Guest guest Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Am I the only one that finds it interesting that people, agencies, and corporations seem to have adopted the Marxist concept of equal work and mangled it into the concept that all humans are medically equal? All this hoopla about toxic mold does, or does not, cause X, Y, Z. Is there no room for the thought that people are individuals? Apparently the concept of the " Soviet Man " didn't die with the collapse of the USSR? If people are NOT individuals, then how does one explain that I can munch happily on peanuts and shrimp and either or both of those will hospitalize if not kill other people? I can wear a latex glove all day and the only thing that happens is my hand gets sweaty, while others come down with contact dermititus or worse. If I contact with poison ivy, I'll get bistering, others will get skin break outs and flu symptom merely standing down wind from a large patch of poison ivy on a breezy day. Considering the above, is there any question what so ever that different people might have different reactions to mold and their by- products? Cookie-cutter medicine doesn't work. Using a Expert System for diagnosis will only be sucessful for a certain portion of people under the bell curve. Depending on the degree of human variability of one topic, the false negatives or false positives given by the Expert System's diagnosis might be only the population beyond 4 or 5 standard deviations off, or maybe 3. If it misses everybody above and below 2 standard deviations, that's not very expert. Meanwhile we will sue a flesh and blood MD for making just ONE error. Anybody want to argue that we live in a rational society??? My $0.02 Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 25, 2007 Report Share Posted January 25, 2007 Good point, Ken!One important aspect of that variability is the way people get hypersensitized by the exposures that have happened to them in the past. This has a lot of differentimplications, but the crucial one is this: People get overloaded by ONE extreme mold exposure and THEN, they may get better but then they can't live a normal life. This is a crucial point that is being withheld from the public eye. A person's sensitivity to getting sick from mold is something that will change drastically due to even just one prolonged exposure.to a toxic situation-- If a person is exposed to a very bad mold situation, they will get sick then andeven when/if they recover - then they will get sick again and again and againwith small exposures that would not have made them sick before this happened, and which don't make most other people sick even then.I think that this is what happened to me because I did not get sick from common mold exposure before. But now I have to plan my day around not getting exposures. Am I the only one that finds it interesting that people, agencies, and corporations seem to have adopted the Marxist concept of equal work and mangled it into the concept that all humans are medically equal? All this hoopla about toxic mold does, or does not, cause X, Y, Z. Is there no room for the thought that people are individuals? Apparently the concept of the " Soviet Man " didn't die with the collapse of the USSR? If people are NOT individuals, then how does one explain that I can munch happily on peanuts and shrimp and either or both of those will hospitalize if not kill other people? I can wear a latex glove all day and the only thing that happens is my hand gets sweaty, while others come down with contact dermititus or worse. If I contact with poison ivy, I'll get bistering, others will get skin break outs and flu symptom merely standing down wind from a large patch of poison ivy on a breezy day. Considering the above, is there any question what so ever that different people might have different reactions to mold and their by- products? Cookie-cutter medicine doesn't work. Using a Expert System for diagnosis will only be sucessful for a certain portion of people under the bell curve. Depending on the degree of human variability of one topic, the false negatives or false positives given by the Expert System's diagnosis might be only the population beyond 4 or 5 standard deviations off, or maybe 3. If it misses everybody above and below 2 standard deviations, that's not very expert. Meanwhile we will sue a flesh and blood MD for making just ONE error. Anybody want to argue that we live in a rational society??? My $0.02 Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 26, 2007 Report Share Posted January 26, 2007 Ken I for one agree with you 100%. If you take a look around outside the world of mold and toxins, you will see an evolution taking place at a much smaller and important level. It's working its way into our everyday existence. In our strive to isolate ourselves from nature we have interrupted the body's ability to cope with a variety of emerging issues. We have failed to grasp the concept that much smaller life forms also have a will to survive, and that death of inferior cells give rise to stronger cells in the future. Seems nature has a unique way of coping with this. Its called "resistance" . As we tend to pack people in confined spaces. Each with their own level of resistance and assortment of pills in the desk drawer. We also inadvertently give rise for susceptibility of others down the line. We look to the medical professions for the cures and answers but in fact they are always running years behind the problems. Is it that our bodies have ceased to evolve to our environment due to our strive for comfort or just the desire of self fulfillment? What doctor is going to be the first to jump into the pit of hungry lions (lawyers) armed only with good intentions. Although members of this web group are concerned with the betterment of mankind ,we should also bear in mind that the term ( Log Kill ) not only applies to mold and bacteria but people as well. For every set affected, there is a sub set that isn't. That subset becomes the future resistant. All life is not equal and there will always be someone affected by the actions to enhance the majority. We are facing some unique challenges coming at us in the not so distant future. Some are here now. MRSA in hospitals as well as a community acquired infection , resistant TB ....... All this is now becoming an IAQ issue as well as a medical. I daily see the oversights of designers and health professionals in our construction methods and the routes of cross contamination and mass exposure. Example: Make up air being drawn thru an evaporative pad or drawn horizontally off a roof top and discharged horizontally across prepared food in restaurants . If you interchange