posted 05-29-2001 09:48 PM            

quote:

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Date: 23 May 2001
From: ProMED-mail
Source: Nandotimes 15 May 2001 [edited]
Via: CDPC Communicable Disease Prevention & Control

Deadly black mold causes evacuation of Texas families
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A potentially fatal black mold has forced at least 19 families in usually
dry West Texas to evacuate their homes and move into hotel rooms. The
mold's potential health effects range from cold- and allergic-type symptoms
to skin rashes, inflammation of the respiratory tract, bloody noses, fever,
headaches, malaise, neurological problems, and suppression of the immune
system.

A particularly rainy year has caused stachybotrys outbreaks in some of the
southern United States. Stachybotrys mold is not rare, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, but CDC has no
accurate information on how often it is found in homes and other buildings.
Molds of any type, including stachybotrys, simply need moisture and
something such as wood or paper to grow on, said Dr David Straus, a
microbiologist at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and an
expert on indoor air pollution caused by molds. Stachybotrys cases are not
increasing, he said, but local media reports have heightened awareness of
the problem. Above normal rainfall in many parts of West Texas in recent
months, on top of heavy snowfall last winter, could have raised the
region's water table, Straus said.

To rid a home of the mold, the source of the moisture first must be
eliminated. Then the mold must be removed using a bleach-like solution, and
all the damaged materials -- sometimes including walls, ceilings, and
carpets -- must be torn out and replaced.

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posted 05-29-2001 11:54 PM            

The symptoms make me think of all that my family goes through on a regular basis - nose bleeds, and all. I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that the chems dropping on us include mold spores. The weather channels in Austin always report allergens in the air each day, and today mold spores were off the charts. We got heavily sprayed Sunday and Monday, so it all ties in. As usual, my husband, my daughter, and I have been sick in bed all day with headaches, extreme fatigue, nausea, joint pains, and dizziness. That always happens after strong south winds blow all that ca-ca from Austin upward to our area. It was time for lots of olive leaf extract and grapefruit seed extract and white willow bark, and we finally started feeling a little better this evening.

I can't imagine how our wildlife exists around our lake -- ?? The black beetles are twice as bad as last year, so it certainly doesn't affect them! The hummingbirds have all but disappeared, though, and the mallards are staying away from the water and sleeping in driveways and on sidewalks. Really strange behavior...

MollyGainYa, with love