Coroner in Riverside Cited by Cal/OSHA : Safety: Inspectors say workers were exposed to excessive formaldehyde levels and were not given respirators. Medical experts disagree on long-term effects.

The Riverside County coroner’s office willfully allowed its workers to be exposed to excessive levels of cancer-causing formaldehyde and failed to protect them with proper respirators, Cal/OSHA officials charged Wednesday.

Because of the findings, Cal/OSHA Deputy Chief Mark Carleson said his office will consider conducting inspections at other workplaces that use the chemical, including other coroner offices and funeral homes.

Cal/OSHA industrial hygienists found that workers at the Riverside coroner’s office faced short-term exposures to formaldehyde--an embalming fluid used to preserve body tissue--at levels 2 1/2 times greater than the permissible exposure limit. Exposure to the chemical also exceeded permissible standards over eight-hour periods, but to a lesser degree, Cal/OSHA found.

The effect of long-term exposure to formaldehyde is a matter of some debate within medical ranks.

Years-long exposure can cause “hideous neurologic problems” because the chemical immobilizes the nervous system just as it preserves human tissue, said Dr. Kaye H. Kilburn, who heads USC’s environmental sciences laboratory and has done 10 years of research on formaldehyde.

But Dr. John Hiserodt, director of autopsy services at UCI Medical Center in Orange, disagreed.

“The short-term side effect of acute exposure to formaldehyde solution is irritation to the eyes and mucous membranes of the throat and lungs,” he said.

“But I don’t know of any long-term clinical side effects of exposure to formaldehyde solution as one is exposed to it in the everyday working routine of a coroner’s office, hospital or medical center,” he said.

Cal/OSHA also cited the Riverside coroner’s office for not giving the hepatitis B vaccine series to workers who are exposed to human blood and body fluids.

Hiserodt said those workers “are at a high risk of getting hepatitis,” although some studies show that hepatitis B dies with the body tissue in the 24 hours after death.

Formaldehyde exposure can be eliminated with proper ventilation, but the Riverside coroner’s ventilation system was not operating, Cal/OSHA found.

In addition, not all employees who work with the chemical had respirators, or were properly trained in how to use them. One worker concocted his own paper-filter mask, the agency found.

“These were willful violations by the coroner’s office, which we take very seriously,” Carleson said. “Any time you have a carcinogen and there are violations relating to that, it’s a real concern to us.”

Carleson said he would not speculate how many other coroners and medical offices could be guilty of the same violations, “but from our perspective, it’s a serious problem.”

The citations were sparked by Cal/OSHA’s probe into the source of mystery fumes that prompted the evacuation of the Riverside General Hospital emergency room in February, when hospital workers fell sick while tending to a patient, Gloria Ramirez.

When Cal/OSHA inspected the coroner’s office as part of the Ramirez investigation, it uncovered the violations, said agency spokesman Rick Rice. He said there was no relationship between the violations and the mystery fumes case.

Had the violations been issued in the private sector, they would have resulted in civil penalties of more than $190,000, Rice said. But Cal/OSHA is not allowed to assess penalties against public agencies.

Riverside County Coroner Scotty Hill deferred comment to his chief deputy, Dan Cupido, who issued a brief statement but did not take calls. “Most of the violations have already been corrected and the remaining are expected to be corrected within the next 60 days,” his statement read.

Herb Buzbee, executive secretary of the International Assn. of Coroners and Medical Examiners, said, “It sounds like OSHA is just being nit-picky. I don’t see a problem (with formaldehyde exposure). Embalmers at funeral homes are around formaldehyde all the time.”

Cal/OSHA also cited the coroner for failing to provide showers for employees who are splashed with formaldehyde, not monitoring its workers for exposure to formaldehyde and a series of lesser violations involving first aid kits, fire extinguishers and electrical systems, among other things.