the obvious mold and bacteria for a virus shedding dead bird, or hacking cough of a co worker have a vector for infection. Note : cleaning of hoods is a fire code requirement and make up air is not addressed until it is inoperative. Cooling towers and building make up within the same contained area.The amount of moisture (bacteria) sucked into the building when tower fans are off is amazing. There are methods and products that address this but as with everything, change and acceptance takes time. "hope we have that luxury" Sorry getting off on my pet gripe. So Ken. Don"t think you will have too many takers on the rational society argument if they take a second to think about it. Hard to complain how the ball bounces when we are the ones that dropped it. Valin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2007 Report Share Posted January 29, 2007 Livesimply In my many, many investigations, first as a CMHC Research Division employee and then as an IAQ investigator, the tripping into a mold hypertensive condition is often much more complex than a single exposure. The following story has been told to me many times: 1 I was in a moldy house, but did not react too much, if at all; 2 I was exposed to a serious cold of influenza (both viral); and, 3 Some helpful person used a plethora of powerful (please read 'toxic') cleaners to help clean up the house. I then got quite ill and have never really become better; becoming sensitive to more and more things over time. In some cases this changed after I stepped in, if they went the whole way in a cleanup and avoidance of (artificially) scented products and toxic cleaning products. Few people do all that I ask them to do, often a) because their doctors say that this has not been proven (implying that it is not true, quite a different thing entirely) and some tradesperson sells them a very high mark-up 'magic bullet' instead of the significant, if not exhaustive, cleaning that I suggest. I am of the belief that we humans have quite good immune systems until they are simultaneously swamped from many directions; then they overload and go hypersensitive. Has anyone else seen the above history? Does anyone else have a different explanation than the multiple-insult theory that I suggest? 's TILT (Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance) explanation is not, of course, much different from the way I explain it (remembering that I am talking to non-medical persons who don't even understand the word 'toxic' very well, let alone 'toxicant'). Jim H. White SSC Re: Non-interchangable people Good point, Ken!One important aspect of that variability is the way people get hypersensitized by the exposures that have happened to them in the past. This has a lot of differentimplications, but the crucial one is this: People get overloaded by ONE extreme mold exposure and THEN, they may get better but then they can't live a normal life. This is a crucial point that is being withheld from the public eye. A person's sensitivity to getting sick from mold is something that will change drastically due to even just one prolonged exposure.to a toxic situation-- If a person is exposed to a very bad mold situation, they will get sick then andeven when/if they recover - then they will get sick again and again and againwith small exposures that would not have made them sick before this happened, and which don't make most other people sick even then.I think that this is what happened to me because I did not get sick from common mold exposure before. But now I have to plan my day around not getting exposures. On 1/25/07, Ken Seger <kenseger2004> wrote: Am I the only one that finds it interesting that people, agencies, and corporations seem to have adopted the Marxist concept of equal work and mangled it into the concept that all humans are medically equal?All this hoopla about toxic mold does, or does not, cause X, Y, Z.Is there no room for the thought that people are individuals? Apparently the concept of the "Soviet Man" didn't die with the collapse of the USSR?If people are NOT individuals, then how does one explain that I can munch happily on peanuts and shrimp and either or both of those will hospitalize if not kill other people? I can wear a latex glove all day and the only thing that happens is my hand gets sweaty, while others come down with contact dermititus or worse. If I contact with poison ivy, I'll get bistering, others will get skin break outs and flu symptom merely standing down wind from a large patch of poison ivy on a breezy day.Considering the above, is there any question what so ever that different people might have different reactions to mold and their by-products? Cookie-cutter medicine doesn't work. Using a Expert System for diagnosis will only be sucessful for a certain portion of people under the bell curve. Depending on the degree of human variability of one topic, the false negatives or false positives given by the Expert System's diagnosis might be only the population beyond 4 or 5 standard deviations off, or maybe 3. If it misses everybody above and below 2 standard deviations, that's not very expert. Meanwhile we will sue a flesh and blood MD for making just ONE error. Anybody want to argue that we live in a rational society???My $0.02Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2007 Report Share Posted January 29, 2007 Livesimply In my many, many investigations, first as a CMHC Research Division employee and then as an IAQ investigator, the tripping into a mold hypertensive condition is often much more complex than a single exposure. The following story has been told to me many times: 1 I was in a moldy house, but did not react too much, if at all; 2 I was exposed to a serious cold of influenza (both viral); and, 3 Some helpful person used a plethora of powerful (please read 'toxic') cleaners to help clean up the house. I then got quite ill and have never really become better; becoming sensitive to more and more things over time. In some cases this changed after I stepped in, if they went the whole way in a cleanup and avoidance of (artificially) scented products and toxic cleaning products. Few people do all that I ask them to do, often a) because their doctors say that this has not been proven (implying that it is not true, quite a different thing entirely) and some tradesperson sells them a very high mark-up 'magic bullet' instead of the significant, if not exhaustive, cleaning that I suggest. I am of the belief that we humans have quite good immune systems until they are simultaneously swamped from many directions; then they overload and go hypersensitive. Has anyone else seen the above history? Does anyone else have a different explanation than the multiple-insult theory that I suggest? 