State Health Officials Fault Lack of Federal Action on Waterproofing Sprays
WASHINGTON — The Consumer Product Safety Commission is unnecessarily leaving the American public at risk through its failure to properly investigate a long-running series of lung injuries tied to widely available waterproofing sprays, public health officials from several states say.
Several products have been associated with complaints of respiratory problems.
The complaint concerns inexpensive sprays sold nationwide that rely on a water-repelling ingredient that contains a Teflon-like chemical known as a fluoropolymer.
Because the chemical resin is not considered hazardous at this concentration, federal laws do not require that spray-can labels mention its presence, and typically they do not, said Susan C. Smolinske, a professor of toxicology at Wayne State University in Detroit and the director of a Michigan regional poison control center.
But in the past several years, thousands of consumers are likely to have suffered respiratory problems — including shortness of breath, persistent cough and in some cases long-term lung injuries — after using these waterproofing sprays, Dr. Smolinske said, citing a smaller number of formal reports filed with poison control centers.
Most often the ailment, which is typically diagnosed as chemical pneumonitis, is not life threatening, and it does not appear to be permanent. But in many cases it results in trips to emergency rooms because the resin, once inhaled, can cause inflammation in the lungs, preventing a person from getting enough oxygen.
“Am I like imagining this?” Chrisanne Zolnierek, 49, of Saginaw, Mich., recalled thinking when she had trouble breathing last summer after using Kenyon Water Repellent on a tent she had set up in her yard.
Ms. Zolnierek ended up in the intensive care unit instead of on a Boy Scout trip with her 11-year-old son, she said.
In October 2006, the director of the Michigan Department of Community Health, Janet Olszewski, wrote to Nancy A. Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, urging her to address the public health issue, one of several such requests.
Henry A. Spiller, a toxicologist and the director of the Kentucky Regional Poison Center in Louisville, who also has urged the agency to investigate, said: “There really has been no interest or effort to investigate the root cause of this. When we talk to them, we get no action.”
Julie Vallese, a spokeswoman for the product safety commission, said the agency had received such requests and agreed that the topic merited attention. But a shortage of money has prevented it from doing the work, Ms. Vallese said.
Congress increased the agency’s budget by nearly 30 percent before adjourning this year. New money may allow research on the products, she added. “The agency shares the concern of those people on the front line,” she said, referring to emergency room doctors and staffs at poison control centers.
The illnesses in recent years have been associated with a range of waterproofing products besides Kenyon Water Repellent, including Jobsite Heavy Duty Bootmate, Rocky Boot Weather and Stain Protector, and Stand ’n Seal grout sealer.
Of those products, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a recall on only one, Stand ’n Seal, which had been involved in the most severe injuries, including two deaths.
Two of the others, Jobsite and Rocky Boot, were removed from sale last year at the request of Michigan officials.
Ann F. Hubbs, a pathologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which does not have formal jurisdiction over consumer products, examined the Jobsite product last year at the request of Michigan authorities.
The problem, Dr. Hubbs concluded, appears to date back nearly two decades, when makers of the waterproofing products changed the formula to remove a chemical associated with damage to the earth’s ozone layer.
With the new formulation, she said, once the chemical is mixed with other solvents and pressurized in the can it may end up deep in the lungs of the person using it. Dr. Hubbs added that this theory needed to be confirmed through more formal research, by the product safety commission or some other entity.
The problem crops up only occasionally, and clearly not with all waterproofing sprays. But it is still too often, Dr. Hubbs said.
No one has an accurate count of how many consumers are sickened each year as a result of these sprays. The illnesses are often not attributed to the sprays or recorded properly by poison control centers, preventing a reliable tally, health officials said.
Without action by the federal agency, state health officials have decided in some cases to take more steps on their own.
Michigan officials distributed a notice last year to hospitals statewide warning them about the hazard and urging them to report any new cases. They also negotiated directly with the Manakey Group of Grand Rapids, the distributor of Jobsite Heavy Duty Bootmate and Rocky Boot and Weather Maker, convincing the company to stop selling the products, after the federal product safety commission declined to intervene.
In those cases, more than 215 illnesses were reported, including more than a dozen consumers who had used the spray outside and then became ill after taking their boots inside. Apparently, the evaporating chemical as the boots dried was enough to sicken them, said a report on the outbreak published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Manny Vickers, president of Fiber-Shield Industries of Yaphank, N.Y., a company that makes a fluoropolymer-based chemical used in millions of waterproofing cans sold worldwide, said that illnesses appear to be related to particle size, pressurization and the adequacy of ventilation.
Mr. Vickers said he was confident that his company’s products had not been responsible for illnesses, but he agreed that the matter merited further investigation.
None of the manufacturers or distributors of the waterproofing sprays returned calls seeking comment.
In the meantime, all of the parties said anyone using a waterproofing spray should be extremely cautious, applying the spray only when outside and then leaving the sprayed items there until the chemical completely dried. If used inside, which is not recommended, the area must be well ventilated.
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