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Very interesting article
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The first thing that happened when Mary, an Alaska Airlines attendant, received a new, high-performance, synthetic uniform in the spring of 2011 was a hacking cough. Then a rash bloomed on her chest. Next came migraines, brain fog, a racing heart, and blurry vision.
Mary (whose name I’ve withheld to protect her job) was one of hundreds of Alaska Airlines attendants reporting that year that the uniforms were causing blistering rashes, swollen eyelids crusted with pus, hives, and in the most serious case, breathing problems and allergic reactions so severe that one attendant, John, had to be taken off the plane and to the ER multiple times.
Tests commissioned by Alaska Airlines and the flight attendants’ union turned up tributyl phosphate, lead, arsenic, cobalt, antimony, restricted disperse dyes known to cause allergic reactions, toluene, hexavalent chromium, and dimethyl fumarate, an antifungal that had recently been banned in the European Union.
But the uniform maker, Twin Hill, avoided culpability in court by saying none of these many mixed chemicals, on their own, were present at high enough levels to cause all of the different reactions.
Alaska Airlines announced in 2013 it would procure new uniforms, without admitting the uniforms had caused health issues. A lawsuit from attendants against Twin Hill was thrown out in 2016 for lack of evidence.
But a 2018 Harvard study found that after the introduction of the uniforms, the number of attendants with multiple chemical sensitivity, sore throats, cough, shortness of breath, itchy skin, rashes and hives, itchy eyes, loss of voice, and blurred vision had all more or less doubled. “This study found a relationship between health complaints and the introduction of new uniforms,” the study’s authors concluded.
In 2021, John, who had been in perfect health before the introduction of the uniforms, died at age 66 after years of seeking and failing to find treatment for his symptoms. The official cause of his death was cardiopulmonary arrest, secondary asthma.
Mary, who has continued with some difficulty to work for Alaska Airlines, last year was diagnosed with three autoimmune diseases: mixed connective tissue disease, lupus, and Sjögren’s. Mary and John’s surviving partner say the uniforms were the culprit.
This story of sick attendants has played out again and again, as American Airlines, Delta, and Southwest all introduced new uniforms, which were brightly colored polyester instead of the old standby, wool, and were layered with anti-wrinkle, stain-resistant, and flame-retardant textile technology.
Mary and John are far from alone. The impact of exposure to harmful chemicals on textile workers, many of whom work in developing countries, has been well documented and includes breathing problems, rashes, and even death, but I was less aware that so many in the US were reporting ill effects simply from wearing garments.
Rather, as I discovered while researching my book To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion is Making us Sick – and How We Can Fight Back, they are part of a diverse and disparate cohort of people who believe they have suffered from the health effects of toxic fashion.……
www.theguardian.com
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The first thing that happened when Mary, an Alaska Airlines attendant, received a new, high-performance, synthetic uniform in the spring of 2011 was a hacking cough. Then a rash bloomed on her chest. Next came migraines, brain fog, a racing heart, and blurry vision.
Mary (whose name I’ve withheld to protect her job) was one of hundreds of Alaska Airlines attendants reporting that year that the uniforms were causing blistering rashes, swollen eyelids crusted with pus, hives, and in the most serious case, breathing problems and allergic reactions so severe that one attendant, John, had to be taken off the plane and to the ER multiple times.
Tests commissioned by Alaska Airlines and the flight attendants’ union turned up tributyl phosphate, lead, arsenic, cobalt, antimony, restricted disperse dyes known to cause allergic reactions, toluene, hexavalent chromium, and dimethyl fumarate, an antifungal that had recently been banned in the European Union.
But the uniform maker, Twin Hill, avoided culpability in court by saying none of these many mixed chemicals, on their own, were present at high enough levels to cause all of the different reactions.
Alaska Airlines announced in 2013 it would procure new uniforms, without admitting the uniforms had caused health issues. A lawsuit from attendants against Twin Hill was thrown out in 2016 for lack of evidence.
But a 2018 Harvard study found that after the introduction of the uniforms, the number of attendants with multiple chemical sensitivity, sore throats, cough, shortness of breath, itchy skin, rashes and hives, itchy eyes, loss of voice, and blurred vision had all more or less doubled. “This study found a relationship between health complaints and the introduction of new uniforms,” the study’s authors concluded.
In 2021, John, who had been in perfect health before the introduction of the uniforms, died at age 66 after years of seeking and failing to find treatment for his symptoms. The official cause of his death was cardiopulmonary arrest, secondary asthma.
Mary, who has continued with some difficulty to work for Alaska Airlines, last year was diagnosed with three autoimmune diseases: mixed connective tissue disease, lupus, and Sjögren’s. Mary and John’s surviving partner say the uniforms were the culprit.
This story of sick attendants has played out again and again, as American Airlines, Delta, and Southwest all introduced new uniforms, which were brightly colored polyester instead of the old standby, wool, and were layered with anti-wrinkle, stain-resistant, and flame-retardant textile technology.
Mary and John are far from alone. The impact of exposure to harmful chemicals on textile workers, many of whom work in developing countries, has been well documented and includes breathing problems, rashes, and even death, but I was less aware that so many in the US were reporting ill effects simply from wearing garments.
Rather, as I discovered while researching my book To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion is Making us Sick – and How We Can Fight Back, they are part of a diverse and disparate cohort of people who believe they have suffered from the health effects of toxic fashion.……
Are your clothes making you sick? The opaque world of chemicals in fashion
Our outfits contain BPA, PFAS and other dangerous substances – but we still know little about their cumulative impact