's TILT (Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance) explanation is not, of course, much different from the way I explain it (remembering that I am talking to non-medical persons who don't even understand the word 'toxic' very well, let alone 'toxicant'). Jim H. White SSC Re: Non-interchangable people Good point, Ken!One important aspect of that variability is the way people get hypersensitized by the exposures that have happened to them in the past. This has a lot of differentimplications, but the crucial one is this: People get overloaded by ONE extreme mold exposure and THEN, they may get better but then they can't live a normal life. This is a crucial point that is being withheld from the public eye. A person's sensitivity to getting sick from mold is something that will change drastically due to even just one prolonged exposure.to a toxic situation-- If a person is exposed to a very bad mold situation, they will get sick then andeven when/if they recover - then they will get sick again and again and againwith small exposures that would not have made them sick before this happened, and which don't make most other people sick even then.I think that this is what happened to me because I did not get sick from common mold exposure before. But now I have to plan my day around not getting exposures. On 1/25/07, Ken Seger <kenseger2004> wrote: Am I the only one that finds it interesting that people, agencies, and corporations seem to have adopted the Marxist concept of equal work and mangled it into the concept that all humans are medically equal?All this hoopla about toxic mold does, or does not, cause X, Y, Z.Is there no room for the thought that people are individuals? Apparently the concept of the "Soviet Man" didn't die with the collapse of the USSR?If people are NOT individuals, then how does one explain that I can munch happily on peanuts and shrimp and either or both of those will hospitalize if not kill other people? I can wear a latex glove all day and the only thing that happens is my hand gets sweaty, while others come down with contact dermititus or worse. If I contact with poison ivy, I'll get bistering, others will get skin break outs and flu symptom merely standing down wind from a large patch of poison ivy on a breezy day.Considering the above, is there any question what so ever that different people might have different reactions to mold and their by-products? Cookie-cutter medicine doesn't work. Using a Expert System for diagnosis will only be sucessful for a certain portion of people under the bell curve. Depending on the degree of human variability of one topic, the false negatives or false positives given by the Expert System's diagnosis might be only the population beyond 4 or 5 standard deviations off, or maybe 3. If it misses everybody above and below 2 standard deviations, that's not very expert. Meanwhile we will sue a flesh and blood MD for making just ONE error. Anybody want to argue that we live in a rational society???My $0.02Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2007 Report Share Posted January 29, 2007 Livesimply In my many, many investigations, first as a CMHC Research Division employee and then as an IAQ investigator, the tripping into a mold hypertensive condition is often much more complex than a single exposure. The following story has been told to me many times: 1 I was in a moldy house, but did not react too much, if at all; 2 I was exposed to a serious cold of influenza (both viral); and, 3 Some helpful person used a plethora of powerful (please read 'toxic') cleaners to help clean up the house. I then got quite ill and have never really become better; becoming sensitive to more and more things over time. In some cases this changed after I stepped in, if they went the whole way in a cleanup and avoidance of (artificially) scented products and toxic cleaning products. Few people do all that I ask them to do, often a) because their doctors say that this has not been proven (implying that it is not true, quite a different thing entirely) and some tradesperson sells them a very high mark-up 'magic bullet' instead of the significant, if not exhaustive, cleaning that I suggest. I am of the belief that we humans have quite good immune systems until they are simultaneously swamped from many directions; then they overload and go hypersensitive. Has anyone else seen the above history? Does anyone else have a different explanation than the multiple-insult theory that I suggest? 's TILT (Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance) explanation is not, of course, much different from the way I explain it (remembering that I am talking to non-medical persons who don't even understand the word 'toxic' very well, let alone 'toxicant'). Jim H. White SSC Re: Non-interchangable people Good point, Ken!One important aspect of that variability is the way people get hypersensitized by the exposures that have happened to them in the past. This has a lot of differentimplications, but the crucial one is this: People get overloaded by ONE extreme mold exposure and THEN, they may get better but then they can't live a normal life. This is a crucial point that is being withheld from the public eye. A person's sensitivity to getting sick from mold is something that will change drastically due to even just one prolonged exposure.to a toxic situation-- If a person is exposed to a very bad mold situation, they will get sick then andeven when/if they recover - then they will get sick again and again and againwith small exposures that would not have made them sick before this happened, and which don't make most other people sick even then.I think that this is what happened to me because I did not get sick from common mold exposure before. But now I have to plan my day around not getting exposures. On 1/25/07, Ken Seger <kenseger2004> wrote: Am I the only one that finds it interesting that people, agencies, and corporations seem to have adopted the Marxist concept of equal work and mangled it into the concept that all humans are medically equal?All this hoopla about toxic mold does, or does not, cause X, Y, Z.Is there no room for the thought that people are individuals? Apparently the concept of the "Soviet Man" didn't die with the collapse of the USSR?If people are NOT individuals, then how does one explain that I can munch happily on peanuts and shrimp and either or both of those will hospitalize if not kill other people? I can wear a latex glove all day and the only thing that happens is my hand gets sweaty, while others come down with contact dermititus or worse. If I contact with poison ivy, I'll get