Mori Mickelson was breast-feeding her 11-month-old son in the bedroom of her New York apartment in August 1997 when she began to get a headache. Feeling dizzy and like she was losing consciousness, she smelled a familiar chemical odor coming from the dry cleaner located in her building. The smell was perc, or perchloroethylene, a toxic organochlorine solvent used by most dry cleaners. Mori's husband called the fire department, and the family and other residents immediately evacuated until an accidental spill could be cleaned up. After two weeks the smell and headache had disappeared, but Mori still noticed burning in her lungs.

Originally developed as a degreaser for metals, perc has been classified as a hazardous air pollutant by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and as a probable human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. An October 1995 study by Consumers Union, the nonprofit organization that publishes Consumer Reports, found that perc levels in apartments above New York City dry cleaners pose 'clear hazards to the residents' health.'

But it's not just a New York City problem. Greenpeace reports that an estimated million-plus people in the United States are at risk from elevated levels of perc in their homes. Scientists have linked perc to nervous system, kidney, liver, and reproductive disorders in lab animals, and higher risk of cancer among dry-cleaning workers.

Even bringing dry-cleaned clothes home is risky. In the 1980s, EPA studies found that people who reported visiting a dry-cleaning shop showed twice as much perc in their breath, on average, as other people. The effective half-life (the time required to eliminate half the quantity) of perc in the breath is about 21 hours. EPA also found that levels of perc remained elevated in a home for as long as one week after newly dry-cleaned clothes were placed in a closet. And Consumers Union, in a March 1996 report, found that people who wear freshly dry-cleaned clothes, like a jacket and shirt, every week over a 40-year period could inhale enough perc 'to measurably increase their risk of cancer'?by as much as 150 times what is considered 'negligible risk.'

Dry-cleaning workers are affected most. Eric Frumin, health and safety director of UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees), cites a 1994 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) study that found the risk of esophageal cancer for dry-cleaning workers to be three to seven times higher than for the population at large. UNITE is pressing both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the EPA to take a stricter position regarding perc dangers and is calling on government officials to help dry cleaners phase out the use of perc. In the book Toxic Deception (Birch Lane Press, 1996) Dan Fagin and Marianne Lavelle document EPA's 'paralysis on this long-recognized hazard,' noting that EPA officials, well aware of the evidence, worried 'that action to curb perc . could have a devastating effect on the dry-cleaning industry.' In fact, according to Toxic Deception, the EPA has delayed making public its own risk assessment of perc for several years because of industry pressure.