Breaking the Mold: Kramer vs. Corruption by Carl Grimes

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Breaking the Mold: Kramer vs. CorruptionIndoorEnvironmentConnections online http://www.ieconnections.com/archive/nov_06/nov_06.htm#article5Carl GrimesPresidentHealthy HabitatsDenver, Colo.Sharon Kramer has become one of the more active participants on the Yahoo! IE Quality discussion board, much to the outspoken chagrin and outrage of a few and the background cheers of others. Her basic complaint is quite simple: Despite increasing evidence to the contrary, the courts, public health and mainstream Western medicine have taken the position that severe and debilitating health effects from indoor exposure to mold is not plausible.Her investigations have led her to what she claims is an intentional campaign by the principal drafters of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine "Evidence-based Statement" of Oct. 27, 2002, "Adverse Human Health Effects Associated with Molds in the Indoor Environment."IE Connections: Sharon, what do you mean by "not plausible"?Sharon Kramer: It's not what I mean. It's what the ACOEM means. They are the ones that are making the claim of "not plausible."IEC: Okay, so what does the ACOEM mean by "not plausible"?SK: They mean by "not plausible" or "implausible" as "highly unlikely at best, even for the most vulnerable of subpopulations." Specifically, they are claiming that their review of the scientific literature leads them to deduce that it is implausible that mycotoxin exposure within an indoor environment could ever reach a threshold level that would cause human illness.IEC: What is wrong with that? That's what I've been hearing for several years now.SK: What is wrong with it is that this position is not based on science or a review of scientific literature by any stretch of the imagination. None of the 40 papers cited within the toxicity section of their report make this conclusion. No other document before or since the ACOEM mold statement purports to be able to make this conclusion. No other experts that I have read or talked with before or after the ACOEM statement even implies that conclusion.IEC: If none of the papers that are the basis of the ACOEM mold statement makes the "not plausible" conclusion, then where did it come from?SK: It did not come from any of the studies supposedly being reviewed. The authors of the ACOEM mold statement reached the conclusion all on their own........

.....Carl Grimes is president of Healthy Habitats LLC, an indoor-environmental consulting firm in Denver, Colo. He is the author of the book "Starting Points for a Healthy Habitat" and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of IE Connections. Grimes can be reached by e-mail at grimeshabitats or by phone at .

http://www.ieconnections.com/archive/nov_06/nov_06.htm#article5

Sharon