bistering, others will get skin break outs and flu symptom merely standing down wind from a large patch of poison ivy on a breezy day.Considering the above, is there any question what so ever that different people might have different reactions to mold and their by-products? Cookie-cutter medicine doesn't work. Using a Expert System for diagnosis will only be sucessful for a certain portion of people under the bell curve. Depending on the degree of human variability of one topic, the false negatives or false positives given by the Expert System's diagnosis might be only the population beyond 4 or 5 standard deviations off, or maybe 3. If it misses everybody above and below 2 standard deviations, that's not very expert. Meanwhile we will sue a flesh and blood MD for making just ONE error. Anybody want to argue that we live in a rational society???My $0.02Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2007 Report Share Posted January 29, 2007 Yes, I have heard this kind of story many times too. I'm going to send you a file offlist on the synergism between endotoxins and trichothecenes.. The point I am trying to make is that damp buildings are a chemical stew.. you can't just say its one or even just two or three mycotoxins..or three mycotoxins and two bacteria toxins or whatever.. there are so many mold and bacteria and other hazards - colonies of different kinds living on top of one another, eating one another, digesting one another in badly maintained buildings.. the building I was living in was 100 years old.. and was not being maintained appropriately for a building of that age.. (lots of other buildings in the neighborhood were being maintained- very, very well - they were dry.. no flooding in winter, no smells - the contrast was stark) It would get wet and then dry out and things would blow around.. there were also lots of holes.. it was like a swiss cheese.. seriously.. Also, owners may, in their desire to eliminate 'suable' things - use all sorts of chemicals without telling tenants that they are.. There were so many smells in my old building.. many of them were VOC-like.. There was also an open sewer clean -out, we later found out. How would someone be able to differentiate between smells that were caused by molds and perhaps other chemicals, biocides, etc. that might have been applied by the building owner 'quietly'? I guess what I am trying to say is that the powers that be who pontificate that moldy buildings cannot cause the kinds of illnesses people get are living in a dream world.. it has no connection to the realities poor and even not-so-poor people live with every day.. Thanks for responding.. btw.. Livesimply In my many, many investigations, first as a CMHC Research Division employee and then as an IAQ investigator, the tripping into a mold hypertensive condition is often much more complex than a single exposure. The following story has been told to me many times: 1 I was in a moldy house, but did not react too much, if at all; 2 I was exposed to a serious cold of influenza (both viral); and, 3 Some helpful person used a plethora of powerful (please read 'toxic') cleaners to help clean up the house. I then got quite ill and have never really become better; becoming sensitive to more and more things over time. In some cases this changed after I stepped in, if they went the whole way in a cleanup and avoidance of (artificially) scented products and toxic cleaning products. Few people do all that I ask them to do, often a) because their doctors say that this has not been proven (implying that it is not true, quite a different thing entirely) and some tradesperson sells them a very high mark-up 'magic bullet' instead of the significant, if not exhaustive, cleaning that I suggest. I am of the belief that we humans have quite good immune systems until they are simultaneously swamped from many directions; then they overload and go hypersensitive. Has anyone else seen the above history? Does anyone else have a different explanation than the multiple-insult theory that I suggest? 's TILT (Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance) explanation is not, of course, much different from the way I explain it (remembering that I am talking to non-medical persons who don't even understand the word 'toxic' very well, let alone 'toxicant'). Jim H. White SSC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2007 Report Share Posted January 29, 2007 Yes, I have heard this kind of story many times too. I'm going to send you a file offlist on the synergism between endotoxins and trichothecenes.. The point I am trying to make is that damp buildings are a chemical stew.. you can't just say its one or even just two or three mycotoxins..or three mycotoxins and two bacteria toxins or whatever.. there are so many mold and bacteria and other hazards - colonies of different kinds living on top of one another, eating one another, digesting one another in badly maintained buildings.. the building I was living in was 100 years old.. and was not being maintained appropriately for a building of that age.. (lots of other buildings in the neighborhood were being maintained- very, very well - they were dry.. no flooding in winter, no smells - the contrast was stark) It would get wet and then dry out and things would blow around.. there were also lots of holes.. it was like a swiss cheese.. seriously.. Also, owners may, in their desire to eliminate 'suable' things - use all sorts of chemicals without telling tenants that they are.. There were so many smells in my old building.. many of them were VOC-like.. There was also an open sewer clean -out, we later found out. How would someone be able to differentiate between smells that were caused by molds and perhaps other chemicals, biocides, etc. that might have been applied by the building owner 'quietly'? I guess what I am trying to say is that the powers that be who pontificate that moldy buildings cannot cause the kinds of illnesses people get are living in a dream world.. it has no connection to the realities poor and even not-so-poor people live with every day.. Thanks for responding.. btw.. Livesimply In my many, many investigations, first as a CMHC Research Division employee and then as an IAQ investigator, the tripping into a mold hypertensive condition is often much more complex than a single exposure. The following story has been told to me many times: 1 I was in a moldy house, but did not react too much, if at all; 2 I was exposed to a serious cold of influenza (both viral); and, 3 Some helpful person used a plethora of powerful (please read 'toxic') cleaners to help clean up the house. I then got quite ill and have never really become better; becoming sensitive to more and more things over time. In some cases this changed after I stepped in, if they went the whole way in a cleanup and avoidance of (artificially) scented products and toxic cleaning products. Few people do all that I ask them to do, often a) because their doctors say that this has not been proven (implying that it is not true, quite a different thing entirely) and some tradesperson sells them a very high mark-up 'magic bullet' instead of the significant, if not exhaustive, cleaning that I suggest. I am of the belief that we humans have quite good immune systems until they are simultaneously swamped from many directions; then they overload and go hypersensitive. Has anyone else seen the above history? Does anyone else have a different explanation than the multiple-insult theory that I suggest? 