Fungus among us goes beyond Hilton

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http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2002/08/05/story3.html

August 2, 2002

Fungus among us goes beyond Hilton

Dicus Pacific Business News

The mold Hilton Hawaiian Village is expected to spend $10 million fighting

in its Kalia Tower probably can be found in office buildings all over Hawaii

and beyond.

Mold closed 12 of the 15 operating rooms at Montreal's Royal

Hospital last year, and when Canadian health authorities decided to check

other hospitals across the dominion they found mold in 24 of them.

At an aging police station in Springfield, Ore., investigators found that

mold in two parts of the facility was causing police officers' respiratory

complaints.

A California newspaper, the Modesto Bee, reported last week that a

1-year-old company that tests buildings for mold projects $3 million a year

in revenue next year because of a " mold boom. "

The specialists Hilton flew in from the mainland have identified the mold in

the Kalia Tower as eurotium, a phase of aspergillus. Despite the uncommon

words, the diagnosis, if correct, means a very common mold has taken hold in

the building. " Molds, a subset of the fungi, are ubiquitous on our planet, "

The Journal of Environmental Health said in its February article " The Fungus

Among Us. " Mold doesn't grow just on food, the journal said, it grows on

cloth, carpets, leather, wood, insulation and Sheetrock.

The American Industrial Hygiene Association's Field Guide for the

Determination of Biological Contaminants in Environmental Samples says

eurotium is the same mold you sometimes see on bread or cheese.

A University of Toronto Web site on molds says, " Species of eurotium grow

best in dry situations and are usually cultivated on media high in sucrose

or glycerine. They are common in homes, stored grains and rodent dwellings. "

" Eurotium suggests, among other things, carpets with accumulations of dry

skin scales and dust, " one industrial air-sampling firm suggests.

That bit of information may be more useful to people fighting mold at home

than in hotels, where carpets are vacuumed daily. And the Kalia Tower has

been open for only a year. Experts are less likely to look at the carpeting

than at the ventilation system.

Up to 30 percent of so-called " sick building " cases are blamed on indoor

fungal or bacterial contamination, says Wally Kowalski of Penn State

University.

" Mold growth can occur from water damage, condensation, leaks or even the

mere presence of high humidity [i.e. more than 90 percent] because nutrient

and temperature conditions are invariably satisfied indoors, " he said.

He calls aspergillus one of the more hazardous fungi and notes that its

eurotium form seems to like gypsum-based finishes.

Gypsum is found in wallboard.

" Aspergillus is a group of molds which is found everywhere worldwide, " said

Vilar, an infectious-diseases specialist at Britain's University of

Manchester. " Only a few of these molds can cause illness in humans and

animals. Most people are naturally immune. "

But Vilar says up to one in five asthmatics may suffer allergic reactions to

aspergillus mold at some time in their lives. And more serious problems can

be caused when a previous lung disease has left cavities in the lung where

mold can grow. An infrequent but serious aspergillus sinusitis also has been

reported.

One difficulty in diagnosing such a reaction is that so many other things

can make you sneeze and cough.

" Molds are just one of several sources of indoor allergens, " the Journal of

Environmental Health said, " including dust mites, cockroaches, effluvia from

domestic pets and other microorganisms. "

Sometimes aspergillus can be a good thing.

" There is probably no other genus of fungi so useful to humans that is also

so harmful to humans, " a University of Wisconsin mold information site says

of aspergillus in general. " Members of this genus produce many industrially

useful enzymes, chemicals and foods. Yet others produce deadly carcinogenic

toxins, and some may even grow through a person's lungs as if it were a loaf

of bread. "

Because of the cost of getting citric acid from citrus fruits, most of the

citric acid in cola drinks comes from one kind of fermented aspergillus.

Another kind is used to make authentic soy sauce and is used in miso soup.

But a third kind produces aflatoxin, which can cause cancer or lung disease.

These are not the strains found at the Hilton, if the hotel's environmental

consultants are correct. But Local 5 of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant

Employees International Union said this week it would commission its own

tests to be sure.

Reach Dicus at 955-8035 or hdicus@....

Copyright 2002 American City Business Journals Inc.