Pesticides Used in Buildings Poisoned Them, N.Y. Workers Say : Environment: More than 700 employees in three buildings have filed worker’s compensation claims over chemical exposure in the last year, and 43 have filed suit.

Kathie Frank can’t pick up a newspaper or magazine without gasping for breath. New clothes are aired for 48 hours and she has a self-imposed ban on church, with its scented candles and incense.

Joe Cotazino, who has been on disability for a little more than a year, develops soreness in his knees and arms, and for some time suffered from Bell’s palsy, a paralysis of the face that can occur after exposure to chemical odors.

Frank and Cotazino’s symptoms initially were diagnosed as arthritis or asthma, until both discovered they were among 407 people who worked on the eighth floor of a building housing the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

Now they know they are chemically sensitive. And the office building, they contend, is the key to their illnesses.

“It’s amazing--so many people scattered over the floor didn’t know others were having problems,” Frank said.

Frank and Cotazino are among 43 current or former state employees and their spouses who have sued four corporations for $82 million, alleging they were poisoned by pesticides used at three state office buildings in the same complex.

In the last year, more than 700 state employees in those three buildings have filed worker’s compensation claims. Most, like Cotazino’s wife, continue to work, primarily because their illnesses are not as severe as Joe Cotazino, Frank and two of their co-workers who were interviewed.

Because all state employees are covered by worker’s compensation, they cannot sue the state for damages.

That led to the alternative class-action suit against the four chemical companies, which can seek to recoup any losses from New York state.

Named in the lawsuit are: Dow Chemical Co. of Midland, Mich., whose subsidiary, Indianapolis-based DowElanco, manufactures the insecticide Dursban; Orkin Exterminating Co. of Atlanta and PCO Services of Schenectady, N.Y., two firms alleged to have sprayed Dursban in the buildings; and Nutmeg Technologies, a Connecticut company the state hired to maintain the air-circulation system in the buildings.

DowElanco and Orkin, while refusing to comment specifically on the lawsuit, said there appeared to be no basis for the allegations. PCO and Nutmeg refused to comment.

Complaints surfaced in October, 1991, about the health conditions at Building 8 on the W. A. Harriman State Office Campus in Albany. Its heating, air-conditioning and ventilation systems were under repair and employees contended that the 28-year-old, nine-story building was being invaded by bugs. There were also complaints that the building at times was too hot, too cold, too dry, poorly ventilated and always inadequately cleaned.

Cotazino and Frank, analysts with a combined 25 years with the department, said exterminating companies would fumigate the building with Dursban, frequently leaving pesticide residue on floors and uncovered desks.

Cleaning crews would wipe down the desks afterward, but employees often re-washed their own desks, not realizing that by doing so they were reactivating the pesticides, Cotazino said.

On six occasions during a four-month span between 1991 and 1992, hundreds of workers were either evacuated from the building or hospitalized while firefighters wearing protective gas masks combed the structure.

Some were hospitalized after becoming dizzy and nauseous. Many complained of itchy, burning eyes and a sweet-smelling odor. Others suffered blinding headaches.

After each incident, the state Office of General Services, which manages the building, allowed the 2,600 employees who worked there to return. The health problems persisted, however, at buildings 8A and 9, where some Building 8 employees had been transferred.

“No one ever found a single reason--Labor Department, Health Department, C. T. Male (an engineering firm)--everyone agrees that if there were any conditions in the building that prompted these symptoms, it was a combination of things,” General Services spokesman Thomas Tubbs said.

Employees contend that spraying was done on consecutive days and they were never alerted beforehand. Tubbs counters that his memoranda proves otherwise.

Last December, the Office of General Services spent more than $3 million for cleaning and testing to determine the cause of the illnesses. Studies by the state Health Department and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health found pesticide levels were “probably lower than” those associated with known acute or chronic health problems.

OGS also blamed ventilation and air-conditioning problems, in part, on workers who stuffed cardboard in air vents to prevent drafts.

Dissatisfied, the two largest state employees’ unions--the Public Employees Federation and the Civil Service Employees Assn.--commissioned their own independent study. Those findings said poor ventilation and overcrowding may have contributed to the mass outbreaks of illness.

“Building 8 is probably the most environmentally sanitized building right now,” Tubbs said. “The consultant and NIOSH people said we had done much much more than was needed.”

“That angers me,” said Frank, 42, who worked only nine months last year and has been receiving half pay since mid-December. “They need to admit they’re using chemicals that hurt people and stop using them.”

A high-ranking state environmental official who spoke only on condition of anonymity reluctantly acknowledged that the severity of the ventilation problems in Building 8 and other state office buildings could lead to long-term chronic illness.

But the source also said the state wasn’t likely to upgrade the ventilation systems because of the expense.

The workers who filed the lawsuit also criticized New York doctors such as pulmonary specialists and allergists who dismissed their complaints.

“The medical lobby in this state is phenomenal, and they don’t want to create waves for the state Department of Health, the agency that regulates them,” Cotazino said. “So they don’t address it.”

At least one Pennsylvania physician who treated more than 30 Building 8 employees supports the workers’ health claims.

Frank fears the worst for people still working in the building.

“We don’t know the long-term effects of being in that building,” she said. “Right now there are people who are working in that building and they’re OK. But 10 years from now, are they going to be OK?”