Monday Morning Mold June 14, 2004

June 14, 2004

This week's lead photo is of Aspergillus niger, from the Tilex website. Aspergillus niger can cause allergic fungal sinusitis.

This week's mold book is Carpet Monsters and Killer Spores - A Natural History of Toxic Mold by Nicholas P. Money. This book is one of the funniest books I have ever read. It's so good, I stopped after the first chapter and e-mailed a fan letter to Dr. Money - and that was before I came across the following, "Now, we turn to a newly identified species, one that has formed a firm symbiotic relationship with Stachybotrys. This impressive beast is called the black mold attorney."

MIRAMAR, Fla. - Fuzzy black mold has chased a group of firefighters out of their station and into a temporary trailer nearby, fire officials said.

The spores thrive on ceiling tiles and in shower stalls and air ducts at Miramar's Station 70, flaring up every time the air conditioning goes out.

Richmond American Homes, Colorado's largest home builder, has spent nearly $19 million to repair Front Range homes plagued by mold and water damage.

Richmond's "water intrusion and mold" bills for 2,648 single-family homes over the past decade were disclosed in a federal lawsuit against four liability insurers.

A group of parents angry over the school district's handling of mold contamination at two schools are campaigning to recall two board members they say ignored the problem.

Washington Township Parents Who Care began the process this week, collecting 930 signatures on a petition to recall Eileen Abbott and Carol Saghirian.

PEPPERELL -- "How come you didn't come to us first?" Board of Health member Robert Lambert asked Nancy Davis, former Shawnee Road resident whose family was forced to abandon their mold-infested home late last year.

Davis, who has a pending lawsuit against both real estate brokers and a home inspector involved in the original sale of the property, said that had she done so and the health board condemned the property, her family would have had no place to go.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Two dorms at N.C. Central University are open for use after renovations forced by mold that infested the air conditioning system and walls.

Gov. Mike Easley toured part of the buildings Tuesday with university Chancellor James Ammons. The governor graduated from the university's law school.

PITTSBURGH, June 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MSA (Amex: MSA - News), the world's leading manufacturer of safety equipment, today said it is shipping approximately 3,000 air-purifying respirators to assist flood victims in Southeastern Michigan. Flood waters have saturated much of Southeastern Michigan, leaving thousands of home owners in 40 counties faced with the task of dealing with damaged and destroyed properties.

Responding to a request from Mold Relief, Inc., a nonprofit organization, MSA is providing the respirators to help protect residents involved in flood clean-up from exposure to non-toxic mold and mold spores generated from excess water. If not properly protected, exposure to mold can result in eye irritation, runny nose, sore throat, sneezing, nasal and sinus congestion, coughing, wheezing, breathing difficulty, rhinitis, asthmatic episodes, headaches and fatigue.

This website has tons of useful links, including a link to the Navy Environmental Health Center's "Mold Remediation Wheel" (click on the link with NEHC in it).

Damp or flooded basements, bathrooms with inadequate ventilation, ceilings after roof leaks and other areas of a home damaged by moisture can all create indoor air quality problems. Mold, mildew and fungus can growth in damp environment, and release spores and other allergens that impact indoor air quality. People living or working in moldy environments can suffer hayfever-like symptoms or other more serious health problems.

The Fulton County Jail is becoming increasingly dangerous and unhealthy because of crowding and inadequate security, according to a monitor appointed to survey conditions at the jail.

Immediate intervention by county officials is needed to prevent serious harm to staff and inmates, according to a new report by Robert Greifinger, who has monitored the jail since a federal lawsuit was filed in 1999.

Three residence halls at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville are plagued with mold that is costing $10 million to remove. University administrators intend to recover the cost by suing the contractors who built the halls.

Mold first started appearing in the residence halls last summer. Condensation was building up within the walls because of high humidity in the buildings, according to Dave Partney, assistant director of facilities management.

The sound of hail pelting a Panhandle roof might have a cash register ring to it these days.

Homeowner's insurance premium rates in Moore County are the highest in the nation, and the extreme weather that is as much a part of the landscape as the variegated sunrises and sunsets is part of the reason.

If Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) were reincarnated as a mycologist, he would have written this book. Dr. Money's liberal dose of irreverent humor makes his very detailed, erudite book on toxic mold easy and enjoyable to read.

In the preface, Dr. Money says, "Widespread fears about black-mold toxins are a product of the new millennium and deserve a critical, balanced, scientific inquirty. Though I cannot promise anything that boring, I do hope I can dispel some of the media myths about these microorganisms while identifying the real threat that can be posed by a few of these fungi."

Stachybotrys plays a key role in this book. In Chapter 5, Dr. Money discusses the 1993 outbreak of pulmonary hemmorraging (bleeding lungs) in poor children living in Cleveland. When Dr. Money began his book, he first thought that stachybotrys might be an innocent victim of media hype. However, he discovered that stachybotrys chrtarum can produce highly toxic spores. Along with the Cleveland outbreak, he discusses an outbreak of stachybotryotoxicosis in the Soviet Union in the 1940's, and illnesses linked to Stachybotrys among horticulture workers in Europe. Dr. Money also talks about the science used to evaluate the links between Stachybotrys and illnesses, and some of the political issues at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that caused the CDC to soft-pedal Stachybotrys.

"Your Verdict, Please" (Chapter 6) is an overview of mold litigation. It has a very thorough discussion of what happened to Melinda Ballard's home, the resulting litigation, and a breakdown of what the jury awarded Ms. Ballard - and why. Dr. Money also discusses the reduction of the $32 million award to $4 million. This chapter also has a good discussion of how the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Daubert affected the Ballard case.

Dr. Money also discusses mycological warfare -- and he is not using the term as an analogy to what happens in a house with mold. He is discussing the development of mycotoxins as a weapon in armed conflicts.

This website is place where words you've made up can become part of an actual online dictionary! slang, webspeak, colloquialisms...you name it, if you know a word that should be in the dictionary but isn't, submit it and it will be posted on this site.

Here's a fun definitions: laws of irony - Laws so solid they almost rank up there with Newton's Law of Gravity in infalliblity. Though plural, the laws of irony dictate one point -- that whoever is cocky about something or some situation will soon be humiliated in some way relating to the pride. e.g., I saw the laws of irony at work yesterday when Chris bragged about her gracefulness and then tripped over a chair and fell down the stairs.