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More Mould in
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Mould Forces
Houston Fire Station To Close
HOUSTON, 10:12 a.m. CDT July 18, 2001 - A Houston fire station is expected
to close on Monday after flood damage caused a toxic mould outbreak inside
the building, plaguing the station once again with problems. Fire
officials said Tuesday that a firefighter's complaints of bronchitis
symptoms prompted the decision to temporarily close Fire Station 18
located at 619 Telephone Road in southeast Houston. The building's
sheetrock and cabinets have been saturated, presenting the threat of toxic
mould.
"When it gets really bad, they get nosebleeds, their hair falls out
in little clumps," health specialist Dr. Andrew Campbell said.
"They feel very fatigued. They get headaches. They have constant
upper-respiratory symptoms." The fire station is expected to be
closed for six months while workers attack the mould. Authorities said that
a plan is in place to divert the station's staff to other locations and
said that emergency response times should not be affected.
San
Antonio, Texas, Express-News:
UTSA dorm emptied for mould danger
By Scott Huddleston
Express-News Staff Writer
Web Posted : 05/04/2001
Hundreds of students were being
evacuated late Thursday from a 15-year-old dorm at the University of Texas
at San Antonio after officials uncovered high levels of a mould known to
cause a variety of respiratory problems.
Up to 486 students, the number
registered at Chisholm Hall on the west end of the Loop 1604 campus, will
be staying in hotel rooms that the university has reserved, UTSA spokesman
David Gabler said.
"We've got 300 hotel rooms
reserved already, and we'll reserve more if we need to," he said.
Some, but not all, of the rooms
were at the Hampton Inn and the Westin La Cantera Resort, near campus.
Others were at less expensive hotels and motels, Gabler said. Because
final exams are next week and spring commencement is May 12, the students
only will need the hotel rooms for a short period, Gabler said.
About 2,000 students live on the
North Side campus. Combined total enrollment there and at UTSA's downtown
campus is about 18,600.
The cause of the evacuation was
stachybotrys (pronounced stacky botris), a greenish-black, slimy mould that
thrives on water and construction materials. Along with minor symptoms
attributed to most moulds, such as runny noses, sneezing and allergy-like
symptoms, stachybotrys also is believed to produce toxins that can cause
memory or mood changes, or flulike reactions such as fatigue, sore throats
and headaches.
While some researchers have been
skeptical, others have linked stachybotrys to asthma, as well as
sick-building and chronic-fatigue syndromes. The mould began getting
national attention in 1997 after researchers in Cleveland linked it to
serious and occasionally fatal lung bleeding in 21 infants who lived in
inner-city homes with water damage from flooding or plumbing leaks.
UTSA administrators began
receiving complaints from students at the co-ed dormitory in February
about allergy-like symptoms, Gabler said. The dorm's management firm was
told about the problem, but when complaints continued to come in without
an apparent resolution, UTSA opted to do its own testing.
Argus-King Environmental of San
Antonio took air samples from the building Thursday and found high
concentrations of stachybotrys in several "isolated areas" in
the building, he said.
"We assume it's related to
the heating and air-conditioning system," although the root cause of
the mould has not been determined, Gabler said. The university plans to
conduct more tests, then hire a contractor to remove the mould so the hall
can reopen by the fall.
Newsweek, Dec.
4, 2000
The December 4,
2000, issue of Newsweek contained this well-written,
cautionary article "A Hidden Health Hazard," by Anne Underwood,
a portion of which is quoted below---
"Deena Karabell had lived in her New York City apartment for 15
years, so when she fell ill in 1983, she never suspected that her
apartment itself could be to blame.
"Over the next
15 years she grew progressively weaker. FINALLY, in the spring of 1998,
she lost 30 pounds and went into anaphylactic shock three times. She
literally lay dying in her bedroom when a hired nurse noticed a strong
odor of mould in the closet. Suddenly things clicked. Karabell’s family
moved her out immediately. Today—at a safe distance from the mould—she
is almost back to normal. ‘People are amazed at my recovery,’ she
says.
"Moulds
have been an under recognized health problem, but that is changing.
Health-care professionals now know that moulds can cause allergies, trigger
asthma attacks and increase susceptibility to colds and flu. Anyone with a
genetic predisposition can become allergic if exposed repeatedly to high
enough levels.
"Last
year Dr. David Sherris at the Mayo Clinic performed a study of 210
patients with chronic sinus infections and found that most had allergic
fungal sinusitis. ‘The prevailing medical opinion has been that mould
accounted for 6 to 7 percent of all chronic sinusitis,’ says Sherris.
‘We found that it was 93 percent—the exact reverse.’
"More
rarely, moulds appear to cause problems like Karabell’s. These aren’t
just allergies but reactions to toxins. Certain moulds produce poisons in
order to kill off competing fungi and bacteria. Risks of toxicity increase
with the amount of mould—and flooding and leaks can supply the moisture
that moulds need to thrive.
"If you believe you have a mould-related illness, consult an allergist
or an environmental-health specialist. (If you can see or smell mould,
that’s a good clue.) They will at least be able to confirm the diagnosis
and proceed accordingly. The best remedy of all is simply to get rid of
the mould."
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