HOW DANGEROUS IS INDOOR MOLD?

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http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/8207/8207indoormold.html

February 16,2004

Volume 82, Number 7

CENEAR 82 7 pp. 57-58

ISSN 0009-2347

HOW DANGEROUS IS INDOOR MOLD?

Evidence continues to accumulate that mold can cause illness, but the

degree of hazard is unclear

" If I take a drop of sulfuric acid and put it in a gallon of water, I

could dump it on you, and it wouldn't make any difference. But if I

were to put that drop of acid right on your skin, it would burn a

hole. The way to think about the toxin issue is that when you inhale

a particle that contains a toxic material--let's say the amount in

one spore--the concentrations in that spore are often in the

millimolar range, quite high in terms of concentration. So when that

one spore lands on one alveolar macrophage, it is going to

significantly damage that cell, kill it maybe. Can you afford to lose

one cell? Yes. " But once a number of cells are damaged,

says, " it would start to matter biologically. "