update on Black Mold

[Guest guest]

....from an unnamed source:

Here are some facts about black

mold:

Stachybotrys is a greenish black mold that grows on material with a

high cellulose content or such as hay, straw, wicker, and wood chips,

as well as building materials such as ceiling tile, drywall, paper

vapor barriers, wallpaper, insulation backing, cardboard boxes, paper

files, fiberboard, the paper covering of gypsum wallboard,

particleboard, jute, dust, and wood when these items become water

damaged. This mold requires very wet or high humid conditions for days

or weeks in order to grow. Excessive indoor humidity resulting in water

vapor condensation on walls, plumbing leaks, spills from showering or

bathing, water leaking through foundations or roofs may lead to growth

of many types of mold, including stachybotrys.

Individuals with

chronic exposure to toxins produced by this fungus reported cold and

flu symptoms, memory loss, muscle aches, sore throats, diarrhea,

headaches, fatigue, dermatitis, intermittent local hair loss, cancer,

and generalized malaise. The toxins produced by this fungus will

suppress and could destroy the immune system affecting the lymphoid

tissue and the bone marrow. Animals injected with the toxin from this

fungus exhibited the following symptoms: necrosis and hemorrhage within

the brain, thymus, spleen, intestine, lung, heart, lymph node, liver,

and kidney. Affects by absorption of the toxin in the human lung are

known as pneumomycosis. The toxins may also suppress the immune system.

In the January 17 issue of the MMWR, stachybotrys was implicated in a

cluster of fatal pulmonary hemorrhage/hemosiderosis among infants.

Toxicologically, stachybotrys can produce extremely potent

trichothecene poisons, as evidenced by one-time lethal doses in mice

(LD50) as low as 1.0 to 7.0 mg/kg, depending on the toxin and the

exposure route. Depression of immune response, and hemorrhage in target

organs are characteristic for animals exposed experimentally and in

field exposures

Do you have first hand experience with this stuff?

J. Pedersen DC