‘Dulce’: How a sweet-smelling chemical upended life in Salinas, Puerto Rico

An industrial worker got one whiff of ethylene oxide. Twenty years later, he still hasn’t recovered — and his community is searching for answers.

On the day of his hospitalization, Morales and several coworkers had just removed a pallet of sterilized equipment from the chamber. Once the door to the chamber was closed, Morales and the others took off their gas masks, as was standard. Morales noticed that one vial of biological material was missing. He identified the box he’d overlooked and to be sure that it was sterilized, he opened it.

One memory that has always remained vivid for Morales is what he smelled when he opened the box. “Dulce,” Morales said to describe the scent; it was sweet, unlike anything he’d smelled before.

When they spoke after the accident, Steri-Tech founder and CEO Jorge Vivoni assured Morales that the plant was safe. According to Morales, Vivoni told him that his condition was the result of congenital epilepsy, not workplace exposure. But during his recovery, Morales decided to read about the effects of inhaling ethylene oxide and recognized that he had experienced all the symptoms of acute exposure: headaches, dizziness, twitchiness, and seizures.

Research since Morales’ incident has shown that ethylene oxide can damage DNA structures — an ability that makes it both an effective sterilizer and a carcinogen. When it is inhaled by humans, it can irritate the respiratory pathways and increase the risk of cancer and negative health effects in unborn children. About 50 percent of the medical equipment in the U.S. and its territories is sterilized this way.