Fungiphobia

[Guest guest]

folks, before you get all crazed over this piece of you-know-what article,

you need to know a little about Reason Magazine, a publication affiliated

with the American Council on Science and Health. This is an industry funded

group just like the industry funded think tanks whose sole mission is to

support whatever industry does and that means whatever, regardless of the

effect on human health. These are the folks who support the Ron Gots and

the Stossels of the world. As you can see - they are well funded and

well organized. If you wonder why there is very little research on

pesticide or toxic mold poisoning, for instance - these are the folks who

keep that from happening. They lobby the CDC, the EPA and other regulatory

groups on a daily basis making sure their agenda is promoted at the expense

of everyone else. They don't care about you or your children but they hide

this by saying they are only supporting sound science. Remember, every

thing is political now - especially science that would have a chilling

effect on chemical manufacturers and other industries who don't want the

government looking too closely at what they do and how they do it or the

effect of their products on our environment. They scream first and loudest

at every single action the government takes to protect workers or those who

use their products. The more coverage these folks give an issue, the more

desperate they are to hide something. The new administration has emboldened

them like never before because Mr. Bush has made no bones about his support

for business.

http://www.reason.com/sullum/082101.html

Fungiphobia

By Sullum

The cover shows a woman in a white biohazard suit standing in front of a

staircase, her face obscured by a respirator mask. " Lurking, Choking, Toxic

Mold, " it says, with " Mold " in giant type, spanning the full width of the

cover.

Inside, under the heading " Haunted by Mold, " a blurb summarizes the plot:

" It grows in the walls. It chokes your child and renders your husband

senseless. " In short, it's your " worst nightmare. "

This is not a horror novel. It's the cover story of the August 12 New York

Times Magazine.

Author Belkin describes " toxic mold " infestations that cause families

to flee their homes in terror, leaving behind all their possessions. The

symptoms she mentions include rashes, dizzy spells, vomiting, asthma,

pulmonary hemorrhaging, hearing loss, and " devastating cognitive failure. "

Belkin tells the story of Melinda Ballard, a wealthy Texas woman who was

awarded $32 million in damages after suing her insurer for failing to take a

mold infestation in her mansion seriously enough. Ballard claims exposure to

mold toxins so impaired her husband's memory and thinking that he was asked

to leave his job as an investment adviser. Now he is " more like her child

than her husband. "

Anxious to avoid such a fate, Belkin dons a respirator mask when she visits

Ballard's abandoned home and afterward throws out everything she wore there

" so that mold spores that might have settled on my clothing won't

contaminate everything else I own. " She seems to view the mold as an

insidious, virulent pathogen that messes you up while messing up your

house--sort of a cross between Ebola and termites.

Sprinkled through the article are details that undermine that portrayal.

Belkin concedes, for instance, that many of the symptoms blamed on mold " can

also be spread by suggestion and word of mouth. " And she notes that the

judge who heard Ballard's lawsuit " disallowed all medical evidence, saying

that there was not sufficient epidemiological research directly linking

health problems to mold. "

In fact, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

the evidence that molds can cause " unique or rare health conditions such as

pulmonary hemorrhage or memory loss " is limited to a " very few case

reports, " and " a causal link between the presence of toxic mold and these

conditions has not been proven. " Far more common are complaints of

" hay-fever-like allergic symptoms. " In addition, " certain individuals with

chronic respiratory disease...may experience difficulty breathing, " and

" individuals with immune suppression may be at increased risk for infection

from molds. "

The CDC's take on mold is not nearly as alarming as Belkin's account. The

government's disease controllers do not even buy her distinction between the

ordinary, omnipresent mold that we inhale all the time and the varieties

that supposedly make people cough up blood and lose their memories.

" It is not necessary, " says the CDC, " to determine what type of mold you may

have. All molds should be treated the same with respect to potential health

risks and removal. "

So who are you going to believe: the CDC or the plaintiffs, trial lawyers,

mold remediation contractors, and maverick physicians with whom Belkin

sides? Far be it from me to suggest that the government's experts are always

right. But if anything, public health officials tend to err on the side of

alarmism, the better to increase their budgets and cover their behinds.

Then, too, the toxic mold scare has all the earmarks of a bogus menace:

nonspecific symptoms that could be coincidental or psychosomatic; post hoc,

ergo propter hoc reasoning; the substitution of anecdotes and faith for hard

data; and self-interested players who insist we can't afford to wait for

more evidence.

One of the lawyers who is cashing in on the scare tells Belkin he is

sponsoring a study aimed at bolstering the case against mold. He has hired

researchers to conduct medical interviews with the tenants of a

mold-infested California apartment building where some of his clients live

and compare their responses to those of tenants in a " control " building

without mold problems.

Chances are this study will find more health complaints in the building

where tenants are already convinced that the mold on their walls and

ceilings is making them sick. But what exactly is that supposed to prove?

It's the sort of question a sharp reporter might have asked--if she weren't

so worried about the spores on her clothes.

© Copyright 2001 by Creators Syndicate Inc.