HEALTH: SICK SCHOOLS SYNDROME

[Guest guest]

HEALTH: SICK SCHOOLS SYNDROME

Globe and Mail - Canada*

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080607.CENTRE07/TP

Story/Focus/Ontario/?pageRequested=1

'When kids are sitting there scratching and they can't concentrate

on their little test, it just breaks your heart'

Teachers are complaining, children are suffering, even Health Canada

admits that mould is 'toxic' - but the schools of Lambton Kent

District still haven't been able to get anyone to clean up their

classrooms. Leeder reports

JESSICA LEEDER

June 7, 2008

PETROLIA, ONT. -- The fall of 2005 marked a fresh start for Jackie

Pynaert, a veteran teacher beginning a new eighth-grade teaching

assignment at Queen II primary school in Petrolia, Ont.

Her homeroom was P1, a portable classroom across the hall from two

friendly teachers who had a long history with the school.

Still, it wasn't long before Ms. Pynaert, then 42, found herself

having a tough time in class.

" I started having flu-like symptoms, chills for two months, and I

couldn't shake them, " she said. " I was coughing, wheezing, we're

talking coughing until you nearly bring up a lung. I had rashes all

over my face. " The students told her that the teacher who had the

room before her coughed the same way.

Puzzled, Ms. Pynaert began to dig into building maintenance records.

The school where she worked, a one-storey brick building in the

Lambton Kent District School Board, had gone through several

additions during its 56 years, including one that resulted in a

cluster of eight temporary classrooms (one of which was Ms.

Pynaert's) being tacked onto the school's west wing to accommodate

an influx of students.

Ms. Pynaert was horrified by what she learned from the records. As

far back as 2002, teachers were reporting " squishy " floors and

rotting wood in the portables. In 2004, teachers were complaining

about headaches and constant colds. The last teacher in her room

went to the emergency room twice with symptoms similar to her own:

breathing difficulties, chronic fatigue, headaches, nausea. He also

had painful sores in his nose.

When class was out, his symptoms would fade or disappear.

By December of 2005, Ms. Pynaert's lips were swelling when she

entered her classroom, pockets of liquid had begun pouching beneath

her eyes and a white, filmy fungus was growing on her face. She also

coughed " until I sprayed urine. I was losing bladder control. My

bladder muscle was giving out. " She couldn't shake the belief that

something in the classrooms was making people sick.

Ms. Pynaert is not the first teacher to develop such a hunch. In

nearly every province in recent years, educators have raised alarms

about strange illnesses they think are caused by mould.

Health Canada says mould is " toxic, " and no amount of it indoors is

safe, but there are no laws or policies that require school boards

to search out hidden moulds. And because the boards fall under

provincial jurisdiction - and the provinces have no official

policies on what specific tests should be done by boards to ensure

schools are mould-free - how mould complaints are handled by school

boards can vary considerably.

Many whistle-blowers have been able to muster enough public

pressure - often with the help of intense local media coverage - to

force school administrators to deal with the problem.

However, no group of mould-battling teachers has succeeded in

creating a strong enough precedent for subsequent sufferers to draw

on. Often, when teachers' symptoms disappear, so does the mould

issue from public discourse - until the next round of unknowing

teachers is struck.

The battle over mould in Lambton Kent, which covers a sprawling

rural area with 67 schools, 54 of which house elementary teachers

and students, began brewing more than five years ago, when several

teachers from across the district independently began making health

complaints.

Some had itchy red rashes, constant congestion, phlegm buildup, ear

fungus, bloody noses or hives. For others, there was unexplained

facial swelling, skin lumps, growths, coughing attacks, bowel

problems, stomachaches, searing headaches and chronic fatigue.

" Everybody had to stay drugged to get through work, " said Johanne

Tranquille, a French teacher who had been working in portable

classrooms since 1990 - across the hall from Ms. Pynaert - and

coughed constantly, broke out in red facial rashes and suffered bad

sinus problems.

Ms. Tranquille said she would drag herself to work in spite of her

symptoms out of fears that " nobody would help the kids. " But it was

tough. " I told my mom one time, 'I think I'll have to quit teaching.

I'm too sick.' "

Laurel Liddicoat-Newton, an elementary teacher at Lansdowne Public

School in Sarnia, had to have an egg-sized growth, which her doctor

said " bloomed " because of something in her environment, surgically

removed from her neck. Brimming with frustration at unresolved

health problems in her school, she joined a health and safety

committee in hopes of spurring a fix.

That's when Ms. Liddicoat-Newton learned that her colleagues and

their students were suffering too. From 2002 to 2005, records show,

Lansdowne teachers filed more than a dozen official complaints

requesting air-quality tests in the school's portables. After an

expert tester was finally contracted by the school board to deal

with the portables, no less than 84 square metres of mouldy and

water-damaged materials were cut out of the structure.

However, upon their return to the classrooms - after air sampling

deemed the rooms acceptable - the teachers still felt ill. In the

ensuing months, a repetitive cycle began in which mould was found,

removed and found again.

Amid that cycle, Ms. Liddicoat-Newton found a " garden of mould "

beneath a portable that had supposedly been cleaned.

" It was black earth, covered with orange and white and yellow and

green, like cauliflowers, for as far as you can see, " she said.

Exasperated, she ultimately led a work refusal in March, 2007.

" I'm not a person who stands out and fights. I will avoid conflict

at all costs, " she said. " I've always been a fixer. I don't like

confrontation and arguing, especially in public. But I want it to be

safe for the kids. Those little kids are developing immune systems.

And they're getting sick. "

One of those was Ethan Dickhout, a seven-year-old at a Chatham

public school who is literally scarred from reactions he had in the

classroom, his mother said.