's TILT (Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance) explanation is not, of course, much different from the way I explain it (remembering that I am talking to non-medical persons who don't even understand the word 'toxic' very well, let alone 'toxicant'). Jim H. White SSC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2007 Report Share Posted January 29, 2007 Yes, I have heard this kind of story many times too. I'm going to send you a file offlist on the synergism between endotoxins and trichothecenes.. The point I am trying to make is that damp buildings are a chemical stew.. you can't just say its one or even just two or three mycotoxins..or three mycotoxins and two bacteria toxins or whatever.. there are so many mold and bacteria and other hazards - colonies of different kinds living on top of one another, eating one another, digesting one another in badly maintained buildings.. the building I was living in was 100 years old.. and was not being maintained appropriately for a building of that age.. (lots of other buildings in the neighborhood were being maintained- very, very well - they were dry.. no flooding in winter, no smells - the contrast was stark) It would get wet and then dry out and things would blow around.. there were also lots of holes.. it was like a swiss cheese.. seriously.. Also, owners may, in their desire to eliminate 'suable' things - use all sorts of chemicals without telling tenants that they are.. There were so many smells in my old building.. many of them were VOC-like.. There was also an open sewer clean -out, we later found out. How would someone be able to differentiate between smells that were caused by molds and perhaps other chemicals, biocides, etc. that might have been applied by the building owner 'quietly'? I guess what I am trying to say is that the powers that be who pontificate that moldy buildings cannot cause the kinds of illnesses people get are living in a dream world.. it has no connection to the realities poor and even not-so-poor people live with every day.. Thanks for responding.. btw.. Livesimply In my many, many investigations, first as a CMHC Research Division employee and then as an IAQ investigator, the tripping into a mold hypertensive condition is often much more complex than a single exposure. The following story has been told to me many times: 1 I was in a moldy house, but did not react too much, if at all; 2 I was exposed to a serious cold of influenza (both viral); and, 3 Some helpful person used a plethora of powerful (please read 'toxic') cleaners to help clean up the house. I then got quite ill and have never really become better; becoming sensitive to more and more things over time. In some cases this changed after I stepped in, if they went the whole way in a cleanup and avoidance of (artificially) scented products and toxic cleaning products. Few people do all that I ask them to do, often a) because their doctors say that this has not been proven (implying that it is not true, quite a different thing entirely) and some tradesperson sells them a very high mark-up 'magic bullet' instead of the significant, if not exhaustive, cleaning that I suggest. I am of the belief that we humans have quite good immune systems until they are simultaneously swamped from many directions; then they overload and go hypersensitive. Has anyone else seen the above history? Does anyone else have a different explanation than the multiple-insult theory that I suggest? 's TILT (Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance) explanation is not, of course, much different from the way I explain it (remembering that I am talking to non-medical persons who don't even understand the word 'toxic' very well, let alone 'toxicant'). Jim H. White SSC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2007 Report Share Posted January 29, 2007 Jim, I have dealt with insurance adjusters that tell me “I have been adjusting mold claims for over 30 years. I have never had an issue. Therefore mold is not an issue and it is all a crock. I have also dealt with adjusters who would adjust fire loses. In one particular loss an adjuster had come onsite and insisted on going in without PPE. I informed him that if he didn’t wear the PPE he would not be allowed into the dwelling. After suiting up we went through the fire loss. When he completed the investigation his N95 was loaded with soot as well his Tyvek suit. I inform him this is what he would have been breathing into his lungs had I not insisted he wear the PPE. Who knows what is in the air stream (it wasn’t tested at the time) as we reviewed the loss. And you know what? No one really even cares and the symptoms may not show for some years. He thanked me. I bet he wears one from now on. Bob/Ma. From: iequality [mailto:iequality ] On Behalf Of Jim H. White Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 3:11 PM To: iequality Subject: Re: Non-interchangable people Livesimply In my many, many investigations, first as a CMHC Research Division employee and then as an IAQ investigator, the tripping into a mold hypertensive condition is often much more complex than a single exposure. The following story has been told to me many times: 1 I was in a moldy house, but did not react too much, if at all; 2 I was exposed to a serious cold of influenza (both viral); and, 3 Some helpful person used a plethora of powerful (please read 'toxic') cleaners to help clean up the house. I then got quite ill and have never really become better; becoming sensitive to more and more things over time. In some cases this changed after I stepped in, if they went the whole way in a cleanup and avoidance of (artificially) scented products and toxic cleaning products. Few people do all that I ask them to do, often a) because their doctors say that this has not been proven (implying that it is not true, quite a different thing entirely) and some tradesperson sells them a very high mark-up 'magic bullet' instead of the significant, if not exhaustive, cleaning that I suggest. I am of the belief that we humans have quite good immune systems until they are simultaneously swamped from many directions; then they overload and go hypersensitive. Has anyone else seen the above history? Does anyone else have a different explanation than the multiple-insult theory that I suggest? 