The Menace of Mold

[Guest guest]

IN BRIEF

The Menace of Mold

By W. Gleason

http://www.emagazine.com/view/?3610

Iris Harden knew that something in her Harlem, Georgia house was

making her sick. " I wasn't educated. I didn't know it was mold, " she

says. " All I knew was that something in that house was doing it to

me. " She had a good idea of the cause after environmental testing

found elevated levels of mold spores in her kitchen and bedroom. Her

discomfort, headaches and a burning sensation around her eyes became

so acute that she had to move out of the house.

Georgia resident Iris Harden suffered from serious infection and

illness due to mold.

© IRIS HARDEN

Harden contacted Dr. Aristo Vojdani of Immunosciences Lab in Beverly

Hills, California, who agreed to perform blood and DNA tests free of

charge. What he found stunned him: two types of mold, aspergillus

and stachybotrys, were actually in Harden's blood. " That was really

the alarm, " Vojdani says. " I've done 20,000 to 30,000 tests, and her

results are in the top one percent. " Vojdani suspects that airborne

mycotoxins, released by the mold in Harden's walls and floor,

entered her lungs and diffused into her bloodstream. A previous

medical procedure had compromised Harden's immune system, making her

more susceptible to a systemic mold infection.

During a 2003 symposium, Dr. Croft, a forensic toxicologist

who has also examined Harden, delivered a paper that outlined three

stages of mycotoxin poisoning. Phase one lasts for only a few days.

The mold affects the nervous, respiratory and immune systems,

causing headaches, fatigue, and a burning sensation in the eyes and

ears. During the second phase, the infected person initially feels

less discomfort. However, as the infection spreads throughout the

body, visible hemorrhages appear on the skin, and the person may

become depressed or have trouble with short-term memory. This phase

can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few years, depending on the

level of exposure. The third phase arrives suddenly in the form of a

major organ failure, usually the brain, heart or lungs. In Dr.

Croft's opinion, Harden was teetering on the edge of the second

phase. " Without treatment of the affected systems, at this stage in

the disease, the prognosis is poor, with therapy guarded, " he wrote

of Harden.

Dr. Croft's findings are controversial. Some researchers claim that

the worst mold can do is exacerbate allergies, while others remain

undecided. Dr. Doug Rice of Colorado State University is among the

latter. " I've seen people profoundly affected by molds, " he

says. " Some people are highly affected, some are not, " he says. " It

is, unfortunately, a very open issue—there's such a dichotomy of

belief out there. " He says that mold most seriously affects people

with weakened immune systems, such as Harden.

Meanwhile, the treatment Harden is receiving in North Carolina has

succeeded in removing one of the molds from her blood.

— W. Gleason

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