I want to show you all just how close we are!!!

[Guest guest]

There is good reason they would like me to be silenced. I am sure they

would like to silence a few others, too. Hopefully, they are learning that

bullying does not work. Below is a request to the Congressional Oversight and

Government Reform Committee. Mulvey son and I flew to DC and hand

delivered this request last fall. There are MANY large groups/organizations

that are supporting us all. There are MANY groups/organizations who understand

what you all have been suffering and why. We are being told that our time is

coming very soon. Sometimes, I feel like I am playing a high stakes poker

game, where I accidentally declared " I'm all in " . LOL

Sharon

September 27, 2007

The Hon. Henry A. Waxman

Chair, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

U.S. House of Representatives

2157 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairman Waxman:

We are writing to call your attention to the widespread and ongoing

promulgation of medical misinformation

regarding the seriousness of mold induced illnesses. The misinformation is

being promoted by private, yet

federally funded medical associations and the government agencies with whom

they partner. The

Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, NIOSH,

ASTDR and OSHA have outsourced the study of mold induced illnesses to those

private medical

associations with close ties to insurance and other stakeholder industries.

As a result the interests of industry have taken precedence over the lives

and safety of the American public.

A recent study by Berkeley Labs and the EPA confirms the large public health

and economic impact of

indoor dampness and mold. (attached) They estimate that the number of asthma

cases alone that are

attributable to mold exposure in homes is 4.6 million people at an annual

cost of $3.5 billion. These numbers

do not reflect even more serious non-respiratory illness brought on by the

toxins produced by molds. Nor do

the numbers reflect the systemic infections that are affecting countless

school children, office workers,

residents and those already susceptible and hospitalized for other

illnesses. Strong evidence indicates that

since the early 2000’s it has been governmental policy to ignore the

severity of these illnesses while

simultaneously redesigning the buildings and construction materials

responsible for the increase in serious

mold induced illnesses.

At the Surgeon General’s Workshop on Indoor Air Quality, January 2005, it

was determined the cycle to

correct the sick building would take approximately 20 years. It was also

determined that the focus would be

on curing the sick buildings and not the sick people. (attached) Through

government agencies and

government funding outsourced to conflicted medical associations, physicians

are being providedmisinformation downplaying the severity of illness while

the building clean up runs its cycle. The public is not being warned of the

dangers.

In January of 2007, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article

(attached) that was headlined: “Court of

Opinion: Amid Suits Over Mold, Experts Wear Two Hats.†The result of a

six-month investigation, the article

outlined how the private medical association, American College of

Occupational and Environmental

Medicine, (ACOEM) played a significant role in denying the severity of mold

induced illnesses. As

occupational physicians, some ACOEM members are employed by large

corporations to evaluate injured

workers on behalf of insurers and employers. Others are employed by risk

management corporations. The

inherent conflict of interest – an organization charged with setting

national protocol to improve occupational

and environmental health care while many of their members work for employers

who may have a financial

stake in limiting care and denying the causation of environmental illness –

was detailed by in The Wall

Street Journal article.

In 2002, a physician and a PhD who frequently testify in mold lawsuits as

expert witnesses for the defense

were specifically brought into ACOEM to author the organization’s position

statement on mold. The third

author brought in, Hardin, PhD, had recently retired as Deputy

Director of NIOSH, Assistant Surgeon

General. He was starting a second career representing employers and insurers

in mold litigation. None were

prior members of ACOEM nor did they have expertise in mycotoxin research.

Dr. Hardin’s membership was

provided gratis.

Contrary to symptoms continually being reported across the United States,

the resulting position statement

by the three authors ignores the evidence of symptoms indicative of

poisoning (toxicity) to conclude it is

“highly unlikely at best even in the most vulnerable of subpopulationsâ€

that people experience these

symptoms from exposure to microbial contaminants found within water damaged

buildings. To form this

conclusion, the authors made their own calculations from second-hand data

based on a single rodent study.

The calculations and their conclusion have never been duplicated. No

peer-reviewed papers, including those

referenced in the ACOEM mold statement, share their conclusion. The Wall

Street Journal quoted Dr.

Harriet Ammann, Senior Toxicologist for the Washington State Department of

Health as saying “They [the

ACOEM authors] took hypothetical exposure and hypothetical toxicity and

jumped to the conclusion there is

nothing there. "

With the imprimatur of ACOEM, this unsupported dismissal of mold-induced

illness has been used

extensively and authoritatively in mold litigation throughout the nation to

deny financial liability for insurers,employers and others when illness

brought on by exposures to moldy buildings occur. It has also caused the

physicians of America to wrongfully perceive that mold does not cause serious

illness.

