She lost her job over a paper lab coat. A Brooklyn woman says she was canned from her $18-an-hour gig at Coney Island Hospital after 27 years because she refused to wear the coat, which made her sick.

Whenever London-based cell biologist Jennifer Rohn joins a new lab, she finds herself being ushered over to a cardboard box filled with an array of lab coats. It’s then that she’s given her first task ...