" He started to get the spots all over his body. First it was on his

forehead. Then it was on his stomach, his legs, all over his arms, "

said Billie Jo on. " It has caused him to have three or four

bald spots on the back of his head where hair will not grow back. "

When the rash was at its worst, a manager at a Chatham fast-food

outlet asked Mrs. on not to bring Ethan into the

restaurant. " He asked me to leave because it was making the other

customers on edge, " she said.

Since Ethan switched schools last fall, his problems have cleared up.

Teachers began turning to their union, the Elementary Teachers'

Federation of Ontario, for help. At group meetings held to air

concerns, Ms. Pynaert was the first to talk about her health

problems, which have forced the 45-year-old to take an extended

leave from work.

Soon, more teachers began to speak out.

Jodi Mandeno, a Grade 2 teacher from Chatham, said she was taking

eight allergy pills a day so that she could go to school without her

body breaking out in hives. The 32-year-old had logged official

health and safety complaints about her classroom, but also changed

her diet, laundry detergents and body wash and even traded in her

brand-new car - out of concern she was allergic to the seat

coverings - to try stopping the hives. Only on March Break, when she

spent a week away from her school, did the huge welts disappear.

Afterward, she began documenting her students' symptoms too. By her

count, 14 out of 19 students in the class were suffering, mainly

from headaches, red rashes and respiratory problems. One youngster

had such bad migraines that his mother was often called to take him

home.

" When kids are sitting there scratching and they can't concentrate

on their little test, it just breaks your heart, " she said.

TEACHERS SILENCED

With the onslaught of complaints showing no signs of abating - by

fall, 2007, Ministry of Labour inspectors had made more than 30

visits to district schools and issued stop-work orders for 16 rooms -

the school board agreed to start cleaning up the problems in

elementary buildings. Their pledge, which will cost about $1-million

a year, was a welcome surprise for teachers. But it came with a

condition: The plan would go forward only if the outspoken teachers

responsible for drawing attention to mould problems agreed to

silence their complaints. Grudgingly, the teachers, via their union,

agreed to the deal.

The Globe and Mail's interviews - nearly two dozen teachers and

parents from across the school district talked about the ailments

they link to time spent in district schools - all took place before

the gag order went into effect.

In the months since then, Om Malik, principal of Environmental

Consulting and Occupational Health Management Inc., based in

Mississauga, was contracted to inspect all of Lambton Kent's

elementary schools. He uncovered mould and indoor air-quality

problems in most of the nine buildings he has seen, as well as

repeated signs of shoddy upkeep: rodent excrement, leaky windows and

clogged air exchanges.

For the schools he has seen so far, the inspector has recommended a

broad slate of often-expensive remedies. With four dozen more

schools left to be inspected, worries persist that the schools will

not be fixed.

It's a concern that school board officials have tried to strike down.

Gayle Stucke, chair of the Lambton Kent school board, said all the

classrooms will be inspected, as per the agreement with the union.

But she also said that " the idea of a mould-free building is not

realistic. "

" Mould in buildings has been an issue forever. ... When you have

mould, it's cleared up and six months later it shows again. "

Friends of Ms. Pynaert said she has begun considering a second

career out of worries that returning to her classroom would make her

sick.

Ms. Stucke, who would not discuss the specifics of any teacher's

case with The Globe, rejected the possibility, saying: " There's no

medical evidence that in fact those symptoms are caused by

mould. ... There's no scientific connection. "

Mould has been present in the environment since biblical days, but

the science around it remains patchy and controversial. And though

the term " toxic mould " has become a mainstay in popular vernacular,

there is still fierce debate in the medical community over whether

it is the sole culprit for illnesses it appears to cause.

" We all agree that there are a number of health issues. We don't

understand them all, " said Dr. , an Ottawa-based expert

who has helped to develop federal guidelines.

One problem is the sheer number of mould species - there are

hundreds of thousands.

Another is that " the constellation of symptoms people can

potentially experience are quite varied, " according to

Bartlett, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia's

School of Environmental Health who has been studying mould issues

since the early 1990s.

" This is the crux of why these things are so difficult to sort out.

The medical community has no problem with the concept that people in

mould-infested places can experience a wide variety of respiratory

symptoms, " she said. " There is no consensus in what happens for

other kinds of symptoms. We don't have a nice clean test that can be

applied that gives us a result. "

There is one controversial American doctor who says he does.

Ritchie C. Shoemaker is a land-based family physician who began

delving into bacteria and mould medicine in the mid-1990s, when some

of his long-time patients - swimmers and fishermen - began

complaining of memory problems, fatigue, coughs, chronic pains,

diarrhea and sensitivity to bright light.

Dr. Shoemaker ultimately connected their illnesses to an outbreak of

Pfiesteria, a toxin-forming micro-organism responsible for large

fish kills in North Carolina and land. His work with those

patients led him to another network that was complaining of similar

symptoms. However, theirs were due to exposures to mould and water-

damaged buildings.

Dr. Shoemaker has since developed a reputation as something of a

mould-science cowboy; he theorizes that people who fall ill after

contact with mould are actually having reactions to the toxins

contained in the fungus's microscopic spores. Among some

individuals, particularly those who he says are genetically

vulnerable, biotoxins can cause immune-system impairment or

inflammation.

" Mould exposure initiates a series of illness generators, hurting

immune-system responses and altering blood flow to many small blood

vessels, " Dr. Shoemaker wrote in his 2005 book, Mold Warriors:

Fighting America's Hidden Health Threat. He said the effects of

biotoxin exposures are often mistaken as influenza, chronic fatigue

syndrome or other common ailments.

He claims that he is able to diagnose biotoxin-related illnesses by

analyzing a patient's medical history, blood tests, physical exam

and performance on a visual contrast sensitivity test, which a

colleague developed. That test measures whether toxins have

disrupted neural function.

Although his work has been peer-reviewed, he acknowledges that his

theories remain controversial.

