Law News

The EPA is trying to shut down Federal interagency coordination on the health effects of mold via their CIAQ. One of the members of this purported public interest workgroup that would greatly benefit from the self destructing of any interagency coordination is FEMA.

Two of FEMA’s expert defense witnesses that they are using to defeat financial liability for sickness caused by the Katrina trailers are the authors of the US Chamber of Commerce’s position statement on mold, “A Scientific View of the Health Effects of Mold” (2003). The Chamber paper claims it is scientifically proven all claims of illness from mold are only made because of “trial lawyers, media, and junk science.” Page 65.

FEMA’s Expert Witness List includes the US Chamber/ACOEM authors of VeriTox, Inc. Bruce Kelman and Coreen Robbins.

Evidence of more lunacy of the matter and conflicts of interest within the Federal Government, is a Video of Bruce Kelman literally laughing at the thousands of people who have requested a Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Hearing into the matter.

Apparently Mr. Kelman was right to laugh. No such Government Oversight hearing has ever come to fruition in spite of the pleas of thousands; and FEMA is now using the deceit of the US Chamber against Katrina victims, just like the Department of Justice has used the deceptive science of the US Chamber against sick military families living in moldy military housing.

Dianne Harper’s doctor attributes the two painful surgeries on her sinuses to her 18 years of work in the Alabama State House.

The surgeries included scraping, a more than three-hour procedure to remove fungus the doctor compared to the consistency of soft serve ice cream, and later putting in a stent to try to deter future growth.

“He said he hadn’t seen anything quite like it,” Harper said.

She said the doctor attributes the fungus to the environment and is 99 percent certain it is from the State House. He even asked her if she could be moved to a different building.

On Feb. 3rd, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency’s CIAQ (Committee on Indoor Air Quality) held one of its three yearly meetings in Washington, DC. Prior to this meeting, the US GAO Mold Audit Workgroup was to have met again, in Jan. 2010, to determine how to protect health by informing the American public about mold hazards, prevention and solutions, maintaining consistency across federal agencies (one of their very few meetings scheduled since designated to do so by the GAO in its Oct. 2008 report).Their progress was to have been reported in the CIAQ meeting, as CIAQ oversees this workgroup. But it was a no-show for the mold workgroup. In fact, nothing about mold problems was even on the agenda! We’d like to know WHY. Whose decision was that? We want that information made public, with a detailed explanation. There are signs that under the new Obama-appointed EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, indoor air pollution is not a top priority.

The CIAQ has the responsibility, given to it by the US General Accounting Office, research arm of Congress, to coordinate the mold information in a manner that will benefit the public. We insist that this be continued and the task completed. It has been 1.5 years since the US GAO Mold Audit was published. The stalling and avoidance must stop.

We call upon Mrs. Jackson, the mother of a child with asthma, to make up-to-date education about indoor mold and dampness, coordinated with other gov’t agencies, with EPA child protection from these dangerous conditions, the EPA’s highest priorities.(SMH)