carpeting.

-- One is a chemical problem: Some carpet - an unknown percent - appears to emit toxic fumes that can make you very ill.

-- The other problem is a physical one: it's almost impossible to really clean wall-to-wall carpeting. This column deals with the first problem; what we'll call "sick" carpet.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission receives hundreds of calls every year from people who have installed new carpet and subsequently gotten sick. Their symptoms range in severity from stinging eyes, difficulty breathing and headaches to loss of memory and seizures. When these people leave their newly carpeted homes or offices for extended periods, their symptoms subside. It seems logical to pin the blame on the carpets.

Science is not as easily convinced. It is enormously costly, time consuming and difficult to prove links of this kind. Immense liability issues hinge on them. And, perhaps in part for that

reason, many medical professionals and government regulators are reluctant to recognize, if not downright skeptical about "sick" carpets and "sick-building syndrome" in general.

One scientist who has produced some results is Rosalind Anderson, a toxicologist at Anderson Laboratories, in Dedham, Mass. She had been sent samples of carpeting from people who wanted to know if these where what had made them sick. Using a standard testing method called ASTM-E981, Anderson found that air blown across the carpet samples caused severe respiratory, neurological and neuromuscular abnormalities in mice.

How severe is severe? The mice had seizures; turned blue; in some cases, they died. Got that? Mice exposed to air blown over a 7-inch square of carpet died.

Anderson has since tested almost 500 carpet samples sent by people who feared the carpet made them ill. More than 90 percent of the samples proved to be "sick." Her work has been validated by Dr. Yves Alarie, a noted toxicologist at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Health, who replicated her results in his own lab. (For some reason, several publications stated that Alarie was unable to replicate the results, so I called him myself to ask. From the horse's mouth: "Yes. I got the same results Dr. Anderson did.")

Unfortunately, these studies don't tell us what proportion of new carpet is "sick," since all the samples were ones sent by people who had become ill. But it is compelling evidence that some carpet can make you ill.

Thousands of Americans have had new carpet installed, and, after that icky "new" smell wore off, the vast majority did not become sick. So what is it about some carpets, as opposed to others just like them, that is making people ill?

According to Alarie and others in the field, such as Dr. Eugene Lough, of Bennett Laboratories in Tacoma, suspicion is centering on the carpet backing (not to be confused with the underlayment, or pad). Most wall-to-wall carpets are essentially a zillion short fibers all glued together at one end by a bonding agent, or backing.

According to the Carpet and Rug Institute, an industry trade association, in 95 percent of American-made carpet the backing is a synthetic rubber called styrene butadiene rubber latex, or SBR. When properly applied and cured, SBR seems to be relatively harmless.

But, in a certain percentage of cases, the stuff is improperly applied - too much and unevenly - and insufficiently cured. In these cases, according to Alarie, you can actually see the difference. The backing appears irregular and may be sticky.

The SBR gone wrong emits a number of chemicals. Nothing is known about how they may interact to make people ill. What appears to be true, though, is that, unlike "new carpet smell," which dissipates in days or weeks, these "sick" chemicals outgas indefinitely. Anderson Labs found severe ill effects from samples as much as 20 years old.

Next: A look at what accumulates in your carpet once it's on the floor.

Susan McGrath's column runs every two weeks in the Home/Real Estate section. Send questions and comments to: The Household Environmentalist, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111.