Mold might have been avoided

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Mold might have been avoided Schools didn’t heed advice from experts

Abram Katz , Register Science Editor

09/21/2003

Much of the mold plaguing area schools might have been prevented if health departments and educators had received and heeded advisories issued by the EPA and state Department of Health. Had they read the advice offered by the EPA, schools would have been properly ventilated and kept dry.However, since neither schools nor most health departments maintain formal indoor air quality units, most of the e-mails apparently vanished into the bureaucratic void.Meanwhile, schools are tearing apart walls, ripping out wall board, removing carpeting, sanding, painting and carrying out other anti-mold work, although the health risk posed by mold is unproven and unclear.About 20 schools in Ansonia, East Haven, Fairfield, Hamden, Milford, North Haven, Oxford and West Haven are remediating moldy classrooms this year at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per school.Mold — microbes that thrive on dead materials and reproduce by shedding spores — require moisture to live.Spring and summer were unusually rainy, providing a perfect setting for mold.Moisture levels in many schools was aggravated by locking windows and turning off air conditioning and ventilation systems when the buildings were empty.Some schools shampooed carpets and left them damp in closed rooms, creating a fungal paradise.A summer tip sheet distributed to state health departments in May 2003 specifically advises keeping ventilation running over the summer, monitoring humidity, and making sure carpeting is dry."Wet carpeting + No Ventilation = Mold," the sheet proclaimed.On Aug. 18 the state Department of Public Health distributed an e-mail memo recommending that moldy carpets be steam cleaned and dried and that mold on hard surfaces should be "wiped down" with detergent. The memo concludes, "Please pass this information on to your school administrators and inform them of the potential problems the recent humid weather may have caused."The problem is that the health department memo, if received, was late and the EPA tip sheet apparently landed in the wrong computers, fell on the wrong desk, or was lost. Some who got the word found it less than helpful.Naugatuck Valley Health District Executive Director Spargo said the district was notified by the state Department of Public Health of solutions to the mold contamination in late August — after the mold problems were discovered in Valley schools.She said the memo offered solutions, such as steam cleaning carpets, that would not have done much good after the fact.Spargo said she never saw the EPA recommendations.Dr. A. Dennis McBride, director of the Milford department of health, said he may or may not have received the tip sheet. There’s no way to tell.Eugene Benoit, Indoor Environments Coordinator at EPA New England, said, "The indoor air quality sheet was issued in May."The e-mail attachment was intended as a draft for public comment pending more formal guidelines, he said."Of course the recommendations could be used," he said.The tips were sent to 50 to 60 people, he said, including local health departments and "school organizations.""I didn’t send them to every school in New England. I’m not sure about the extent of distribution," Benoit said. Toal, director of the state health department’s Toxic Hazards Assessment Program, said, "We did a tip sheet. I’m not sure whose hands it fell into."Toal said, "Media attention has sparked an over reaction to moldy situations. If you see it get rid of it."Toal and other experts said that ultimately mold is a water problem."You can’t get rid of the mold. You need to control the amount of moisture," he said.That means finding and fixing leaks and keeping air fresh.That’s easier said than done. School systems do not want to air condition vacant schools and cannot leave windows open and unguarded."Schools may be lax in mold control. We tried to give thoughtful advice. Now it seems important. We didn’t know how pertinent it would be," Toal said."If we had 20/20 vision we would have gotten the word out big," Benoit said.Even if the advice reached schools, it had to find its way to the right person, if there is one, he said."Who should the person be?" he said. Ventilation, air conditioning, building maintenance, budgetary considerations, security and carpeting are governed by different people."This stuff falls through the regulatory cracks, but it needs to be paid attention to," Benoit said.Kenny Foscue, of the state Department of Public Health, is chairman of the CT School Indoor Environment Resource Team, a consortium of 18 state, federal, and non-profit agencies.The Resource Team has planned a conference on Oct. 24 in Hartford to educate school officials about indoor air quality issues, including mold."We really felt like being more proactive. There are no indoor air quality standards and the department has no regulatory ability over schools’ indoor air," he said.Foscue said his ultimate goal is to start the EPA "Tools for Schools" indoor air programs in all of the state’s 260 schools. Tools for Schools provides educational materials about the importance of indoor air quality and ways it can be cleansed.RISKSSome experts believe that chronic exposure to even low concentrations of mold can lead to flu-like symptoms, memory and concentration problems, dizziness, and fatigue.Most physicians contend that mold spores, dead mold, and chemicals produced by mold, can cause no more than transient irritation like itchy eyes and sore throat.Spores can trigger a stronger response in people allergic to mold and could trigger pre-existing asthma, said Dr. A Pippim, a pulmonary and occupational medicine specialist at the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven."The risk of mold is fairly low," Pippim said.Doctors agree that the same level of spores can cause markedly different responses.About 5 to 10 percent of the population is allergic to mold and asthma is soaring, which might explain the different experiences.Lyle Deitch, vice president of American Mold Testing, a company that remediates mold in Connecticut and Massachusetts, said, "Is mold exaggerated? It affects different people different ways."Where you fall on the spectrum governs your view of mold, he said.If it makes you or you child sick it’s a major threat; if mold has no effect then it poses no risk, he said.Pippim said, "Many questions have been answered by ‘expert opinion’ rather than research."Finding the answer experimentally would be difficult, he said.Purposely exposing people to mold would be unethical. Examining men and women with high exposures to mold is complicated because there’s no good way to test for exposure, he said.Comparing schools would require identifying similar schools in different climates, down to the plumbing, ventilation, and number of rooms containing mold.Also, "mold" is not one organism. There are thousands of types, including the common Aspergillus, Penicillium, Alternaria, and cladosporium geni."They are ubiquitous," Pippim said. Mold spores are literally everywhere."Mold" is also not one thing. Mold may consist of microscopic intertwined filaments. Many mold species reproduce by producing spores. Cells produce microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOC) including the chemicals that produce characteristic "mildew" smells.Some mold species also make mycotoxins, large molecules that can wreak physical damage. One example is aflatoxins, a family of chemicals known to cause cancer if eaten.Aflatoxins are produced by Aspergillus and occur in peanuts, pecans, rice, corn, barley, wheat and other foods.Perhaps the most notorious mycotoxins are the trichothecenes synthesized by Stachybotrys, the well-known black slime made famous in magazines and television shows.In fact, Stachybotrys spores do not travel far and the mycotoxins must be inhaled.Moreover, the disease caused by this mold, stachybotrytoxicosis, only occurs in people with massive exposures, including farm workers, and people who work in grain elevators or cottonseed oil plants."Most indoor mold exposure is relatively low," Pippim said."At most, mold would cause irritant symptoms. Once out of the environment you feel better," he said.The risk posed by low levels of mold remains elusive."A tremendous amount of research is going on," said Dr. Eileen Storey, director of the Center for Indoor Environments and Health at the University of Connecticut Health Center."The growing consensus is that mold causes health effects like allergic response, and it contributes to asthma," she said.Likewise, there is no "safe level" of mold. "The consensus is that episodes only occur at high levels. There’s no consensus at low levels.Storey said diagnosis of the more serious complaints of neurological disorders is difficult because dizziness, memory loss and concentration are all subjective and can be affected by a number of conditions.That hardly qualifies for state aid under a new law that took effect July 1.Connecticut will provide money to schools for mold remediation. However, assistance can only be given for "emergencies.""There can be serious consequences to being in the building, but it’s not an emergency," Storey said. "We don’t know what levels are dangerous."

©New Haven Register 2003