Effect of fiberglass on humans hard to assess

Woman's quest to determine what ails her and her four children points to fiberglass insulation

Patricia Briske / Times (IN) 14mar01

Medical and environmental experts don't agree on what kind of health problems fiberglass can cause.

Specialists are willing to call it the culprit for certain specific woes such as skin irritation and some minor respiratory trouble. Scientists disagree over whether the substance is truly hazardous or merely irritating. Because it's not known to cause cancer, fiberglass does not merit the same intense study as asbestos, another common insulation fiber that long was thought to be benign.

"There haven't been a lot of papers published on it because there's a dispute about the carcinogenicity of fiberglass," said Ken Giles of the Consumer Products Safety Commission. According to the Web page of the Environmental Research Foundation, the dispute goes back 60 years.

"In 1938, the Owens Corning Fiberglass Co. formed, and three years later, in 1941, evidence of pulmonary disease was reported by Walter J. Siebert, who investigated the health of workers with the cooperation of Owens Corning," the site says. "That same year, another investigator reported finding 'no hazard to the lungs' of workers exposed to glass fibers in the air."

The puffy pink stuff -- often contained between sheets of brown paper -- may look soft but actually consists of thin, man-made, needle-shaped rods of glass, according to the foundation. Cynthia Murga of Gary says she's been pulling tiny pieces of it out of her skin, tongue and even the corners of her eye for the past few weeks; her children, too, have been similarly affected since the ceiling of their home was damaged last fall. All five of them developed severe coughs. Additionally, Murga has suffered multiple bruises on her legs, loss of warmth and circulation in her feet, sweating on her arms and a dark discharge from one of her breasts.

A Hammond physician is investigating Murga's problems, and a Merrillville pediatrician is checking out her children's symptoms. Other local doctors concede fiberglass is an irritant, but they also raise the question of whether mold or other building materials inside the ceiling could be causing the family's health problems.

"Fiberglass is known to cause itching," conceded Robert Cohen, a specialist in occupational medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center. "And it's known to cause mucus membrane irritation. But easy bruisability is something else."

Valparaiso pulmonologist Douglas Mazurek said exposure to the substance is "extremely unpredictable. With inhaling most irritants, what's true for one individual is not necessarily true for another." With a damaged ceiling -- which could contain a variety of materials -- Mazurek said, "so many environmental toxins may be involved."

Natural causes may be no less problematic. Mold or fungus unleashed from the ceiling could irritate the airway, he added.

But fiberglass irritation may not even be skin deep. It goes only into the first layer of skin, said Antoinette Hood, who heads the dermatological pathology department at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. In 30 years on the job, she said she has never seen a case of long-term fiberglass irritation. "It can lodge in the skin but not for a long time," she said. "And it can be taken out with Scotch tape. It's an irritant, and people can have a reaction to it, but getting rid of it is a superficial process."

A medical expert with Owens Corning said factory employees exposed to the material for years have suffered little ill health from their contact with it. "Fiberglass does itch," conceded Ken Goetz, corporate medical director. "And when you scratch, you get a secondary (abrasion)." It doesn't go far into the skin, he said. "Fiberglass isn't that strong. Usually it stays at a superficial level. If you shower with cool water, it goes away."

Any fiber large enough to be seen by the naked eye is too big to get into the lungs, Goetz continued. When fibers are inhaled, they dissolve in the body and are expelled the same way the body gets rid of any foreign substance.

Workers who install fiberglass insulation in buildings are more susceptible to health woes than those employed at Owens Corning, said company spokesman Bill Hamilton. But Nick Campbell, owner of Campbell Insulation in Lynwood, said he and his family have been working with the material for decades without much incident.

"I've been working with it for 15 years. My father worked with it. One of my sons works with me and has no problem. But the other son can't stand it. Some people cannot handle fiberglass."

They wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts when blowing loose insulation into an area but otherwise don't need any special protective gear, Campbell said. Still, he noted, "my wife washes my work clothes separately from hers. She doesn't want that stuff getting on her things."

Hamilton says the fiberglass manufactured today isn't much different from the material Owens Corning produced decades ago, but Campbell disagrees. "The old insulation had a lot more fiberglass in it," he said. "Years ago, when you were blowing the insulation in, you could really hear (the fiberglass) coming through the hose." He said it made a crackling noise.

Also, some of the ductwork used in ventilation is foil paper lined with fiberglass; in newer products, the fiberglass is coated. Despite the fact that air moves over it frequently, Hamilton said, the fiberglass stays intact.

Until environmental health inspectors from the city of Gary take samples of what's in the ceiling at 3510 Calhoun St., Murga will not know what substances may be present that could cause her family's ill health.

"Even if it's not fiberglass," she said, "something in that house is making us sick."