48 Hours was out of focus

[Guest guest]

" R. Cobarruvias " johncoby@... wrote:

My first thought on 48 hours was

" How many people affected by this mold problem can afford to do what

Brockovich or Melinda Ballard is doing? " Probably not many.

The focus should return to the homeowner who is reaching out financially to

provide a home for their families. Paying their bills on time. Being good

citizens. Paying their taxes. And then being devastated by a mold and

finding no help from the builder, the state or the country.

While was bouncing around being bubbly about the whole thing as if it

was a mega remodeling job, many homeowners are trying to figure out where to

spend the next night while their home is being remediated.

48 Hours was out of focus. "

Dear Friends,

So many of you have written or called me and said pretty much the same thing

that said. Most of you think Melinda's part was right on the mark but

that 's portrayal trivialized the issue. For those of you who have

faced the horror of abandoning every possession you own, it must be a real

slap in the face. For those of you dealing with cancer and serious illness

as a result of your exposure, 's blackened rings under her eyes were

little consolation of her exposure. For those of you facing bankruptcy

because of the bad faith dealing of your insurers, it doesn't help to be

reminded that unless you are a " somebody " in America, you are a nobody and

liable to get shoddy treatment. I think, in all fairness to , that she

is more involved in marketing herself and she isn't the kind of person who

will cry " uncle! " - at least not in public. She spent a lot of time in her

life without and wanting and now that she has things she is determined to

hang on to them - mold and all. I only hope we don't see her on a program

in 10 years crying her heart out because she lost a child to cancer and

kicking herself because she didn't listen to the experts who know how toxic

these molds are.

For my part, I was waiting for the rest of you to comment before I said

anything. I too was disappointed because I wanted the program to do more to

empower people to look inside their own lives and see if these molds could

be causing them health problems. I believe in people and the power of a few

people to change the world. But this power only comes from people having

access to information. It is important for people to know what the symptoms

are - all of them from the sore throat and cough at the beginning of

exposure - to the later more serious symptoms like mental confusion, immune

system suppression and disease. If people have information, they can change

the way allergists do business by demanding they be checked for toxins.

To those of you who have written me recently, - or to whom I owe a letter

for one reason or another - forgive me, but for over a week, I've been in

the worst fibro flare of my life. To put it mildly, I have pain in places

where I didn't even KNOW I had places - especially in the base of my skull.

My husband thinks it is from the aerial spraying of Dibrom (Naled) used here

in the Tallahassee area recently for mosquitoes. He has had a raging

headache himself for days. Of course it has been raining here every day so

I would imagine the mold spores are off the chart. Whatever is causing it,

I am trying to bounce back and will write once I can coherently put words

together again.

Sincerely,

Barbara