In 2003, a corporation of which two ACOEM mold authors are principals, was

then paid $40,000 by the

conservative think-tank, Manhattan Institute, to convert the position

statement into what they refer to as a

“lay translationâ€. The edited version of the ACOEM Mold Statement was then

shared through the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce with stakeholder industries – real estate, mortgage,

building and insurance. The

bottom line of the “lay translationâ€: “Thus the notion that ‘toxic

mold’

is an insidious secret ‘killer’ as so

many media reports and trial lawyers would claim is ‘Junk Science’

unsupported by actual scientific study.â€

Merely one example of the influence the ACOEM mold statement has had on

government understanding of

mold induced illnesses is the 2006 handbook of the Occupational Health &

Safety Administration:

“Preventing Mold-Related Problems In The Indoor Workplace – A Guide For

Building Owners, Managers

and Occupants.†The OSHA handbook ignores the findings of thousands of

peer-reviewed papers, including

findings of the NIH Institute of Medicine, but cites the ACOEM mold

statement three times. It also cites an

additional paper by principals of the corporation that authored the ACOEM

mold statement three times.

Another co-author of those papers is an ACOEM member and prolific defense

witness in mold litigation.

(This ACOEM member was the subject of an NBC Dateline investigation into

claims denials by State Farm

Insurance, titled The Paper Chase. Attached) The OSHA handbook reinforces

the ACOEM line, saying:

“Mycotoxins [molds] have not been shown to cause health problems for

occupants at concentrations usually

seen in residential or commercial buildings.†Although much is yet to be

understood about the mechanisms

of mold-induced illness, to promote the concept that is has been

scientifically established that toxins found

within water damaged buildings do not cause health problems is simply

untrue, and echoes the position taken by many ACOEM members when testifying as

defense expert witnesses.

An illustration of how the misinformation has been dispersed to the medical

community with the assistance

of government funding is the Association of Occupational and Environmental

Clinics (AOEC). AOEC is a

nonprofit occupational physician organization affiliated with ACOEM. The two

associations’ leadership are

virtually interchangeable. Some members hold key positions within the

National Occupational Research

Agenda (NORA) and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATDSR).

According to its

website, _www.aoec.org_ (http://www.aoec.org) , AOEC is a non-profit

organization with several of its clinics focusing on

environmental illnesses. AOEC receives significant financial support through

multi-year cooperative

agreements with the ATDSR and the National Institute for Occupational Safety

and Health (NIOSH). Under

these agreements, AOEC is charged with developing curriculum materials for

occupational and environmental health education and providing continuing

education programs for primary care practitioners

and others. The federal funding is to be used to aid in identifying,

reporting and preventing occupational and

environmental health hazards and to provide a means for

occupational/environmental health clinics to share

information that will better enable them to diagnose and treat

occupational/environmental diseases. With

regard to mold induced illnesses, AOEC preaches the teachings of its sister

organization, ACOEM, when

mis-educating the physicians of America.

ACOEM and AOEC have clearly misused government funding to promote false

science that harms

Americans to the financial benefit of stakeholder industries. Through the

federally funded capacity to

influence occupational health care, they have allowed employers –

corporations who are a source of income

to the organizations’ members – to gain undue and improper influence over

public and private policy with

regard to mold induced illnesses. In addition, AOEC controls the funding for

Pediatric Environmental Health

Specialty Units (PEHSU) that are located at various teaching hospitals and

clinics across the nation. PEHSU has been charged with advancing the

understanding of environmental illness in children. This means much control in

advancing the understanding of environmental illness for all US citizens has

been

placed in the hands of the inherently conflicted medical practice of

occupational medicine.

Given the organizational biases of ACOEM and AOEC, their close affiliations

with industry, their close

affiliations with government agencies, the funding and contracts outsourced

from these government

agencies; and most importantly, given their influence over the practice of

environmental medicine

nationwide, it is appropriate that Congress exercise oversight. We therefore

request that as Chair of the

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, you conduct an investigation

into the genesis, usage,

proliferation and ramifications of the ACOEM mold statement.

Thank you for your leadership in assuring that the scientific integrity of

our nation’s health and

environmental agencies remains uncompromised, and thank you for your

attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Sharon Noonan Kramer Ms.

Mulvey son

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