Guest guest Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 One of my pet peeves is when someone hired by the defense comes into an unoccupied home to do " final clearance testing " and takes only two or three air samples of an unoccupied home, without taking a single swab or bulk sample. NIOSH officials admit this is a waste of time and money. Any thoughts? Any references in the scientific literature, etc.? Dr. L. Lipsey ( 904 )398-2168 550 Water St, #1230, ville, FL 32202 Forensic Toxicologist and Adjunct Instructor, UNF, Div. Continuing Educ, HazMat/OSHA Univ. Fla. Medical Center Jax, Poison Control Board Fla. Comm. College Jax, Institute of Occ. Safety & Health www.richardlipsey.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 What is the advantage of the swab and bulk samples over the airborne samples. Is it because they show the areas of amplification that could be dormant at the time airborne samples are taken. Is it better to have both? RLLIPSEY87@... wrote: One of my pet peeves is when someone hired by the defense comes into an unoccupied home to do " final clearance testing " and takes only two or three air samples of an unoccupied home, without taking a single swab or bulk sample. NIOSH officials admit this is a waste of time and money. Any thoughts? Any references in the scientific literature, etc.? Dr. L. Lipsey ( 904 )398-2168 550 Water St, #1230, ville, FL 32202 Forensic Toxicologist and Adjunct Instructor, UNF, Div. Continuing Educ, HazMat/OSHA Univ. Fla. Medical Center Jax, Poison Control Board Fla. Comm. College Jax, Institute of Occ. Safety & Health www.richardlipsey.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 Kathy, To answer your questions would require a whole course on the application of knowledge and experience of several subjects and how they interrelate. Without considering the specifics of collection procedures, handling and lab analysis techniques and errors. Basically, to verify that a remediation project is clean means you have to think like mold and where it might be in that structure based on the original conditons, airflow patterns, work practices, types of materials-structures-contents, extent of damage, conditions of the workplace at that time, etc, etc. Notice how most of these questions have nothing to do with testing? Are you looking for what remains in the air after the rest has settled out like dust? Or for what has settled like dust but ignore the air? Are you looking for active growth that was missed or separate spores and fragments that came from the active sources? Is it important to separate the pre-existing mold from the new growth? If the occupant is immune compromised and therefore extremely susceptible to INFECTION, then testing for LIVE mold is critical, specifically Aspergillus and it must be speciated. Perhaps the mold has been removed successfully but the bacteria hasn't. Or there are still water damaged materials left in place. According to the Inst of Medicine report, both are as likely to be a problem as mold itself. There MAY be many, many questions that need to be answered. A few of those questions may be answered by testing. But I don't have any faith in a test by itself, no matter how many samples are collected, that claims to definitively determine the broad, general question of remediation success. There are too many other questions that testing can't answer. Like Dr Lipsey said about his pet peeve. It is the over reliance on testing alone that gets most remediators and consultants in trouble and does the most damage to you. Especially when the negative results (that are incorrect) at the end of the job are used by others as justification to ignore your continuing harm. Carl Grimes Healthy Habitats LLC ----- > What is the advantage of the swab and bulk samples over the airborne > samples. Is it because they show the areas of amplification that > could be dormant at the time airborne samples are taken. Is it better > to have both? > > RLLIPSEY87@... wrote: One of my pet peeves is when someone hired > by the defense comes into an unoccupied home to do " final clearance > testing " and takes only two or three air samples of an unoccupied > home, without taking a single swab or bulk sample. NIOSH officials > admit this is a waste of time and money. > > Any thoughts? Any references in the scientific literature, etc.? > > Dr. L. Lipsey ( 904 )398-2168 > 550 Water St, #1230, ville, FL 32202 > Forensic Toxicologist and Adjunct Instructor, > UNF, Div. Continuing Educ, HazMat/OSHA > Univ. Fla. Medical Center Jax, Poison Control Board > Fla. Comm. College Jax, Institute of Occ. Safety & Health > www.richardlipsey.com > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 16, 2005 Report Share Posted November 16, 2005 From what I've read, stachybotrys is virtually undetectable by air testing unless its recently been sporulating. But the old stachy dust is still toxic, it just can't be directly unidentified in a microscope. Thats why remediation has to blast off the mold, as well as suck the killed, removed mold dust away. They need to go inside of all the walls, and replace all the contaminated wallboard and wood. On 11/15/05, RLLIPSEY87@... <RLLIPSEY87@...> wrote: > One of my pet peeves is when someone hired by the defense comes into an > unoccupied home to do " final clearance testing " and takes only two or three air > samples of an unoccupied home, without taking a single swab or bulk sample. > NIOSH officials admit this is a waste of time and money. > > Any thoughts? Any references in the scientific literature, etc.? > > Dr. L. Lipsey ( 904 )398-2168 > 550 Water St, #1230, ville, FL 32202 > Forensic Toxicologist and Adjunct Instructor, > UNF, Div. Continuing Educ, HazMat/OSHA > Univ. Fla. Medical Center Jax, Poison Control Board > Fla. Comm. College Jax, Institute of Occ. Safety & Health > www.richardlipsey.com > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 16, 2005 Report Share Posted November 16, 2005 Well, I know this sounds stupid, but replacing all the wallboard is one thing- if you replace all the wood that means there is nothing to hold up the house- and when I looked into this blasting business- blasting the statchy all over the place seems like the last thing you want to do to something real toxic- the guys who blast ice like it because they don't have any clean up afterwards- the ice just melts-DUH!!!! hey all those invisible toxins are everywhere! The baking soda guys are in such demand-FOR NEW CONSTRUCTION- that it holds up pruduction for 8-10 weeks for them to come in and move your mold around for you- Everybody is trying- but no one is succeeding --- In , LiveSimply <quackadillian@g...> wrote: > > From what I've read, stachybotrys is virtually undetectable by air > testing unless its recently been sporulating. But the old stachy dust > is still toxic, it just can't be directly unidentified in a > microscope. Thats why remediation has to blast off the mold, as well > as suck the killed, removed mold dust away. They need to go inside of > all the walls, and replace all the contaminated wallboard and wood. > > > On 11/15/05, RLLIPSEY87@a... <RLLIPSEY87@a...> wrote: > > One of my pet peeves is when someone hired by the defense comes into an > > unoccupied home to do " final clearance testing " and takes only two or three air > > samples of an unoccupied home, without taking a single swab or bulk sample. > > NIOSH officials admit this is a waste of time and money. > > > > Any thoughts? Any references in the scientific literature, etc.? > > > > Dr. L. Lipsey ( 904 )398-2168 > > 550 Water St, #1230, ville, FL 32202 > > Forensic Toxicologist and Adjunct Instructor, > > UNF, Div. Continuing Educ, HazMat/OSHA > > Univ. Fla. Medical Center Jax, Poison Control Board > > Fla. Comm. College Jax, Institute of Occ. Safety & Health > > www.richardlipsey.com > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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