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Discover: "How The Smell of Your Home Could Be Making You Sick"

slayadragon

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Julie Rehmeyer (formerly an ME patient and now close to fully recovered subsequent to mold avoidance and detox) reports on the findings of a new study in PNAS showing that the VOC's made by mold in homes can result in neurological symptoms.

Julie was recently made a contributing editor for Discover.

>Joan Bennett didn’t believe in sick building syndrome. As a specialist in mold toxins, she had even testified in trials in support of insurance companies denying claims to homeowners who claimed that they had been sickened by toxins from their moldy houses.

>Then Hurricane Katrina struck, Bennett’s home was flooded, and she evacuated. “A month later, as a form of psychological sublimation, I decided to travel back and sample my home for mold,” she said. Her house smelled horrendous, worse than any mold she’d ever smelled. She donned a mask and gloves and protective gear, but even so, she felt awful – dizziness, headache, malaise. She walked outside and felt better. Then it struck her: “I think there’s something in this terrible mold I’m smelling.”

>Ironically, even though sick building syndrome is what drew her to this work, Bennett says that she’s not planning to emphasize that aspect of her work in the future, because it’s so unpopular at the National Institutes of Health, upon which she is dependent for funding. “I am convinced that there is something real there,” she says. “I wish I could convince some funding agencies.”

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/c...r-home-could-be-making-you-sick/#.UtYe2ShAs23
 
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