" Indoor growth of toxin-forming moulds make people sick in ways most

physicians don't yet fully understand, " he wrote in his

book. " Proving that mould causes common illnesses that are rarely

recognized by physicians has been a challenge. "

Schools are particularly susceptible to mould - the problems in

Lambton Kent have been seen in nearly every province, as well as

across the United States.

In San Diego, a former schoolteacher named Brinchman has set

up the Center for School Mold Help, a website that serves as a

continent-wide clearing house for information about mould science,

policy and media coverage. Ms. Brinchman, who taught for 25 years

before being transferred to a mouldy school where she became too

sick to work, said her website gets 120,000 hits per year, with an

endless stream of requests from teachers looking for help in the

mould " war. "

WHY SCHOOLS?

Because schools are often built with flat roofs, they are vulnerable

to water pooling and leakages. In this era of stretched budgets,

expensive maintenance jobs - such as adequately repairing water

damage - are often deferred in favour of spending in the classroom.

Schools in the past have tried to fix water seepage by permanently

sealing windows, which has the effect of trapping moisture in the

schools (which helps mould to grow), said Mr. Malik, of the firm now

inspecting the Lambton Kent schools.

Poor ventilation is another common factor abetting mould growth in

schools, he said.

In Newfoundland last year, severe mould problems were discovered in

at least eight schools, seven of which were closed. Since last

September, mould and water problems have been discovered in at least

two Ontario school districts aside from Lambton Kent: Ottawa-

Carleton and nearby Renfrew.

Kathleen Wynne, Ontario's Education Minister, said last fall that

problems in Lambton Kent schools got out of hand. " This particular

situation is one that we will rely on for some pretty serious

lessons, " she said.

Still, individual teachers, including Ms. Pynaert and Ms. Liddicoat-

Newton, who appealed to the minister for help when Labour Ministry

processes seemed unable to stimulate an end to the mould, say she

never responded.

Asked why she did not intervene to help with the issue, Ms. Wynne

said: " There isn't a direct way for me to be involved. "

However, lessons drawn from other provinces suggest that there could

be.

Canada's most notorious school-mould problem broke out in Nova

Scotia in the late 1990s; more than a dozen schools were closed. In

one case, several million dollars was spent trying to remediate a

school before it was finally torn down; in another, contractors were

forced to peel back the building materials to the rafters to get at

all of the mould.

The problem was so bad the Education Minister created a dedicated

team of staffers to travel around the province helping school boards

tackle the mould - and the politics the fungus seems to carry with

it.

" My biggest job was to show that I was impartial and that I believed

that if you said the child was sick, the child was sick, " said

Gerald Muise, who headed the department's team. " It was critical to

have the province involved. ...

" This health and safety business is used and abused, " he said,

adding: " We had some of the best medical people around. All they

could agree on what not to agree on. "

Also born out of that era was the Halifax-based environmental

advocacy group called Citizens for a Safe Learning Environment.

The group, now a registered charity, was formed in the early

1990s. " I personally went through two years of being blasted in my

community, " said the group's head, . " Teachers would

stop me in stairwells and whisper to me, 'Please don't stop, Mrs.

.' "

By 1997, however, after seeking out national experts on mould and

indoor air-quality problems, members of the group ended up working

frequently as advisers to the Education Department and the following

year were asked to work with the province on the design of

new " healthy " schools.

Ms. even received a commendation in the provincial

legislature for her efforts.

" We started by pledging that our way of operating was going to be a

respectful one, that we'd get more with honey than vinegar, " she

said. " We worked with solid information ... [and pledged] to be

respectful of any of those who were harming our children. No one

really wants to harm children, " she said.

In most cases, Ms. said, the events that led to the

discovery of serious mould problems unfolded in a similar manner to

those in Lambton Kent, where sick teachers, at first, hesitated to

speak out.

" I hazard to say that it's happening right across North America, "

she said. " It's amazing how much people can be suffering ... and

they're afraid to speak up.

" They're afraid there will be repercussions and things will get

worse. Teachers can be harmed in insidious ways. They can quietly

find a little glass ceiling placed over them, or they can be shipped

off to a school in the far reaches of the school board, or you miss

out on your principalship. You become a troublemaker when you speak

out against your employer. "

Mental health questioned

For Ms. Pynaert, the Lambton teacher who had been the most outspoken

on the mould issue, the full price tag of the ordeal has yet to be

tallied.

When she last met with The Globe, her health was still waning

despite being out of the classroom for months.

She was hoarse-voiced, tired easily and was suffering

gastrointestinal issues. Also waning was her reputation in the

community. Her outspokenness, penchant for taking after-hours

pictures of mouldy schoolrooms to add to her cache of files and to

challenge the school board - particularly in the pages of local

newspapers - worried other teachers and ostracized her from

colleagues.

Even her own sister, also a schoolteacher, had grown wary of being

in public with her.

When the school board began to take a hard line against her

allegations, Ms. Pynaert said, she was " made out to be a liar and a

nut. " Her mental health was publicly questioned.

" In the beginning, we thought we would tell the board and they would

save us. They would say, 'This is horrible, and the children are in

there and we've got to get them out,' " Ms. Pynaert said.

" What should have been a surefire health and safety issue has become

a political nightmare, " she said.

Because of the agreement with the school board brokered by her

union, Ms. Pynaert was not able to describe her current situation.

Friends said she has not been able to return to work since leaving

in 2006 and faces a growing risk of losing her job if she continues

to refuse to go back to her classroom without being able to prove

conclusively that something in the room is causing her illness.

So far, Ms. Pynaert has gone to extreme lengths to try to validate

her claims. Along with some of the other Lambton Kent teachers, she

paid about $600 in April, 2007, to send blood samples for testing by

a California-based mould-allergy specialist. All of them said they

had tested positive for antibodies related to mould exposures.