's TILT (Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance) explanation is not, of course, much different from the way I explain it (remembering that I am talking to non-medical persons who don't even understand the word 'toxic' very well, let alone 'toxicant'). Jim H. White SSC Re: Non-interchangable people Good point, Ken! One important aspect of that variability is the way people get hypersensitized by the exposures that have happened to them in the past. This has a lot of different implications, but the crucial one is this: People get overloaded by ONE extreme mold exposure and THEN, they may get better but then they can't live a normal life. This is a crucial point that is being withheld from the public eye. A person's sensitivity to getting sick from mold is something that will change drastically due to even just one prolonged exposure.to a toxic situation-- If a person is exposed to a very bad mold situation, they will get sick then and even when/if they recover - then they will get sick again and again and again with small exposures that would not have made them sick before this happened, and which don't make most other people sick even then. I think that this is what happened to me because I did not get sick from common mold exposure before. But now I have to plan my day around not getting exposures. On 1/25/07, Ken Seger <kenseger2004> wrote: Am I the only one that finds it interesting that people, agencies, and corporations seem to have adopted the Marxist concept of equal work and mangled it into the concept that all humans are medically equal? All this hoopla about toxic mold does, or does not, cause X, Y, Z. Is there no room for the thought that people are individuals? Apparently the concept of the " Soviet Man " didn't die with the collapse of the USSR? If people are NOT individuals, then how does one explain that I can munch happily on peanuts and shrimp and either or both of those will hospitalize if not kill other people? I can wear a latex glove all day and the only thing that happens is my hand gets sweaty, while others come down with contact dermititus or worse. If I contact with poison ivy, I'll get bistering, others will get skin break outs and flu symptom merely standing down wind from a large patch of poison ivy on a breezy day. Considering the above, is there any question what so ever that different people might have different reactions to mold and their by- products? Cookie-cutter medicine doesn't work. Using a Expert System for diagnosis will only be sucessful for a certain portion of people under the bell curve. Depending on the degree of human variability of one topic, the false negatives or false positives given by the Expert System's diagnosis might be only the population beyond 4 or 5 standard deviations off, or maybe 3. If it misses everybody above and below 2 standard deviations, that's not very expert. Meanwhile we will sue a flesh and blood MD for making just ONE error. Anybody want to argue that we live in a rational society??? My $0.02 Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2007 Report Share Posted January 29, 2007 Jim, I have dealt with insurance adjusters that tell me “I have been adjusting mold claims for over 30 years. I have never had an issue. Therefore mold is not an issue and it is all a crock. I have also dealt with adjusters who would adjust fire loses. In one particular loss an adjuster had come onsite and insisted on going in without PPE. I informed him that if he didn’t wear the PPE he would not be allowed into the dwelling. After suiting up we went through the fire loss. When he completed the investigation his N95 was loaded with soot as well his Tyvek suit. I inform him this is what he would have been breathing into his lungs had I not insisted he wear the PPE. Who knows what is in the air stream (it wasn’t tested at the time) as we reviewed the loss. And you know what? No one really even cares and the symptoms may not show for some years. He thanked me. I bet he wears one from now on. Bob/Ma. From: iequality [mailto:iequality ] On Behalf Of Jim H. White Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 3:11 PM To: iequality Subject: Re: Non-interchangable people Livesimply In my many, many investigations, first as a CMHC Research Division employee and then as an IAQ investigator, the tripping into a mold hypertensive condition is often much more complex than a single exposure. The following story has been told to me many times: 1 I was in a moldy house, but did not react too much, if at all; 2 I was exposed to a serious cold of influenza (both viral); and, 3 Some helpful person used a plethora of powerful (please read 'toxic') cleaners to help clean up the house. I then got quite ill and have never really become better; becoming sensitive to more and more things over time. In some cases this changed after I stepped in, if they went the whole way in a cleanup and avoidance of (artificially) scented products and toxic cleaning products. Few people do all that I ask them to do, often a) because their doctors say that this has not been proven (implying that it is not true, quite a different thing entirely) and some tradesperson sells them a very high mark-up 'magic bullet' instead of the significant, if not exhaustive, cleaning that I suggest. I am of the belief that we humans have quite good immune systems until they are simultaneously swamped from many directions; then they overload and go hypersensitive. Has anyone else seen the above history? Does anyone else have a different explanation than the multiple-insult theory that I suggest? 