![]() ![]() “We didn’t find any evidence of an actual syndrome. How else to explain that women are more likely to have SBS than men? Or that employees’ wellbeing could be associated with floor plans and office arrangement, office noise or how much control they had over their environment? Hedge’s own work examined SBS questionnaire answers from thousands of workers in various buildings. There must be a psychosocial element, some research claimed. “But what began to happen was almost a kind of mass hysterical reaction.” “The spent a fortune trying to establish that relationship and they couldn’t,” Hedge says. ![]() Focus turned from fleecy fabrics to allergens, and for a short time it was believed that indoor carpeting was the culprit. No study ever returned definitive results or caught a single compound red-handed making people sick. Building-related health complaints began to rise shortly after. It has since faded out of use in the US, where I live, but continues to be studied and discussed in Nordic countries like Denmark and Finland.Īlan Hedge at the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University tells me SBS appeared in the 1970s when, to reduce energy use in response to the oil embargo, ventilation standards were lowered. Sick building syndrome was a common term in the 1980s and 1990s. Other researchers have claimed there are psychological forces at play, that SBS is related to anxiety, dissatisfaction at home or work, or other mental conditions. Speculated causes have included dust, microbes, carpets, ventilation and, like in Linda’s story, mould. A basic definition is that it’s an illness a person gets from a building they live or work in. Linda has sick building syndrome, or SBS, a controversial condition with many definitions and symptoms and even more proposed explanations. “I was so tired I really hoped the next fever would kill me. When she went to the doctor, she was told these multiple chemical sensitivities couldn’t be related to her mould exposure – she had moved, there was no way she could still be sick. She tells me she became highly sensitive to other buildings, minuscule levels of mould, and chemicals or smells. ![]() After leaving, her symptoms persisted and her health continued to deteriorate. ![]()
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