Ms. Pynaert's results were so alarming that she spent several more

thousand dollars to take the test results to Dr. Shoemaker for his

analysis.

In a long report on his diagnosis, the doctor wrote that he believes

her illness is without a doubt due to mould exposures at work.

" The syndrome that affects Ms. Pynaert is a biotoxin-associated

illness that has been given many names, including Sick Building

Syndrome, " he wrote. " To a reasonable degree of medical certainty,

exposure to the interior environment of the water-damaged building

is the sole cause of her illness. "

Water damage, he said in an interview, is a precursor to mould.

" Ms. Pynaert is no different from my thousands of cases of mould

illness: She is primed for subsequent illness solely caused by

exposure to the indoor air environment in her workplace. ... She

will become ill following re-exposure to any other environment with

presence of biotoxin-producing organisms growing in buildings with

water damage. "

Dr. Shoemaker went on to say that out of the 4,400 cases he has

seen, Ms. Pynaert's is " one of the most flagrant examples of

disregard of an employer's responsibility to provide a safe

workplace I have evaluated.

" What this means is that because of the illness Ms. Pynaert acquired

from her workplace, her life will be forever changed. "

Leeder is an investigative reporter for The Globe and Mail.

Fungi fundamentals

Moulds are a form of fungi that help to break down organic material

and can grow indoors or out on nearly any surface, from food in the

fridge to building materials left out in the rain.

When mouldy material is disturbed, spores are dispersed into the air

and can be inhaled. The worst offender is stachybotrys chartarum, a

greenish-black mould that grows easily on drywall, drop-ceiling

tiles and wood, and which is known to have health effects.

Health Canada guidelines endorse a ban on indoor moulds, noting

that " exposure to fungi in occupational environments causes allergic

and toxic diseases, " but there is no official policy on testing for

mould in schools or workplaces.

Even when tests are carried out, they can be inconclusive: Most

tests begin with air quality, which is problematic for a number of

reasons, including the fact that the indoor environmental and air-

quality industry is unregulated in Canada. Consultants can pick and

choose from a patchwork of standards set by industry groups, which

do little to scrutinize members' quality of work, said Bruce

, senior vice-president at Pinchin Environmental Ltd., a

Mississauga-based national environmental-consulting company.

According to Mr. , 80 per cent of indoor mould grows in wall

cavities and other hidden places. Buildings that have had water

leaks, a fire or poor air quality are the most susceptible.

" When it starts growing inside, mould is a symptom of a building

system that is failing, " said Om Malik, an industrial hygienist and

indoor-air-quality expert who heads the Mississauga-based firm

Environmental Consulting and Occupational Health Management Inc.

One thing known for certain is that water is a major factor.

" Mould and moisture are interchangeable, " Mr. Malik said. " You have

to find the cause of the moisture. "

Once the moisture source - often a leaky roof or wall - is taken

care of, any mould-ridden areas of drywall, carpeting or insulation

should be cut out and patched with new, clean material. Do not try

to scrub or clean the mould away, Mr. Malik warned. Even bleach is

useless, as it targets only bacteria, not fungus.

Leaks of what he calls " black water " - extremely contaminated water

from something like a sewage backup - leave only a six-hour window

for cleanup before mould begins to grow. " Grey water, " mildly

contaminated rainwater, or sink or toilet overflow, will lead to

mould growth within 12 to 24 hours. With clean water, the window is

48 to 72 hours.

But the best way to deal with mould, Mr. Malik said, is to stave off

its growth in the first place: " If things get wet, we must dry them. "

Leeder

[Guest guest]

Glad to see this posted...what is important to remember is that

teachers are trained to teach and not participants in the traditional

sense of union activism, with the same fervor as the trades. As a

daughter of a carpenter and former vocational (business education)(me)

teacher, I can tell you that the plumbing, electrical, sheet metal,

etc., teachers took the leadership role in union activism and the

" nice elementary school girls/women " who had to tell their principal

that they were pregnant (before their husbands) and leave teaching

immediately, were slow to assert their rights to a healthy workplace.

Women, historically until about 45 years ago, could not work as

teachers, once they got married. The vocational teachers had to work

hard to manage safety issues, especially if they were working with

kids around saws, drills and other potentially dangerous equipment.

Safety education was part of the curriculum. Safety was tantamount and

was taught in the apprenticeship classes that everyone aspiring to get

into a union, learned about shop safety.

That said, vocational teachers are in the minority now, as shop

classes have disappeared from the school terrain, sadly. The only

area women were in was Home Economics...and those teachers took enough

biology and chemistry to know the dangers of mold and mycotoxins with

food prep classes. The advocacy part, was kind of a disconnect for

women, who did not participate in " labor guilds " as the men did and

many of whom kept their union memberships up to date.

So, it should not be surprising that teachers, who are now, much

better informed, have had the necessity to become involved, because of

sickness in the schools from building issues. Their involvement in

the unions involved the collective bargaining process, for contracts,

sick time, maternity leave, the process when they are assaulted by

students, and pay scales.

This job of being in a clean building was not even on the radar

screen. So, fighting for your rights, for a clean and healthy

classroom, was and remains an uphill battle. And, still, it is hard

for a teacher to get anywhere, because the " wall of power " comes

crashing down from all sides. They attack you personally and

professionally in order to silence you. At least Canada is in the

right place. I found the Canadian websites helpful when I was

researching " aspergillus fumigatus " which made me sick in school It

is written in plain language, and the MSDS - Safety lists are not.

I brought this up at an Environmental Law conference in 2002, and the

scientist looked at me like I had 3 heads, and the " description of the

toxins in chemical compound style " was " owned " by them and should not

be " brought down " to the laypersons level of understanding.