's TILT (Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance) explanation is not, of course, much different from the way I explain it (remembering that I am talking to non-medical persons who don't even understand the word 'toxic' very well, let alone 'toxicant'). Jim H. White SSC Re: Non-interchangable people Good point, Ken! One important aspect of that variability is the way people get hypersensitized by the exposures that have happened to them in the past. This has a lot of different implications, but the crucial one is this: People get overloaded by ONE extreme mold exposure and THEN, they may get better but then they can't live a normal life. This is a crucial point that is being withheld from the public eye. A person's sensitivity to getting sick from mold is something that will change drastically due to even just one prolonged exposure.to a toxic situation-- If a person is exposed to a very bad mold situation, they will get sick then and even when/if they recover - then they will get sick again and again and again with small exposures that would not have made them sick before this happened, and which don't make most other people sick even then. I think that this is what happened to me because I did not get sick from common mold exposure before. But now I have to plan my day around not getting exposures. On 1/25/07, Ken Seger <kenseger2004> wrote: Am I the only one that finds it interesting that people, agencies, and corporations seem to have adopted the Marxist concept of equal work and mangled it into the concept that all humans are medically equal? All this hoopla about toxic mold does, or does not, cause X, Y, Z. Is there no room for the thought that people are individuals? Apparently the concept of the " Soviet Man " didn't die with the collapse of the USSR? If people are NOT individuals, then how does one explain that I can munch happily on peanuts and shrimp and either or both of those will hospitalize if not kill other people? I can wear a latex glove all day and the only thing that happens is my hand gets sweaty, while others come down with contact dermititus or worse. If I contact with poison ivy, I'll get bistering, others will get skin break outs and flu symptom merely standing down wind from a large patch of poison ivy on a breezy day. Considering the above, is there any question what so ever that different people might have different reactions to mold and their by- products? Cookie-cutter medicine doesn't work. Using a Expert System for diagnosis will only be sucessful for a certain portion of people under the bell curve. Depending on the degree of human variability of one topic, the false negatives or false positives given by the Expert System's diagnosis might be only the population beyond 4 or 5 standard deviations off, or maybe 3. If it misses everybody above and below 2 standard deviations, that's not very expert. Meanwhile we will sue a flesh and blood MD for making just ONE error. Anybody want to argue that we live in a rational society??? My $0.02 Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2007 Report Share Posted January 29, 2007 Jim, I have dealt with insurance adjusters that tell me “I have been adjusting mold claims for over 30 years. I have never had an issue. Therefore mold is not an issue and it is all a crock. I have also dealt with adjusters who would adjust fire loses. In one particular loss an adjuster had come onsite and insisted on going in without PPE. I informed him that if he didn’t wear the PPE he would not be allowed into the dwelling. After suiting up we went through the fire loss. When he completed the investigation his N95 was loaded with soot as well his Tyvek suit. I inform him this is what he would have been breathing into his lungs had I not insisted he wear the PPE. Who knows what is in the air stream (it wasn’t tested at the time) as we reviewed the loss. And you know what? No one really even cares and the symptoms may not show for some years. He thanked me. I bet he wears one from now on. Bob/Ma. From: iequality [mailto:iequality ] On Behalf Of Jim H. White Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 3:11 PM To: iequality Subject: Re: Non-interchangable people Livesimply In my many, many investigations, first as a CMHC Research Division employee and then as an IAQ investigator, the tripping into a mold hypertensive condition is often much more complex than a single exposure. The following story has been told to me many times: 1 I was in a moldy house, but did not react too much, if at all; 2 I was exposed to a serious cold of influenza (both viral); and, 3 Some helpful person used a plethora of powerful (please read 'toxic') cleaners to help clean up the house. I then got quite ill and have never really become better; becoming sensitive to more and more things over time. In some cases this changed after I stepped in, if they went the whole way in a cleanup and avoidance of (artificially) scented products and toxic cleaning products. Few people do all that I ask them to do, often a) because their doctors say that this has not been proven (implying that it is not true, quite a different thing entirely) and some tradesperson sells them a very high mark-up 'magic bullet' instead of the significant, if not exhaustive, cleaning that I suggest. I am of the belief that we humans have quite good immune systems until they are simultaneously swamped from many directions; then they overload and go hypersensitive. Has anyone else seen the above history? Does anyone else have a different explanation than the multiple-insult theory that I suggest? 's TILT (Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance) explanation is not, of course, much different from the way I explain it (remembering that I am talking to non-medical persons who don't even understand the word 'toxic' very well, let alone 'toxicant'). Jim H. White SSC Re: Non-interchangable people Good point, Ken! One important aspect of that variability is the way people get hypersensitized by the exposures that have happened to them in the past. This has a lot of different implications, but the crucial one is this: People get overloaded by ONE extreme mold exposure and THEN, they may get better but then they can't live a normal life. This is a crucial point that is being withheld from the public eye. A person's sensitivity to getting sick from mold is something that will change drastically due to even just one prolonged exposure.to a toxic situation-- If a person is exposed to a very bad mold situation, they will get sick then and even when/if they recover - then they will get sick again and again and again with small exposures that would not have made them sick before this happened, and which don't make most other people sick even then. I think that this is what happened to me because I did not get sick from common mold exposure before. But now I have to plan my day around not getting exposures. On 1/25/07, Ken Seger <kenseger2004> wrote: Am I the only one that finds it interesting that people, agencies, and corporations seem to have adopted the Marxist concept of equal work and mangled it into the concept that all humans are medically equal? All this hoopla about toxic mold does, or does not, cause X, Y, Z. Is there no room for the thought that people are individuals? Apparently the concept of the " Soviet Man " didn't