Southern Occupational Health Center

Tucked away in a cramped corner of UC Irvine's Southern Occupational Health Center sits a shiny new hybrid of high technology, a half-million-dollar machine that could unlock long-sought secrets about the effects of toxic chemicals on humans. At first glance, the "interactive laser cytometer" looks like a fancy microscope with a couple of television monitors incongruously attached.

Tucked away in a cramped corner of UC Irvine's Southern Occupational Health Center sits a shiny new hybrid of high technology, a half-million-dollar machine that could unlock long-sought secrets about the effects of toxic chemicals on humans. At first glance, the "interactive laser cytometer" looks like a fancy microscope with a couple of television monitors incongruously attached.

Kathy O'Gorman didn't consider her workplace very hazardous. As a proofreader at Pacific Volt in Anaheim, she wasn't using heavy machinery or handling industrial chemicals, and everything around her seemed modern and clean. But shortly after she started the job, she began to have persistent flu symptoms, chronic fatigue and irregular menstrual cycles. It wasn't until a noxious odor permeated her workplace one day that she made any connection between her job and illness.