I suggested that it might be even a legal issue, as when experts in

court are called in, they are supposed to instruct the judge and the

jury about how the injury occurred, in plain language. Even judges

don't understand this process, as a rule and it is the " expert " who

must be the teacher in the courtroom. The lawyers' heads all " snapped

to " at once. Because, that is " where it's at " in court.

But, if they talk " over your head " or describe the toxin in complex

language, it is like a wheelchair trying to get over a curb without a

ramp. There is no " access " because the " chemical language " is a

" barrier " for non-scientists.

At any rate, I was happy to see the American names, Shoemaker and

Brinchman in the article; as this is as much an " educational " process

as much as it is a health-care crisis process.

2008©

>

> HEALTH: SICK SCHOOLS SYNDROME

> Globe and Mail - Canada*

>

>

> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080607.CENTRE07/TP

> Story/Focus/Ontario/?pageRequested=1

>

> 'When kids are sitting there scratching and they can't concentrate

> on their little test, it just breaks your heart'

>

> Teachers are complaining, children are suffering, even Health Canada

> admits that mould is 'toxic' - but the schools of Lambton Kent

> District still haven't been able to get anyone to clean up their

> classrooms. Leeder reports

> JESSICA LEEDER

>

> June 7, 2008

>

> PETROLIA, ONT. -- The fall of 2005 marked a fresh start for Jackie

> Pynaert, a veteran teacher beginning a new eighth-grade teaching

> assignment at Queen II primary school in Petrolia, Ont.

> Her homeroom was P1, a portable classroom across the hall from two

> friendly teachers who had a long history with the school.

>

> Still, it wasn't long before Ms. Pynaert, then 42, found herself

> having a tough time in class.

>

> " I started having flu-like symptoms, chills for two months, and I

> couldn't shake them, " she said. " I was coughing, wheezing, we're

> talking coughing until you nearly bring up a lung. I had rashes all

> over my face. " The students told her that the teacher who had the

> room before her coughed the same way.

>

> Puzzled, Ms. Pynaert began to dig into building maintenance records.

> The school where she worked, a one-storey brick building in the

> Lambton Kent District School Board, had gone through several

> additions during its 56 years, including one that resulted in a

> cluster of eight temporary classrooms (one of which was Ms.

> Pynaert's) being tacked onto the school's west wing to accommodate

> an influx of students.

>

>

> Ms. Pynaert was horrified by what she learned from the records. As

> far back as 2002, teachers were reporting " squishy " floors and

> rotting wood in the portables. In 2004, teachers were complaining

> about headaches and constant colds. The last teacher in her room

> went to the emergency room twice with symptoms similar to her own:

> breathing difficulties, chronic fatigue, headaches, nausea. He also

> had painful sores in his nose.

>

> When class was out, his symptoms would fade or disappear.

>

> By December of 2005, Ms. Pynaert's lips were swelling when she

> entered her classroom, pockets of liquid had begun pouching beneath

> her eyes and a white, filmy fungus was growing on her face. She also

> coughed " until I sprayed urine. I was losing bladder control. My

> bladder muscle was giving out. " She couldn't shake the belief that

> something in the classrooms was making people sick.

>

> Ms. Pynaert is not the first teacher to develop such a hunch. In

> nearly every province in recent years, educators have raised alarms

> about strange illnesses they think are caused by mould.

>

> Health Canada says mould is " toxic, " and no amount of it indoors is

> safe, but there are no laws or policies that require school boards

> to search out hidden moulds. And because the boards fall under

> provincial jurisdiction - and the provinces have no official

> policies on what specific tests should be done by boards to ensure

> schools are mould-free - how mould complaints are handled by school

> boards can vary considerably.

>

> Many whistle-blowers have been able to muster enough public

> pressure - often with the help of intense local media coverage - to

> force school administrators to deal with the problem.

>

> However, no group of mould-battling teachers has succeeded in

> creating a strong enough precedent for subsequent sufferers to draw

> on. Often, when teachers' symptoms disappear, so does the mould

> issue from public discourse - until the next round of unknowing

> teachers is struck.

>

> The battle over mould in Lambton Kent, which covers a sprawling

> rural area with 67 schools, 54 of which house elementary teachers

> and students, began brewing more than five years ago, when several

> teachers from across the district independently began making health

> complaints.

>

> Some had itchy red rashes, constant congestion, phlegm buildup, ear

> fungus, bloody noses or hives. For others, there was unexplained

> facial swelling, skin lumps, growths, coughing attacks, bowel

> problems, stomachaches, searing headaches and chronic fatigue.

>

> " Everybody had to stay drugged to get through work, " said Johanne

> Tranquille, a French teacher who had been working in portable

> classrooms since 1990 - across the hall from Ms. Pynaert - and

> coughed constantly, broke out in red facial rashes and suffered bad

> sinus problems.

>

> Ms. Tranquille said she would drag herself to work in spite of her

> symptoms out of fears that " nobody would help the kids. " But it was

> tough. " I told my mom one time, 'I think I'll have to quit teaching.

> I'm too sick.' "

>

> Laurel Liddicoat-Newton, an elementary teacher at Lansdowne Public

> School in Sarnia, had to have an egg-sized growth, which her doctor

> said " bloomed " because of something in her environment, surgically

> removed from her neck. Brimming with frustration at unresolved

> health problems in her school, she joined a health and safety

> committee in hopes of spurring a fix.

>

> That's when Ms. Liddicoat-Newton learned that her colleagues and

> their students were suffering too. From 2002 to 2005, records show,

> Lansdowne teachers filed more than a dozen official complaints

> requesting air-quality tests in the school's portables. After an

> expert tester was finally contracted by the school board to deal

> with the portables, no less than 84 square metres of mouldy and

> water-damaged materials were cut out of the structure.

