Consensus regarding effects of mold slow
Consensus regarding effects of mold slow
Risk to cleanup workers may be greatest
Science is slowly reaching some conclusions about mold as an allergen and mold exposure as a health problem, and in the meantime, occupational health practitioners just do the best they can to decipher claims that might — or might not — stem from workplace mold.
"The critical things — the health effects — can be attributed to mold, or they can be attributed to lots of other sources," says Mary Ann Latko, CIH, CSP, QEP, director of the Scientific and Technical Initiatives Team of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA). "Mold looks like flu, and it looks like other things, too."
The lack of consensus on what mold is and isn’t, and how best to draw conclusions on possible mold exposure, was the subject of Latko’s recent presentation at the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN) 2005 Expo.
"It can be difficult because there is no test that you can link back to a certain kind of mold like you can with other occupational illnesses," she says. "It’s not that clean cut."
Mold is one of the oldest occupational allergens; the Old Testament has references to it, Latko says. The earliest documented workplace cases involved ingestion of mold in the 1920s.
"In the past, for the most part, fatalities were from ingestion, not inhalation," says Latko. In recent years, reports of "sick" buildings and widespread mold presence led to a "frenzy of activity and press" initially linked to mold that have not been shown to be conclusive, she continues.
The media attention that occasionally builds over suspected mold exposures, such as in the late 1990s when several infants in Cleveland died of pulmonary hemorrhage that was tentatively linked to Stachybotrys mold in their homes, fuels concerns in locations where mold is found, whether there are any reports of illness or not.
Concerns over mold in the last few decades have given rise to a new set of health-related lawsuits. Mold-related claims that have been seen in U.S. courts have arisen from allegations of bad faith or failure to disclose the presence of mold, defective construction, personal injury, property damage, and workers’ compensation. Damages are sought for stress, medical expenses, disability, cost of repair or remediation, loss of income due to mold or remediation, and declining property values.
Representatives from occupational, environmental, and public health released a report in May, offering the results of two workshops conducted the year before on mold in the workplace. The focus of the workshops was protection of workers who are engaged in cleaning up, or remediating, mold in buildings. (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, et al. "Guidelines for the Protection and Training of Workers Engaged in Maintenance and Remediation Work Associated with Mold," is available on the web at www.nmhc.org/Content/ ServeFile.cfm?FileID=4702.)
In addressing the causes for the growing number of mold exposures, the panel, which included the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Society for Occupational and Environmental Health, and Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics, among others, suggested publicity of the health risks, increased litigation, and the resulting growth in the number of people employed in cleaning up mold has led to the increased exposures.
"There is very limited published data on exposures to molds in residential, school, and office buildings," the group wrote. "There currently are no exposure standards or health effects threshold exposure levels against which to base safe or unsafe exposures, and sampling is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to apply."
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