BLAME NEW COMPUTERS FOR SICK BUILDINGS.

• Position: Fume emissions from new personal computers - Brief Article

Environmental engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered that brand new personal computers emit fumes during the first few days of use which are composed of the kinds of chemicals implicated in "sick building syndrome." They stress that a single new computer in a properly ventilated home, office, or school should pose no health threat. While the chemical fumes diminish within less than a week if the computer is run constantly during that period, their effects would be much greater during the first days that a number of new computers were installed in a computer lab or office.

Richard L. Corsi, associate professor of environmental engineering, and James Grabbs, a research engineer employed by Zephyr Environmental Corp., carried out their research at the Indoor Air Quality Laboratory of the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the university's J.J. Pickle Research Campus. The tests were performed on personal computers purchased new, taken right from the box, and turned on. "If you're working on a new computer, you're right next to the source, and you are personally going to be breathing higher concentrations than if the chemicals were mixed throughout the room," Corsi cautions.

Sick building syndrome refers to transient health problems caused by conditions occurring inside a structure. Symptoms include headaches, watery eyes, coughs, and sniffles--which air quality experts generally blame on a...