>

> However, upon their return to the classrooms - after air sampling

> deemed the rooms acceptable - the teachers still felt ill. In the

> ensuing months, a repetitive cycle began in which mould was found,

> removed and found again.

>

> Amid that cycle, Ms. Liddicoat-Newton found a " garden of mould "

> beneath a portable that had supposedly been cleaned.

>

> " It was black earth, covered with orange and white and yellow and

> green, like cauliflowers, for as far as you can see, " she said.

> Exasperated, she ultimately led a work refusal in March, 2007.

>

> " I'm not a person who stands out and fights. I will avoid conflict

> at all costs, " she said. " I've always been a fixer. I don't like

> confrontation and arguing, especially in public. But I want it to be

> safe for the kids. Those little kids are developing immune systems.

> And they're getting sick. "

>

>

> One of those was Ethan Dickhout, a seven-year-old at a Chatham

> public school who is literally scarred from reactions he had in the

> classroom, his mother said.

>

> " He started to get the spots all over his body. First it was on his

> forehead. Then it was on his stomach, his legs, all over his arms, "

> said Billie Jo on. " It has caused him to have three or four

> bald spots on the back of his head where hair will not grow back. "

>

> When the rash was at its worst, a manager at a Chatham fast-food

> outlet asked Mrs. on not to bring Ethan into the

> restaurant. " He asked me to leave because it was making the other

> customers on edge, " she said.

>

> Since Ethan switched schools last fall, his problems have cleared up.

>

> Teachers began turning to their union, the Elementary Teachers'

> Federation of Ontario, for help. At group meetings held to air

> concerns, Ms. Pynaert was the first to talk about her health

> problems, which have forced the 45-year-old to take an extended

> leave from work.

>

> Soon, more teachers began to speak out.

>

> Jodi Mandeno, a Grade 2 teacher from Chatham, said she was taking

> eight allergy pills a day so that she could go to school without her

> body breaking out in hives. The 32-year-old had logged official

> health and safety complaints about her classroom, but also changed

> her diet, laundry detergents and body wash and even traded in her

> brand-new car - out of concern she was allergic to the seat

> coverings - to try stopping the hives. Only on March Break, when she

> spent a week away from her school, did the huge welts disappear.

>

> Afterward, she began documenting her students' symptoms too. By her

> count, 14 out of 19 students in the class were suffering, mainly

> from headaches, red rashes and respiratory problems. One youngster

> had such bad migraines that his mother was often called to take him

> home.

>

> " When kids are sitting there scratching and they can't concentrate

> on their little test, it just breaks your heart, " she said.

>

> TEACHERS SILENCED

>

> With the onslaught of complaints showing no signs of abating - by

> fall, 2007, Ministry of Labour inspectors had made more than 30

> visits to district schools and issued stop-work orders for 16 rooms -

> the school board agreed to start cleaning up the problems in

> elementary buildings. Their pledge, which will cost about $1-million

> a year, was a welcome surprise for teachers. But it came with a

> condition: The plan would go forward only if the outspoken teachers

> responsible for drawing attention to mould problems agreed to

> silence their complaints. Grudgingly, the teachers, via their union,

> agreed to the deal.

>

> The Globe and Mail's interviews - nearly two dozen teachers and

> parents from across the school district talked about the ailments

> they link to time spent in district schools - all took place before

> the gag order went into effect.

>

> In the months since then, Om Malik, principal of Environmental

> Consulting and Occupational Health Management Inc., based in

> Mississauga, was contracted to inspect all of Lambton Kent's

> elementary schools. He uncovered mould and indoor air-quality

> problems in most of the nine buildings he has seen, as well as

> repeated signs of shoddy upkeep: rodent excrement, leaky windows and

> clogged air exchanges.

>

> For the schools he has seen so far, the inspector has recommended a

> broad slate of often-expensive remedies. With four dozen more

> schools left to be inspected, worries persist that the schools will

> not be fixed.

>

> It's a concern that school board officials have tried to strike down.

>

> Gayle Stucke, chair of the Lambton Kent school board, said all the

> classrooms will be inspected, as per the agreement with the union.

> But she also said that " the idea of a mould-free building is not

> realistic. "

>

> " Mould in buildings has been an issue forever. ... When you have

> mould, it's cleared up and six months later it shows again. "

>

> Friends of Ms. Pynaert said she has begun considering a second

> career out of worries that returning to her classroom would make her

> sick.

>

> Ms. Stucke, who would not discuss the specifics of any teacher's

> case with The Globe, rejected the possibility, saying: " There's no

> medical evidence that in fact those symptoms are caused by

> mould. ... There's no scientific connection. "

>

> Mould has been present in the environment since biblical days, but

> the science around it remains patchy and controversial. And though

> the term " toxic mould " has become a mainstay in popular vernacular,

> there is still fierce debate in the medical community over whether

> it is the sole culprit for illnesses it appears to cause.

>

> " We all agree that there are a number of health issues. We don't

> understand them all, " said Dr. , an Ottawa-based expert

> who has helped to develop federal guidelines.

>

>

> One problem is the sheer number of mould species - there are

> hundreds of thousands.

>

> Another is that " the constellation of symptoms people can

> potentially experience are quite varied, " according to

> Bartlett, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia's

> School of Environmental Health who has been studying mould issues

> since the early 1990s.

>

> " This is the crux of why these things are so difficult to sort out.

> The medical community has no problem with the concept that people in

> mould-infested places can experience a wide variety of respiratory

> symptoms, " she said. " There is no consensus in what happens for

> other kinds of symptoms. We don't have a nice clean test that can be

> applied that gives us a result. "

>

> There is one controversial American doctor who says he does.

>

> Ritchie C. Shoemaker is a land-based family physician who began

> delving into bacteria and mould medicine in the mid-1990s, when some

> of his long-time patients - swimmers and fishermen - began

> complaining of memory problems, fatigue, coughs, chronic pains,

> diarrhea and sensitivity to bright light.

