Mold 'Expert' Spooks Parents

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A strong case to be made for the need of licensing in this issue before

one can deem themselves a " mold expert " ...and a strong case for the need of

proper education of Health Departments. This one has it all!

Sharon

Mold 'Expert' Spooks Parents

by C.

Staff Writer

_write the author_ (mailto:paul@...)

June 18, 2009

On Friday, June 12, Guilford County Schools announced that it was closing

Oak Ridge Elementary School after the last day of classes on Monday, June

15, to investigate reported health problems at the school, whose students

and teachers have reported a variety of symptoms since the school was rebuilt

in 2005.

On the same day, the Guilford County Department of Public Health released

the results of a survey of parents and school employees that found a

pattern of headaches, breathing problems, nosebleeds and other symptoms at the

school.

At a press conference on Tuesday, June 16, health department Medical

Director Ward said that the Oak Ridge building has a case of " sick

building syndrome, " probably caused by a badly calibrated heating and

air-conditioning system.

said there is no science to support claims that mold, which has

been found at the school several times, is causing the symptoms. He said,

" At no time has mold posed a danger to people in the school. "

said the health department is acting on the hypothesis that there

is a very real problem at the school, and that the reported symptoms are

real, but that they are probably caused by a combination of dry air and

insufficient fresh air being circulated in the building.

" That's a lot different than saying this building is dangerous, "

said. " It's not dangerous. "

said calls to permanently shut down the school or bulldoze it are

irrational, because mold is present in all buildings in varying

concentrations and has not been linked with health problems, except in people

with

compromised immune systems.

" It would be a tragedy to think you have to bulldoze it down because of a

ubiquitous mold, " he said. " It's just not rational. "

Guilford County Health Director Merle Green said she considered two of the

survey's findings particularly notable: that 54 percent of employees

sought medical treatment for the symptoms in 2008-2009, and that, for large

percentages of students and employees, the symptoms went away when they left

the school. said the fact that teachers at the school could make the

symptoms go away by opening doors and windows supports the idea that the

problem is related to a lack of fresh air.

The closing is an abrupt about-face for the school system, which has kept

Oak Ridge open despite calls by parents and teachers to close it. The last

day of class for the school's 700-plus students was Monday, June 15, and

school officials repeatedly said the school was safe for those students

through June 15.

According to the survey results released by the health department, during

the 2008-2009 school year, 92 percent of school employees and 47 percent of

students reported headaches; 26 percent of employees and 19 percent of

students reported nosebleeds; 28 percent of employees and 12 percent of

students reported breathing problems or asthma attacks; and 74 percent of

employees and 24 percent of students reported dry eyes. Health department

officials

prompted parents and students to report those symptoms, because they fit

with 's first theory, that the nosebleeds were caused by a

dehumidification system installed in 2008 in an attempt to eliminate the mold.

On

Tuesday, said there was no increase in nosebleeds after the system

was installed.

In addition to the symptoms prompted for by the health department,

students and teachers reported rashes, nausea, sinus problems and a host of

other

symptoms in smaller percentages.

At a press conference at the Guilford County human services building on

Maple Street on Friday, June 12, Guilford County Schools Chief of Staff Nora

Carr said that closing Oak Ridge for the summer would allow the school

system to seal the school and do any heavy remediation work that it determines

is needed, including using fiber-optic sensors to inspect the inside of

walls. She said the school system has requested that a building-health

evaluation team from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,

which is part of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, inspect

the school while it is closed.

" The symptoms and the magnitude of the symptoms reported in this data are

very troubling to us, " Carr said. " We hope that we can find the root causes

of the problem and take any needed actions this summer. "

Closing Oak Ridge will have little impact on students or teachers, as the

school has no summer session. Its normal employee complement in the summer

is four people, including the principal, assistant principal and two

secretaries. Carr said those employees will be moved to another school, probably

Northwest Guilford Middle School.

