{"title":"Evidence of Unrecognized Indoor Exposure to Toxic Chlorophenols and Odorous Chloroanisoles in Denmark, Finland, and Norway","authors":"J. Lorentzen, Lars-Erik Harderup, G. Johanson","doi":"10.1155/2023/2585089","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Production and use of chlorophenols (CPs) are being phased out around the globe, but with considerable lag in some highly populated countries. The process could be incentivized by leading countries sharing their experiences on problems that occurred, including the built environment. We previously reported that Swedish industry and authorities promoted CPs, including pentachlorophenol (PCP), as wood preservatives in buildings for decades. Yet, Swedish indoor research did not recognize exposure to the hazardous CPs and their odor potent derivatives, the chloroanisoles (CAs), which smell like mold and still evolve from legacy preservatives in damp building structures. We hypothesized that the toxic CPs and odorous CAs could be key players for health and odor problems not only in Sweden but also in the neighboring Nordic countries. We found no reports in scientific medical literature of CPs being used in buildings in these countries. However, grey literature shows that CPs were indeed used, even during building booms, in house exteriors, constructions, and interiors, from the 1950s up to the late 1970s (Denmark) and even the 1990s (Finland and Norway). One application of CPs was in houses erected on dampness-prone house foundations, conditions ideal for formation of odorous CAs through microbial methylation. Furthermore, our searches suggest that these problematic chemicals played hitherto unrecognized key roles when indoor air research evolved. Thus, odor became an important aspect of the “sick building syndrome” in Denmark and an early warning sign of health risks in Finland, as asthma and allergy were attributed to “dampness and mold.” None of the countries addressed the possible links between odor and health effects and exposure to CAs and CPs. In conclusion, our results suggest that unrecognized indoor exposure to toxic CPs and odorous CAs has mislead Nordic indoor air research for decades.","PeriodicalId":13529,"journal":{"name":"Indoor air","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Indoor air","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/2585089","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CONSTRUCTION & BUILDING TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Production and use of chlorophenols (CPs) are being phased out around the globe, but with considerable lag in some highly populated countries. The process could be incentivized by leading countries sharing their experiences on problems that occurred, including the built environment. We previously reported that Swedish industry and authorities promoted CPs, including pentachlorophenol (PCP), as wood preservatives in buildings for decades. Yet, Swedish indoor research did not recognize exposure to the hazardous CPs and their odor potent derivatives, the chloroanisoles (CAs), which smell like mold and still evolve from legacy preservatives in damp building structures. We hypothesized that the toxic CPs and odorous CAs could be key players for health and odor problems not only in Sweden but also in the neighboring Nordic countries. We found no reports in scientific medical literature of CPs being used in buildings in these countries. However, grey literature shows that CPs were indeed used, even during building booms, in house exteriors, constructions, and interiors, from the 1950s up to the late 1970s (Denmark) and even the 1990s (Finland and Norway). One application of CPs was in houses erected on dampness-prone house foundations, conditions ideal for formation of odorous CAs through microbial methylation. Furthermore, our searches suggest that these problematic chemicals played hitherto unrecognized key roles when indoor air research evolved. Thus, odor became an important aspect of the “sick building syndrome” in Denmark and an early warning sign of health risks in Finland, as asthma and allergy were attributed to “dampness and mold.” None of the countries addressed the possible links between odor and health effects and exposure to CAs and CPs. In conclusion, our results suggest that unrecognized indoor exposure to toxic CPs and odorous CAs has mislead Nordic indoor air research for decades.
期刊介绍:
The quality of the environment within buildings is a topic of major importance for public health.
Indoor Air provides a location for reporting original research results in the broad area defined by the indoor environment of non-industrial buildings. An international journal with multidisciplinary content, Indoor Air publishes papers reflecting the broad categories of interest in this field: health effects; thermal comfort; monitoring and modelling; source characterization; ventilation and other environmental control techniques.
The research results present the basic information to allow designers, building owners, and operators to provide a healthy and comfortable environment for building occupants, as well as giving medical practitioners information on how to deal with illnesses related to the indoor environment.