What is Darkroom Disease?

Darkroom Disease is a cluster of symptoms commonly experienced by those exposed to x-ray film processing fumes.  DD is not a condition described per se in medical texts.  Two large-scale surveys of radiographers conducted in New Zealand and the UK list the most common symptoms, in descending order of frequency: severe headaches, sore throat/hoarseness; nasal discharge; sore eyes; unexpected fatigue; sinus problems; persistent cold-like symptoms; nausea; painful joints; bad/chemical taste in mouth; mouth ulcers; tinnitus; tight chest; skin rash; lip sores; mouth ulcers; shortness of breath; unusual heart rhythms; chest pains; painful joints; and numb extremities.  In Canada Drs G Liss and S Tarlo have described a similar symptom cluster when comparing the health of radiographers to that of physiotherapists.

Asthma is the most widely investigated and published aspect of DD, and, as a result, the National Institute of Health, and other jurisdictions now include those who use formaldehyde or glutaraldehyde to develop x-rays among those at risk of developing occupational asthma.  Nevertheless, those of us with asthma commonly experience skepticism and a lack of support when we attempt to bring our concerns to light.

Because DD is not limited to asthma and appears to be a much more complex condition, parallels are being drawn between DD and other multi-symptom, multi-organ conditions like Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Gulf War Syndrome (GWS), fibromyalgia, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  Speaking at the Canadian National Defense Symposium on MCS in 2001, Dr. Claudia Miller, a American researcher in GWS, included radiographers suffering from DD among cohorts suffering from multi-system illness caused by exposure to toxins.