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It sets aside $200,000 for exams and further testing of the building and grounds, but the hair loss mystery remains.
By CRAIG PITTMAN and KYLE PARKS
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 2, 2000
ST. PETERSBURG -- As state and federal investigators continue to probe employees' mysterious hair loss at the Equifax Payment Services facility, the company is picking up the tab for several employees' medical tests and has started interviewing workers with medical concerns.
So far, 82 of the company's 2,200 employees have reported medical worries to the company's human resources department, Executive Vice President Larry J. Towe said Friday.
Company officials have interviewed 69 of them. A few have reported hair loss, but others registered less dramatic complaints such as headaches and insomnia, Towe said.
"It runs the entire spectrum," he said.
When employees have asked if they should undergo medical tests, Towe said he has told them, "If you want it, go and I'll pay."
He said he has set aside $200,000 to be used for employee medical tests as well as for further testing of the 300,000-square-foot building at 11601 Roosevelt Blvd. and the 55 acres around it.
"We're trying to find the answer," Towe said. "I will do the right thing for our people."
Equifax has been under scrutiny by the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration since March because several employees have complained of a mysterious hair loss.
One employee told OSHA that four women "are totally bald and wearing wigs."
In addition to paying for employees' medical tests, Towe said his company has paid to test the water, air and ground at the building, as well as check for radiation. So far, though, the testing by OSHA and Equifax has uncovered no obvious culprit.
The hair loss is particularly baffling because Equifax is not a factory handling hazardous wastes. It is part of the largest check verification company in the world and in recent years has moved into credit-card verification, marketing services and the processing of new forms of payment, such as electronic checks on the Internet.
However, before Equifax moved into the Gateway area structure five years ago, the one-story building was occupied by a division of Honeywell that manufactured guidance systems for missiles and military aircraft. The Honeywell plant was classified as a generator of hazardous waste by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Honeywell's past occupancy has made it a possible suspect in the hair loss investigation. But Towe said before Equifax moved in, his company gutted the building and remodeled it top to bottom to accommodate Equifax's prodigious computer and telephone needs.
Another suspect lies directly across Roosevelt Boulevard from Equifax: the old Toytown landfill, the repository for St. Petersburg's municipal waste from the early 1960s until it was closed in the early 1980s.
However, testing by a consultant hired by Equifax has found no sign of any pollutant that might cause hair loss oozing underground from the old landfill.
Another early suspect was a heavy metal called thallium, which turned up in samples of the groundwater under the building during testing two years ago. Thallium is an unusual contaminant in Florida groundwater, DEP officials say, and inhaling or ingesting it can cause hair loss.
But OSHA tests inside the building found no sign of thallium, and more recent groundwater testing suggest that the original groundwater sampling was flawed. DEP officials are continuing to investigate the possibility of soil or groundwater contamination.
Towe said two of the Equifax employees who have undergone medical testing at first reported that their doctors found thallium in their system, but later told him that they had misunderstood the diagnosis. In fact, their tests showed no signs of thallium poisoning, Towe said.
OSHA's next step will be to retest for radiation.
Meanwhile, experts from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an arm of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that conducts research into the causes of workplace diseases and injuries, are scheduled to spend two days at Equifax in two weeks researching possible causes of the employees' maladies.
Since the St. Petersburg Times first reported on the OSHA investigation three weeks ago, Equifax employees have been hesitant to talk to reporters about their medical problems.
They believed they were forbidden by company policy to speak to the media. But Towe, during a two-hour interview with Times reporters Friday, said employees should feel free to "talk to anybody they want to."
Towe said some employees have asked him what Equifax will do should the OSHA and DEP investigations uncover some dangerous contaminant in or under the building that could not be cleaned up.
"We'll move out," Towe said. "God forbid we have to do that."
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration office address is: 5807 Breckinridge Parkway, Suite A, Tampa, FL 33610. The phone number is (813) 626-1177.
- Times staff writer Craig Pittman covers environmental issues. He can be reached at craig@sptimes.com or at (727) 893-8530.