Carr said Guilford County Schools is working on a " plan B " to reassign

students and teachers in the fall if the problems aren't identified and solved

this summer.

" We have not got an indication that we needed to just stop immediately and

get everybody out, " she said. " We think the building now is safe, but it

does have some issues that aren't ideal for a learning environment. " Carr

said the main reason for the closing was to let the inspection teams work and

to seal the school so that more effective testing could be done.

Meanwhile, worried Oak Ridge parents have been further scared by a

self-proclaimed " mold expert " with hard-to-verify qualifications who is hawking

medical tests and offering to hire herself out as a witness in any lawsuits

that result from the Oak Ridge problems.

May, the self-proclaimed mold expert, said closing the school

immediately is exactly what the school system should do. May interjected

herself

into the Oak Ridge debate several weeks ago, calling reporters and parents

and identifying herself as " the international mold expert, " " the

international health and safety expert, " a " Department of Defense bioweapon

expert "

and claiming connections with the US Occupational Safety and Health

Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Worried Oak Ridge parents flew May to Guilford County, where she spoke at

the June 9 meeting of the Guilford County Board of Education, held a

meeting with 100 Oak Ridge parents and teachers at First Christian Church in

Kernersville on June 10 and held a press conference, credulously covered by the

local daily, on Saturday, June 13.

At the Kernersville meeting, May recommended to parents DNA test kits for

mold-toxin exposure sold by Warbler of Illinois Co. May said each test kit

contains a urine test that will identify mold-toxin exposure and an

environmental test that parents can use to test the bedrooms of their children

for

the presence of mold.

May spoke of the creation of Warbler of Illinois as something " we " were

doing, but didn't disclose her direct involvement in the company. Contacted

later, she said she is the CEO of the company and the holder of a patent on

the test.

May's involvement in the Oak Ridge controversy drastically increased the

fear level among parents and teachers at the school. Numerous parents and

teachers at Oak Ridge cited her medical, environmental and legal claims as

justification for their concerns.

But there is every reason to be skeptical of May and of her claims. To

begin with, despite her repeated claims of connections with OSHA, the EPA and

the Department of Defense, there is no indication that she has any

connection with those agencies, and despite being asked repeatedly, she

provided no

documentation to prove any such connection. Pressed for her qualifications

on Friday, June 12, she would say only that she has a bachelor's degree in

public safety from the University of Illinois, a bachelor's degree in

nursing from Lakeview College of Nursing in Illinois and took a three-week

training course, which she couldn't describe with any specificity, from OSHA at

some time during the 1990s. She said she would email documents to support

those three claims, but never did.

May said she is an OSHA-certified mold expert and was involved in creating

OSHA regulations, but a spokeswoman for OSHA in Washington, DC, said she

could find no record of May being involved in any OSHA rulemaking, and that

OSHA has no certification for mold experts – so May could not be one.

May also told parents that the Warbler lab was located at, or, as her

story shifted, at least was operated in conjunction with, St. Jude Children's

Research Hospital. Asked to document that claim later, she said she had

merely called that hospital at some point, and couldn't even provide a name of

anyone with whom she had talked at the hospital.

May also provided no proof of US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

approval for the test, and a search of the FDA's medical-device databases,

which

list approvals of other over-the-counter tests, turned up no hits for her

company.

Asked to provide FDA approval documentation, May said, " I don't have that

stuff with me. "

May's rhetoric can be described, charitably, as alarmist. She told parents

at Kernerville that the mold found at Oak Ridge " basically is AIDS by

inhalation, " and, " You do not expose your child to a room full of cyanide –

I'm

telling you, you have a room full of cyanide. " She has also told parents

to expect funerals.

May's cyanide claim drew a protest at First Christian Church from Dr.

Fried, a physician at Eagle Family Medicine at Oak Ridge, who has

treated Oak Ridge students and teachers and said he thinks the school may

genuinely have a problem.