die with the collapse of the USSR? If people are NOT individuals, then how does one explain that I can munch happily on peanuts and shrimp and either or both of those will hospitalize if not kill other people? I can wear a latex glove all day and the only thing that happens is my hand gets sweaty, while others come down with contact dermititus or worse. If I contact with poison ivy, I'll get bistering, others will get skin break outs and flu symptom merely standing down wind from a large patch of poison ivy on a breezy day. Considering the above, is there any question what so ever that different people might have different reactions to mold and their by- products? Cookie-cutter medicine doesn't work. Using a Expert System for diagnosis will only be sucessful for a certain portion of people under the bell curve. Depending on the degree of human variability of one topic, the false negatives or false positives given by the Expert System's diagnosis might be only the population beyond 4 or 5 standard deviations off, or maybe 3. If it misses everybody above and below 2 standard deviations, that's not very expert. Meanwhile we will sue a flesh and blood MD for making just ONE error. Anybody want to argue that we live in a rational society??? My $0.02 Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 30, 2007 Report Share Posted January 30, 2007 Bob One of the very best restoration experts in the Ottawa area is now sensitive enough that he cannot enter most buildings without personal protection. Most of his buddies do not use any. We both wonder if it is just a matter of time. I am often admonished because I do not wear PPE (at least for most of the investigation) when I enter houses that the occupants think may be making them sick. As a result I often cannot work for several days after an investigation. I am known to be stubborn (pig-headed has also been mentioned) but when I do wear PPE during an investigation the occupants seem to go into denial and do not remediate. My wife is not too sure that I am making the correct choice here. Certainly wearing PPE in a fire of flood loss situation makes a great deal of sense. Any macho tendency to avoid needed protection can have severe consequences; but some of us do not believe that it will happen to us. Jim H. White SSC Re: Non-interchangable people Good point, Ken!One important aspect of that variability is the way people get hypersensitized by the exposures that have happened to them in the past. This has a lot of differentimplications, but the crucial one is this: People get overloaded by ONE extreme mold exposure and THEN, they may get better but then they can't live a normal life. This is a crucial point that is being withheld from the public eye. A person's sensitivity to getting sick from mold is something that will change drastically due to even just one prolonged exposure.to a toxic situation-- If a person is exposed to a very bad mold situation, they will get sick then andeven when/if they recover - then they will get sick again and again and againwith small exposures that would not have made them sick before this happened, and which don't make most other people sick even then.I think that this is what happened to me because I did not get sick from common mold exposure before. But now I have to plan my day around not getting exposures. On 1/25/07, Ken Seger <kenseger2004> wrote: Am I the only one that finds it interesting that people, agencies, and corporations seem to have adopted the Marxist concept of equal work and mangled it into the concept that all humans are medically equal?All this hoopla about toxic mold does, or does not, cause X, Y, Z.Is there no room for the thought that people are individuals? Apparently the concept of the "Soviet Man" didn't die with the collapse of the USSR?If people are NOT individuals, then how does one explain that I can munch happily on peanuts and shrimp and either or both of those will hospitalize if not kill other people? I can wear a latex glove all day and the only thing that happens is my hand gets sweaty, while others come down with contact dermititus or worse. If I contact with poison ivy, I'll get bistering, others will get skin break outs and flu symptom merely standing down wind from a large patch of poison ivy on a breezy day.Considering the above, is there any question what so ever that different people might have different reactions to mold and their by-products? Cookie-cutter medicine doesn't work. Using a Expert System for diagnosis will only be sucessful for a certain portion of people under the bell curve. Depending on the degree of human variability of one topic, the false negatives or false positives given by the Expert System's diagnosis might be only the population beyond 4 or 5 standard deviations off, or maybe 3. If it misses everybody above and below 2 standard deviations, that's not very expert. Meanwhile we will sue a flesh and blood MD for making just ONE error. Anybody want to argue that we live in a rational society???My $0.02Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 31, 2007 Report Share Posted January 31, 2007 " Jim H. White " wrote: > > Bob > One of the very best restoration experts in the Ottawa area is now sensitive enough that he cannot enter most buildings without personal protection. Most of his buddies do not use any. We both wonder if it is just a matter of time. > > I am often admonished because I do not wear PPE (at least for most of the investigation) when I enter houses that the occupants think may be making them sick. As a result I often cannot work for several days after an investigation. I am known to be stubborn (pig-headed has also been mentioned) but when I do wear PPE during an investigation the occupants seem to go into denial and do not remediate. My wife is not too sure that I am making the correct choice here. > Jim H. White SSC A couple of years ago I told my story to a remediator who was reeking with " The Force " - enough that I had to sit upwind of him while we talked. He got a little worse with every job he worked, and the interesting part is that his wife has CFS. I told him that the amount of spores he is dragging home on his clothing would be more than enough to keep his wife ill, and suggested that he practice decontamination measures for her sake. He declined, and didn't wish to discuss it further. Last I heard of him, he was too reactive to conduct mold investigation any more and was only doing mold consultations. All things considered, I can't help but wonder about the value of his advice. And I recommend you listen to your wife. - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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