>

> Dr. Shoemaker ultimately connected their illnesses to an outbreak of

> Pfiesteria, a toxin-forming micro-organism responsible for large

> fish kills in North Carolina and land. His work with those

> patients led him to another network that was complaining of similar

> symptoms. However, theirs were due to exposures to mould and water-

> damaged buildings.

>

> Dr. Shoemaker has since developed a reputation as something of a

> mould-science cowboy; he theorizes that people who fall ill after

> contact with mould are actually having reactions to the toxins

> contained in the fungus's microscopic spores. Among some

> individuals, particularly those who he says are genetically

> vulnerable, biotoxins can cause immune-system impairment or

> inflammation.

>

> " Mould exposure initiates a series of illness generators, hurting

> immune-system responses and altering blood flow to many small blood

> vessels, " Dr. Shoemaker wrote in his 2005 book, Mold Warriors:

> Fighting America's Hidden Health Threat. He said the effects of

> biotoxin exposures are often mistaken as influenza, chronic fatigue

> syndrome or other common ailments.

>

> He claims that he is able to diagnose biotoxin-related illnesses by

> analyzing a patient's medical history, blood tests, physical exam

> and performance on a visual contrast sensitivity test, which a

> colleague developed. That test measures whether toxins have

> disrupted neural function.

>

> Although his work has been peer-reviewed, he acknowledges that his

> theories remain controversial.

>

> " Indoor growth of toxin-forming moulds make people sick in ways most

> physicians don't yet fully understand, " he wrote in his

> book. " Proving that mould causes common illnesses that are rarely

> recognized by physicians has been a challenge. "

>

> Schools are particularly susceptible to mould - the problems in

> Lambton Kent have been seen in nearly every province, as well as

> across the United States.

>

> In San Diego, a former schoolteacher named Brinchman has set

> up the Center for School Mold Help, a website that serves as a

> continent-wide clearing house for information about mould science,

> policy and media coverage. Ms. Brinchman, who taught for 25 years

> before being transferred to a mouldy school where she became too

> sick to work, said her website gets 120,000 hits per year, with an

> endless stream of requests from teachers looking for help in the

> mould " war. "

>

> WHY SCHOOLS?

>

> Because schools are often built with flat roofs, they are vulnerable

> to water pooling and leakages. In this era of stretched budgets,

> expensive maintenance jobs - such as adequately repairing water

> damage - are often deferred in favour of spending in the classroom.

> Schools in the past have tried to fix water seepage by permanently

> sealing windows, which has the effect of trapping moisture in the

> schools (which helps mould to grow), said Mr. Malik, of the firm now

> inspecting the Lambton Kent schools.

>

> Poor ventilation is another common factor abetting mould growth in

> schools, he said.

>

> In Newfoundland last year, severe mould problems were discovered in

> at least eight schools, seven of which were closed. Since last

> September, mould and water problems have been discovered in at least

> two Ontario school districts aside from Lambton Kent: Ottawa-

> Carleton and nearby Renfrew.

>

> Kathleen Wynne, Ontario's Education Minister, said last fall that

> problems in Lambton Kent schools got out of hand. " This particular

> situation is one that we will rely on for some pretty serious

> lessons, " she said.

>

> Still, individual teachers, including Ms. Pynaert and Ms. Liddicoat-

> Newton, who appealed to the minister for help when Labour Ministry

> processes seemed unable to stimulate an end to the mould, say she

> never responded.

>

> Asked why she did not intervene to help with the issue, Ms. Wynne

> said: " There isn't a direct way for me to be involved. "

>

> However, lessons drawn from other provinces suggest that there could

> be.

>

>

> Canada's most notorious school-mould problem broke out in Nova

> Scotia in the late 1990s; more than a dozen schools were closed. In

> one case, several million dollars was spent trying to remediate a

> school before it was finally torn down; in another, contractors were

> forced to peel back the building materials to the rafters to get at

> all of the mould.

>

> The problem was so bad the Education Minister created a dedicated

> team of staffers to travel around the province helping school boards

> tackle the mould - and the politics the fungus seems to carry with

> it.

>

> " My biggest job was to show that I was impartial and that I believed

> that if you said the child was sick, the child was sick, " said

> Gerald Muise, who headed the department's team. " It was critical to

> have the province involved. ...

>

> " This health and safety business is used and abused, " he said,

> adding: " We had some of the best medical people around. All they

> could agree on what not to agree on. "

>

> Also born out of that era was the Halifax-based environmental

> advocacy group called Citizens for a Safe Learning Environment.

>

> The group, now a registered charity, was formed in the early

> 1990s. " I personally went through two years of being blasted in my

> community, " said the group's head, . " Teachers would

> stop me in stairwells and whisper to me, 'Please don't stop, Mrs.

> .' "

>

> By 1997, however, after seeking out national experts on mould and

> indoor air-quality problems, members of the group ended up working

> frequently as advisers to the Education Department and the following

> year were asked to work with the province on the design of

> new " healthy " schools.

>

> Ms. even received a commendation in the provincial

> legislature for her efforts.

>

> " We started by pledging that our way of operating was going to be a

> respectful one, that we'd get more with honey than vinegar, " she

> said. " We worked with solid information ... [and pledged] to be

> respectful of any of those who were harming our children. No one

> really wants to harm children, " she said.

>

> In most cases, Ms. said, the events that led to the

> discovery of serious mould problems unfolded in a similar manner to

> those in Lambton Kent, where sick teachers, at first, hesitated to

> speak out.

>

> " I hazard to say that it's happening right across North America, "

> she said. " It's amazing how much people can be suffering ... and

> they're afraid to speak up.

