Tear gas and a pandemic

Both the chemical weapon and COVID-19 attack the respiratory system

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Arielle Letherwood-Fritz was out protesting Sunday evening in Madison’s Mansion Hill neighborhood when she got sprayed with tear gas. She tells Isthmus it felt as if she were rubbing her eyes with the juice of a jalapeño. 

“The tears come, then you can’t breathe. You start coughing so hard that you gag, spit or vomit.” She says she had a visceral emotional reaction as well. “What is even more painful is the fact that the people who are supposed to be protecting you are inflicting this pain on you. It’s traumatic and scary. That hurt the most.

“The fact that we are being tear-gassed during a pandemic driven by a respiratory disease is profoundly wicked,” adds Letherwood-Fritz. She says she still felt the effects of the gas after 24 hours, along with a headache and persistent cough. 

All over the country, civilians and journalists alike are being sprayed with tear gas, pepper spray and “less than lethal” rounds of ammunition as communities protest injustice against Black people and police brutality. In the background lies a deadly pandemic, already claiming the lives of over 100,000 Americans.

The Madison Police Department on the evenings of May 30 and 31 used both tear gas and pepper spray during confrontations with mostly peaceful protesters downtown.

Exposure to tear gas, an indiscriminate chemical weapon, has numerous health effects, both acute and chronic. Different studies have found that exposed individuals experience a persistent cough, chest pain, and breathing difficulties, as well as other symptoms lasting for weeks or even months. COVID-19 has some similar symptoms and we know it attacks the respiratory system. 

International treaties have ruled tear gas illegal during wartime, and yet it is commonly used here in the United States as a police tactic for crowd control. In Madison, says police department spokesperson Joel DeSpain in an email, “chemical agents” are used “to protect lives and property.”

Tear gas is meant to irritate all exposed membranes. That is what the compounds do. Many of the studies on the effects of tear gas come from case reports. In 1992, David Christiani, now professor of environmental genetics at Harvard University, and a colleague followed a woman who was exposed to tear gas in a nightclub. Shortly after exposure, she developed asthma, which she still suffered from a year later. 

“There’s a great chance she [now] has chronic asthma,” says Christiani in a phone interview. “So, these are not benign agents, despite what some claims might be from certain authorities. It’s not good to breathe it in, it could have short term acute and lasting respiratory effects.

“What you are seeing in a lot of use recently reminds me of the ’60s, ’70s and my time in college — it’s just indiscriminate use in a lot of cases and it’s very dangerous to do this to populations.” 

What is known about COVID-19 is that people with pre-existing conditions, like severe asthma and chronic lung disease, are at higher risk for severe illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control. 

The biggest risk of COVID-19 infection spreading is people not practicing social distancing, Christiani stresses. “That creates a hazard in and of itself.” But, he says, “adding the gas may well add some additional risk.” 

 “Obviously, this is a new virus. Common sense would suggest that if you irritate the respiratory tract, and damage it with severe inflammation, you may well become more susceptible to the virus.” Right now, however, there is no scientific evidence either way, just “scientifically based clinical suspicion,” says Christiani. 

St. Mary’s Hospital has seen some patients who were exposed to tear gas during the May 30-31 protests. Dr. Ryan Tomburrini, an emergency department physician, says he is concerned about how COVID-19 might spread if someone exposed to tear gas had the disease. “[Tear gas] causes patients to cough or sneeze and those things are related to the spread of any viral infection.”

Asymptomatic spread has been a main reason for the rapid spread of COVID-19. If an asymptomatic carrier is coughing, spitting or vomiting — all common reactions to tear gas — the likelihood of spread increases.

Tomburrini recommends that individuals self-isolate if they start to feel run down a few days after any group gathering. And those who have any symptoms of COVID-19 should contact their healthcare provider or utilize testing at the Alliant Energy Center.

Gretchen Rolfs had participated all day Saturday in the protest organized by Freedom Inc., Urban Triage and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. After watching online what was unfolding that evening, she decided to go out the next night with some friends in an effort to “be a good ally” and put themselves between the police and people of color. They arrived a little before 11 p.m.

She says she couldn’t see the tear gas but could smell it. 

“It smelled chemically,” says Rolfs. 

Eventually, she joined a crowd of people who were standing with their hands up, chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot!” and was pushed back toward the Edgewater Hotel. It was there that Rolfs and her friends, in an effort to escape the tear gas, were kettled into an area where they were sprayed directly in the face, from about two feet, with pepper spray. 

“Immediately we were blind, our backs were turned and the police kept spraying us. I have asthma — I started panicking, and felt it go right into my lungs,” recounts Rolfs. “I had my inhaler but I couldn’t even get to it, I couldn’t even really walk. I didn’t know where I was.” 

People nearby pulled her and her friends into a house, where others were being cared for. Nearly 24 hours later, Rolfs has tried using her inhaler for relief, but still has trouble with coughing. 

Rolfs reflects on what happened to her, “I know...way worse can happen to [Black people],” she says. “I got maced. It sucks for about 45 minutes, but I can handle that — I want to be on the right side of history.”