" , cyanide kills everyone, " Fried said. " This has made a few people

sick. "

Some of May's claims are factually inaccurate, and others are at best

misleading.

May told the school board, and parents and teachers, that federal

regulations require public buildings to be closed when any mold is found.

In reality, OSHA and the EPA have established no safe limit for airborne

mold in the workplace. An OSHA rulemaking on indoor air quality was

launched, then withdrawn, in 2001.

" One of the problems with that is there's not a general consensus with

mold, as to what constitutes a hazard, " said Neal O't, a spokesman for

the North Carolina Department of Labor, which regulates workplace safety.

" There's not a parts-per-million standard as to what constitutes a hazard. "

May warned parents repeatedly that the mold found at Oak Ridge is the same

as the T-2 mycotoxin used as a bioweapon. She said, " This toxin, according

to the US Army, is 100 percent fatal. "

In reality, weaponized T-2 mycotoxin, although derived from molds, is

industrially concentrated to cause damage to humans. No such substance has been

found at Oak Ridge. The regulations May cites relate to emergency

responses to bioterrorism attacks, not to common mold contamination.

For that matter, May provided no documentation as to her alleged expertise

in biotoxin weapons, or her claimed connection to the Department of

Defense.

" I can't say certain things, because it's not public, if you get my

drift, " she said. " Bioweapons technology is not public information. "

If she told us, she'd have to kill us.

To believe that, you have to buy that the Defense Department, which has a

roughly $1 trillion budget and countless weapons experts with doctorates in

technical fields, is hiring registered nurses as weapons experts and giving

them top security clearances.

May claims that federal regulations require the school board to provide

hazard suits and respirators at Oak Ridge, and that the same regulations

require the school to be closed.

In reality, the regulations May cites concern chemical contaminations in

the workplace by one of a long list of OSHA-specified poisonous chemicals.

O't said, " Mold is not on that list. " A spokeswoman for OSHA confirmed

that fact.

May said she is making no money on her operations in Guilford County.

" I'm not being paid anything for this, " she said. " I don't receive any

money for what I do. I do it because I've protected people from toxins all my

life. I'm not making any money. There's no remuneration of any kind. "

In reality, Warbler of Illinois is selling the test kits for $45, with an

additional $300 charge for the lab work. May said the profit from the test

would go to three unspecified orders of nuns. She declined to provide any

details on those religious orders. " The nuns prefer not to have that

published, " she said.

In addition, May's website details options for hiring her for consulting,

seminars and litigation. The site provides options for paying her flat-rate

consulting fees and per diem travel and expense charges.

Some of May's claims are even more outlandish. She said, " I ran a nuclear

power station in the 1980s. " But when pressed on the issue later said she

had actually just been a safety officer at Clinton Power Station in Illinois.

Also, May told parents at Kernersville that she had secret connections

that would allow her to pick up the phone and get them millions of dollars to

build a new school.

" I'm willing to help you get that school, " May said. " I know the right

phone calls to make. I have the right connections. "

A few of the befuddled parents said, in differing words, " Well, , why

don't you? " May didn't answer.

The school system, thus far, declined to address May's claims, clearly

hoping she'll just go away. After May spoke during the public-comment period

at the school board meeting, parents tried to interrupt the discussion on

Oak Ridge for her to speak again. School board Chairman Alan Duncan politely

told them that the public-comment period was over.

, asked about May's claims on Tuesday, said, " None of her

statements make any sense to me. There's nothing to fear about this building. "

Guilford County Schools and outside inspectors have found mold at the

school several times since 2005, most recently in April, when it was found in a

classroom and an assistant principal's office. School officials say the

mold has been removed and the mold level in the school is now much lower than

that in outside air.

Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston, who

attended Tuesday's press conference, said the commissioners would provide any

money necessary to make sure Oak Ridge is safe.

" This school is going to be all right, " Alston said. " If we have to pay

for a new school building, we will pay for it. Money is not a factor in this

situation at all. "

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