Welcome to Part 2 of a Three Part Series addressing hazardous materials. If you haven’t yet read Part 1 (Understanding Toxic Materials in Today’s Information Jungle), I encourage you to read it first.

For Part 2, I’ve invited my friend Yevgen (referred to YS in Part 1) to explain his interest in environmental, health and safety. Although I have edited this piece, the content and substance has been provided by Yevgen. Yevgen first reached out to me more than six months ago as he was trying to better share his own quest to understand an exposure he had, and its impact on his body. We met virtually once and have shared emails over these months of our developing friendship. I appreciate Yevgen’s willingness to share his story in hopes of helping both those trained to understand chemicals and the general public about the challenges we face in communicating and understanding technical information.

From Yevgen:

Often people are puzzled by my interest in environmental, health and safety (EHS). They get the impression that one day I came up with esoteric ideas I wanted to share with the world. On the contrary, my initial interest in EHS was based on personal experience. It does not extend beyond my desire to find relevant credible technical information so that I avoid unnecessary incidents. However, I also think this sharing may benefit others to be better informed about the hazards they encounter and abilities they have to reduce risks that could damage their health.

I use the Swiss Cheese model to specifically illustrate my point.

While my engineering experience has little to do with EHS, generally in engineering practice one learns that systems fail at component interfaces and junctions. Often that is due to the human factor — someone misses or overlooks something – and the entire system becomes ineffective. I believe most issues are not due to malicious intent but rather due to ignorance.

One day I ended up in a hospital due to inhaling burning engine oil vapors. This example illustrates the swiss cheese model due to an obvious safety issue being overlooked by service providers. After an oil change, a faulty oil filter caused engine oil to be expelled under pressure while the engine was operating. Although the mechanic replaced the oil, they ignored oil spilled on the engine exhaust manifold. The next day the oil began to evaporate (go from liquid to vapor) as the exhaust manifold heated up when the engine was operated. Vapors were sucked into the air conditioning inlets causing my exposure while driving, serious enough to visit the emergency room.

Not long after that incident, I learned I’d been living for years in a residence that may have had asbestos fiber release. When that happened, I didn’t know what to do or who to talk to. I quickly discovered there was stigma associated with even bringing up concerns about asbestos exposure. I was both invalidated and denigrated simply for trying to find out if the asbestos regulations had been followed when the work was done. As I tried to assess my situation, I scoured both CDC and EPA resources to learn if I was at risk or what to do. I could not find anything that felt helpful, rather I read statements recommending that if I had been exposed to asbestos to stop further exposure (leave my home?); and talk to a physician. It was then when I realized there was not consistent, easy to find or understand, actionable information available to the public. I found instead contradictory information including there not being any safe level of asbestos exposure, that if you avoid disturbing ACMs to avoid contamination, and that any released dust can only be abated by a trained and licensed professional.

Needless to say, this caused a lot of distress. I worked up the courage to bring up the subject to a physician, who first recommended I speak to an abatement specialist, and then with good intention encouraged me to read the book The Case for Jesus Christ. The physician also encouraged me to embrace my hobbies. Both those recommendations led me to believe I was headed to hospice. It was only later when I found the opportunity to speak with an industrial hygienist (IH) that I realized my situation was not as dire as I had believed.

The irony is at the time I didn’t know what an IH was, and hadn’t prepared myself to be precise in my explanations or questions. As that window of opportunity closed, I decided to learn more to ensure I wasn’t spreading any contaminants as I had been led to believe by earlier information I had seen on the internet. I was determined not to make my situation worse. I also wanted to learn how to avoid unnecessary future exposures, and to develop a more holistic view of EHS. To learn how to identify and mitigate real, not hyped up, hazards. Yet I never intended or planned to be an EHS professional.

To me, Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) is the what, while Industrial Hygiene (IH) is the how, with the objectives to support a reasonably happy, healthy and prosperous life. For example, to me, there is little point in not smoking, drinking, avoiding meat based diets, if one in turn is going to engage in regular scraping of lead paint off the walls during do it yourself projects without taking proper precautions. 

I am concerned about the amount of false information online. In my view, unfortunately the vast majority of the population have no idea that there is a field called Industrial Hygiene whose objective is to prevent exposures that may cause health issues down the road. I too was part of that majority, even though by having a technical degree I knew there must be a scientific discipline addressing that particular issue. I too found some of that online information shared by unqualified people promoting false/alternative views and products. I also noticed that scientifically credible information can become distorted and misinterpreted over time when requirements and regulations replace or overlap the scientific basis for the rules. For example, one might think that smoking is only bad for those under 18 or indoors, since it is legal for those older. In my quest to find credible information, I was also criticized by some who view exposure risks are an inevitable part of life. While I agree it is unhealthy to be overly worried about everything, I think it is reasonable to try to do what we can to reduce our risks.

With this experience and in my time thinking about it all, I have concluded that there are certain hazards out there that are more likely to pose non-occupational risks than others. It is useful to know how to correctly identify and mitigate those risks within reason. For example, wearing a respirator and using dust extraction, or utilizing wet cutting methods, while cutting silica containing materials is still unknown to many. Or understanding both the use and mis-use of non-chemical hazards such as UV-C lights used to sanitize but that require eye protection during some exposures. I too believe that hazardous particulates carry an additional risk, unlike some gases and vapors, because they stick around and depending on who may be exposed to them next.

This in no way should be interpreted that I advocate emboldening non-professionals to attempt to abate hazardous substances. Quite the opposite — Inform them so they don’t engage in such practices. 

We thank Yevgen for taking time to share his experience. Stay tuned for Part 3, when Yevgen, Dede and Fred will also give their final thoughts about what all this means, and share their favorite resources for non EHS/IH folks.

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