You could tell. He thought we were a bunch of loonies

[Guest guest]

AirwaysEnv@... wrote:

> ,

>

> It sounds like you have a nice set-up there, vehicle-wise.

>

> How do you sense the mold zones? Is it by odor? If so, charcoal

filtration in addition to the HEPA might be helpful to scrub the

volatile compounds. Filtering particles is a necessary first step

because the " offending agents " (call them mycotoxins if you want,

but I personally wouldn't make that assumption) are on the

particles. The volatiles, themselves, will go right through the

> HEPA. In fact, as the particles containing volatiles accumulate on

the filter, the filter will be a continuous SOURCE of volatiles.

This is why the combination of HEPA and charcoal might be more

effective in keeping the bad stuff out. And why it's a good idea to

have a cheap prefilter upstream that you would change more

frequently to extend the life of the HEPA.

>

> Steve Temes

>

EXTREMELY PERSPICACEOUS of you!

This " filter buildup " of toxins can be extremely important to

a " Moldie " .

I cannot linger in " mold zones " and only use the Hepa system while I

am passing through, for the very reason you describe - and then shut

it off when safe.

I actually angered people in Sickbuildings for explaining that one

absolutely cannot use odor as a reliable indicator of exposure.

This would have people making many useless and misguided efforts to

avoid mostly harmless MVOC's. - and placing even perhaps less

emphasis on the seemingly innocuous acrid sensation from mycotoxins

that often has no accompanying odor at all.

I rely on my sense of perception and " symptom shift " from my years

of experience at recognizing " mold hits " .

Are you familiar with the history of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

In 1985,Dr became alarmed at a group of teachers who all

became ill in a common setting and called the CDC - which grudgingly

responded by sending Kaplan and Jon Holmes out to

investigate " Tahoe Mystery Illness " - and the decades-long " CFS "

debacle was born.

I'm a graduate of that high school, and tried to tell Dr Cheney and

Dr about the weird mold effect at the time - but my " mold

clues " were completely ignored until Dr Shoemaker heard my story, and

placed it in his book " Mold Warriors " .

(Chapt 23. " Mold at Ground Zero for CFS " )

One of the teachers, Gerald Kennedy, was suspicious about

that " filter buildup " of " something " in the school, but nobody could

make sense of this phenomenon at the time.

The lost-and-forgotten vestiges of our specific complaints are still

to be found in Hillary 's terrific book about our

experience, ....if one knows what they are looking at.

-MW

Osler's Web:

Inside the Labyrinth of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic

by Hillary

Page 49.

Neither Cheney nor can recall Holmes or Kaplan ever asking

to see patients. In fact, according to Cheney, the investigators at

first begged off. " We asked them, 'Do you want to see anybody?

We'll bring some people into the office.' "

The investigators, by Cheney's account, were vastly more interested

in studying patient charts than patients. It is Cheney's

recollection that Holmes and Kaplan spoke to fewer than ten people

with the disease, and all of them virtually by coincidence. " No

detailed histories were taken, " Cheney said. " We dragged and

Jon upstairs and had them feel a spleen here or a lymph node there,

but they engaged in no systematic examination of even a subset of

these patients. "

Truckee High teachers Gerald and Janice Kennedy met Holmes, but

Gerald Kennedy confirmed, " It wasn't by his request -- it was by

ours. " Upon arriving for an appointment with , they learned

from the doctor's staff that a federal investigator was on the

premises. Gerald Kennedy, by now convinced that he, Janice, and

their Truckee High colleagues had been victims of an environmentally

transmitted disease, sought a meeting with him. Apparently Holmes

was agreeable. " We went into the examining room and asked him some

questions, " Kennedy said. High among the teachers concerns was the

possibility that fumes from the ditto machine toner -- which, after

all, was packaged in a can decorated with skull and crossbones -- had

made the teachers ill. Another culprit proposed by Kennedy was the

encrusted, infrequently changed air filters in the room's heating

system. Could they have allowed a viral agent to infect the teachers?

" I remember telling him about the filters. " Kennedy said. " You

could tell he thought we were a bunch of loonies. That was early

into it, and we were still thinking, Well, maybe we ARE crazy. But

you would think that we would still be questioned, at least, and

there weren't a lot of questions. He just nodded his head and

said 'Uh-huh, uh-huh,' Very little information was exchanged. " By

his countenance of indifference, Holmes communicated his bias to the

Kennedys: " He seemed to have already made up his mind about us. "