A mystery plagues the Physiology building at Colorado State University, as faculty, students and staff who work there have dealt with temporary blindness, eye irritation, congestion, respiratory issues and more.
The cause of the problems remains unknown more than three months after concerns were first reported.
Scheduled classes were moved out of the Physiology building just before the start of the fall semester, and public access was restricted last month, limiting entry only to those with key cards, university spokesperson Tiana Kennedy wrote in an email Monday. The university has also shut down a laboratory in the Environmental Health building next door to the Physiology building after students and staff there experienced similar symptoms when boxes of equipment were moved there from the Physiology building, Kennedy's email said.
The Environmental Health building itself remains open to faculty, students and staff, although one staff member, associate professor Maggie Clark, said she and others with offices in that building were told they should work remotely for now if they could.
Symptoms reported to CSU included eye irritation, congestion and sinus issues, according to a Sept. 27 email to faculty, students and staff that Kennedy shared with the Coloradoan. Others reported not only those symptoms but also vision issues, including temporary blindness in two individuals that lasted up to six hours, and difficulty breathing that was severe enough to send two people to a hospital emergency room for treatment, two faculty members and three graduate students told the Coloradoan.
"We continue to be very concerned about those who have reported medical symptoms to us over the past three months," reads a Sept. 27 email to faculty, students and staff from Sue VandeWoude, dean of CSU's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Colin Clay, a professor and associate dean. "As of today, we have found no evidence of conditions directly related to those symptoms, but the university is continuing to do testing and taking steps to mitigate building conditions that have emerged, including fixing the roof and the HVAC of the Physiology building."
CSU brought in an outside entity, Lakewood-based Chemical & Industrial Hygiene Inc., to test for toxins that might explain the symptoms that people have been experiencing, according to that email, which was shared by the university, and subsequent emails dated Oct. 2 and Oct. 4 that were provided to the Coloradoan by impacted faculty, students and staff.
Tara Nordgren, an associate professor in environmental health and radiological health sciences, said she is pleased the university is finally investigating concerns she and others first reported July 1. But she and a Ph.D. candidate in her department, Logan Dean, believe CSU is downplaying the issue in a way that jeopardizes public health.
Dean said he went back into the Physiology building in mid-July after receiving notice that a freezer "containing all of our really important samples had been turned off." He began experiencing symptoms within 30 minutes, he said, that included "chest tightness, difficulty breathing and a cough that went away the next day." He did not seek medical treatment, he said, but was advised to avoid returning to the building.
Two other people also shared their concerns with the Coloradoan about exposure to potential toxins in the building but did not want to be identified by name or position for fear of retaliation by the university or their supervisors.
There has been no campuswide notification of the concerns raised, associated symptoms or investigation, Nordgren and Dean said. A Sept. 25 story in the Rocky Mountain Collegian brought some attention to the issue, Nordgren said.
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"I do worry, because they're still playing in half-truths," Nordgren said Tuesday. "Even the email they sent out at the end of September, saying 'these are the facts,' conveniently leaving out that two people had gone to the hospital because they couldn't breathe."
CSU shared a summary in the Sept. 27 email that came out of a Sept. 26 meeting with CSU Vice President for University Operations Brandon Hanlon, Provost and Executive Vice President Marion Underwood and department leadership in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
According to that summary, individuals in three lab spaces in the Physiology building reported symptoms in June, including "eye irritation, congestion and sinus issues which they believed were related to environmental factors" in the building. Those claims were referred to worker's compensation, and worker's compensation doctors reviewed their medical records and could not identify "a specific cause for symptoms."
The summary said three dozen samples from the Physiology building were tested by the Environmental Health Services Department and none "revealed evidence of contaminants that would explain symptoms experienced by the employees." Additional testing by Chemical & Industrial Hygiene also did not identify "any causal factors for employee symptoms."
When boxes containing equipment from a Physiology lab were moved to the Environmental Health building, "two employees reported symptoms and sought medical assistance" after opening those boxes, the summary said. Testing by Chemical & Industrial Hygiene of samples from those boxes "did not find spores, endotoxins or any other compounds that would explain symptoms," but boxes in that building's public corridors were moved out of the building, and ventilation rates "were increased to vent any potential contaminant as a precaution.
"The building remains open, and there is no evidence it is unsafe for use," the email reads, while also directing anyone who does experience symptoms to immediately report it to worker's compensation.
CSU is sharing the samples that have been collected from both buildings, along with the symptoms people reported experiencing, with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Health Equity Deputy Chief, Kristen Good, for review and "to potentially advise additional scope," the Oct. 2 email from VondeWoude and Clay reads.
The state and county health departments have met with CSU officials and reviewed the associated reports, Hope Shuler, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, wrote in an email recently. Yet the health department's role is purely advisory, since their regulatory enforcement over CSU is limited to "specific environmental contaminants, such as hazardous waste materials, regulated air toxics and regulated water contaminants."
Nordgren, who specializes in lung toxicology research, and Dean, a third-year Ph.D. candidate in CSU's Cell & Molecular Biology program, are convinced the health issues people are experiencing are connected to the Physiology building itself and not to the work being performed in its laboratories.
"(Chemical & Industrial Hygiene) gave that report on Sept. 6 and their take-home message was, 'We didn't see like a huge outgrowth of mold in one place or something like that, but we saw a lot of delayed maintenance that could absolutely be contributing to something like this,'" Nordgren said. "I think a big concern is the roof has been leaking in multiple places for a number of years, so there's a lot of water damage throughout the building. There is actually moss growing on areas of the roof, which would suggest issues with water drainage."
A subsequent Chemical & Industrial Hygiene report on the Environmental Health building, summarized in the Oct. 2 email from VondeWoude and Clay, notes that while fungal spore counts were low, "several spore types were identified that are not often found indoors (pitomyces) or are an indication of water intrustion (stachuybotrys)."
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at [email protected],x.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.