Re: Mold tests bring good news at courthouse

[Guest guest]

I am not sure everything is good news here. If it is by the ac unit

there must be a problem. And I don't trust air samples. Wonder why

bulk samples weren't tested.

--- In , " tigerpaw2c " <tigerpaw2c@...>

wrote:

>

> Mold tests bring good news at courthouse

> Towanda Daily Review - Towanda,PA*

> BY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN

> STAFF WRITER

> 03/27/2008

>

> http://www.thedailyreview.com/site/news.cfm?

> newsid=19427966 & BRD=2276 & PAG=461 & dept_id=465049 & rfi=6

>

> TOWANDA -- There is good news from recent tests which were done to

> detect if there is airborne mold in the Bradford County Courthouse,

> according to the county maintenance director.

>

> The results of the air tests were " very good, " said Kim Corbett,

> Bradford County maintenance director.

>

> The amount of mold in the air in the courthouse is so small that it

> is not even an issue, he said. The tests showed that the amount of

> mold in the air inside the courthouse was even less that the amount

> in the air outside, he said.

>

>

[Guest guest]

Below is the abstact of a paper published by individuals associated with the

CDC. Note that to rely upon one method for determining mold contamination is

not recommended. In addition, one must compare mold species indoors vs

outdoors. Furthermore, mold spore in the air do not tell anything about

contamination with other bacterial and mold by-products, e.g. glucans,

endotoxins, mycotoxins, MVOCs etc. Jack D. Thrasher, Ph.D.

J Occup Environ Hyg. 2006 May;3(5):262-73. Links

Assessment of fungal contamination in moldy homes: comparison of different

methods.

Niemeier RT, Sivasubramani SK, Reponen T, Grinshpun SA.

Department of Environmental Health, Center for Health-Related Aerosol Studies,

University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45267-0056, USA.

In an effort to better understand the relationship between different fungal

sampling methods in the indoor environment, four methods were used to quantify

mold contamination in 13 homes with visible mold. Swab, fungal spore source

strength tester (FSSST), and air samples (total of 52 samples) were analyzed

using both the microscopic (total spore count) and culture-based (CFU count)

enumeration techniques. Settled dust samples were analyzed for culturable fungi

only, as the microscopic enumeration was restricted by the masking effect. The

relationships between the data obtained with the different sampling methods were

examined using correlation analysis. Significant relationships were observed

between the data obtained from swab and FSSST samples both by the total counting

(r = 0.822, p < 0.05) and by the CFU counting (r = 0.935, p < 0.01). No

relationships were observed between air and FSSST samples or air and settled

dust samples. Percentage culturability of spores for each sampling method was

also calculated and found to vary greatly for all three methods (swab: 0.03% to

63%, FSSST: 0.1% to > 100%, air: 0.7% to 79%). These findings confirm that

reliance on one sampling or enumeration method for characterization of an indoor

mold source might not provide an accurate estimate of fungal contamination of a

microenvironment. Furthermore, FSSST sampling appears to be an effective

measurement of a mold source in the field, providing an upper bound estimate of

potential mold spore release into the indoor air. Because of the small sample

size of this study, however, further research is needed to better understand the

observed relationships in this study.

PMID: 16595378 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed & pubmedid=1659537\

8

Jack D. Thrasher, Ph.D.

[Guest guest]

I just posted on the methods for sampling for mold. One needs to do all three:

bulk, swab, and air sampling. Also, one need to look at species indoors vs

outdoors. Certain species of Aspgerillus and Penicillium as well as

Stachybotrys proliferate indoors. This is old information that can be found in

Sick Building Syndrome, edites by C. Straus.

Jack D. Thrasher, Ph.D.