>

> " They're afraid there will be repercussions and things will get

> worse. Teachers can be harmed in insidious ways. They can quietly

> find a little glass ceiling placed over them, or they can be shipped

> off to a school in the far reaches of the school board, or you miss

> out on your principalship. You become a troublemaker when you speak

> out against your employer. "

>

> Mental health questioned

>

> For Ms. Pynaert, the Lambton teacher who had been the most outspoken

> on the mould issue, the full price tag of the ordeal has yet to be

> tallied.

>

> When she last met with The Globe, her health was still waning

> despite being out of the classroom for months.

>

> She was hoarse-voiced, tired easily and was suffering

> gastrointestinal issues. Also waning was her reputation in the

> community. Her outspokenness, penchant for taking after-hours

> pictures of mouldy schoolrooms to add to her cache of files and to

> challenge the school board - particularly in the pages of local

> newspapers - worried other teachers and ostracized her from

> colleagues.

>

> Even her own sister, also a schoolteacher, had grown wary of being

> in public with her.

>

> When the school board began to take a hard line against her

> allegations, Ms. Pynaert said, she was " made out to be a liar and a

> nut. " Her mental health was publicly questioned.

>

> " In the beginning, we thought we would tell the board and they would

> save us. They would say, 'This is horrible, and the children are in

> there and we've got to get them out,' " Ms. Pynaert said.

>

> " What should have been a surefire health and safety issue has become

> a political nightmare, " she said.

>

>

> Because of the agreement with the school board brokered by her

> union, Ms. Pynaert was not able to describe her current situation.

> Friends said she has not been able to return to work since leaving

> in 2006 and faces a growing risk of losing her job if she continues

> to refuse to go back to her classroom without being able to prove

> conclusively that something in the room is causing her illness.

>

> So far, Ms. Pynaert has gone to extreme lengths to try to validate

> her claims. Along with some of the other Lambton Kent teachers, she

> paid about $600 in April, 2007, to send blood samples for testing by

> a California-based mould-allergy specialist. All of them said they

> had tested positive for antibodies related to mould exposures.

>

> Ms. Pynaert's results were so alarming that she spent several more

> thousand dollars to take the test results to Dr. Shoemaker for his

> analysis.

>

> In a long report on his diagnosis, the doctor wrote that he believes

> her illness is without a doubt due to mould exposures at work.

>

>

> " The syndrome that affects Ms. Pynaert is a biotoxin-associated

> illness that has been given many names, including Sick Building

> Syndrome, " he wrote. " To a reasonable degree of medical certainty,

> exposure to the interior environment of the water-damaged building

> is the sole cause of her illness. "

>

> Water damage, he said in an interview, is a precursor to mould.

>

> " Ms. Pynaert is no different from my thousands of cases of mould

> illness: She is primed for subsequent illness solely caused by

> exposure to the indoor air environment in her workplace. ... She

> will become ill following re-exposure to any other environment with

> presence of biotoxin-producing organisms growing in buildings with

> water damage. "

>

> Dr. Shoemaker went on to say that out of the 4,400 cases he has

> seen, Ms. Pynaert's is " one of the most flagrant examples of

> disregard of an employer's responsibility to provide a safe

> workplace I have evaluated.

>

> " What this means is that because of the illness Ms. Pynaert acquired

> from her workplace, her life will be forever changed. "

>

> Leeder is an investigative reporter for The Globe and Mail.

>

> Fungi fundamentals

>

> Moulds are a form of fungi that help to break down organic material

> and can grow indoors or out on nearly any surface, from food in the

> fridge to building materials left out in the rain.

>

> When mouldy material is disturbed, spores are dispersed into the air

> and can be inhaled. The worst offender is stachybotrys chartarum, a

> greenish-black mould that grows easily on drywall, drop-ceiling

> tiles and wood, and which is known to have health effects.

>

> Health Canada guidelines endorse a ban on indoor moulds, noting

> that " exposure to fungi in occupational environments causes allergic

> and toxic diseases, " but there is no official policy on testing for

> mould in schools or workplaces.

>

> Even when tests are carried out, they can be inconclusive: Most

> tests begin with air quality, which is problematic for a number of

> reasons, including the fact that the indoor environmental and air-

> quality industry is unregulated in Canada. Consultants can pick and

> choose from a patchwork of standards set by industry groups, which

> do little to scrutinize members' quality of work, said Bruce

> , senior vice-president at Pinchin Environmental Ltd., a

> Mississauga-based national environmental-consulting company.

>

> According to Mr. , 80 per cent of indoor mould grows in wall

> cavities and other hidden places. Buildings that have had water

> leaks, a fire or poor air quality are the most susceptible.

>

> " When it starts growing inside, mould is a symptom of a building

> system that is failing, " said Om Malik, an industrial hygienist and

> indoor-air-quality expert who heads the Mississauga-based firm

> Environmental Consulting and Occupational Health Management Inc.

>

> One thing known for certain is that water is a major factor.

>

> " Mould and moisture are interchangeable, " Mr. Malik said. " You have

> to find the cause of the moisture. "

>

> Once the moisture source - often a leaky roof or wall - is taken

> care of, any mould-ridden areas of drywall, carpeting or insulation

> should be cut out and patched with new, clean material. Do not try

> to scrub or clean the mould away, Mr. Malik warned. Even bleach is

> useless, as it targets only bacteria, not fungus.

>

> Leaks of what he calls " black water " - extremely contaminated water

> from something like a sewage backup - leave only a six-hour window

> for cleanup before mould begins to grow. " Grey water, " mildly

> contaminated rainwater, or sink or toilet overflow, will lead to

> mould growth within 12 to 24 hours. With clean water, the window is

> 48 to 72 hours.

>

> But the best way to deal with mould, Mr. Malik said, is to stave off

> its growth in the first place: " If things get wet, we must dry them. "

>

> Leeder

>