Re: Occupational Safety & Health
I'm not sure where to start. I am usually focused on the health aspects and try to stay under the radar of the activist arena. But, I will enlighten to some degree. This issue applies not just to homes but in workplaces and schools, which are workplaces for teachers and administrators. Most of all it is where our children spend a lot of hours during stages where their bodies and brains are still developing and are heavily affected. The economics of public education systems all too often end up with water damaged school buildings, with some degree of mold problems.
Much of the slow pace to address these issues is due to a beaurocratic necessity to determine a standard level for what is safe. That discussion could go on for years. The chemistry and genetic susceptibility of every body is different. What is a safe level for one isn't for another. So, while this discussion goes on and on, more and more people are being harmed by mold and the mycotoxins they produce. Some of the very same toxic structural molds found in homes, workplaces and schools, are concentrated and weaponized into the most powerful biological weapons on Earth, the T-2 Mycotoxins. Surely they can at the very least deem any level of molds which produce mycotoxins to be unhealthy, if that person is being affected adversely.
I have people all the time email me for advice because they are having their health adversely affected at work. Currently the laws favor the employer rather than the employee. Hopefully THE PEOPLE will now become more important. We are talking about people in very public safety oriented jobs having their mold related health problems being dismissed at the expense of public safety. I know of air traffic controllers at three airports in the United States who have had to deal with toxic mold problems in the towers they work in. You DO NOT want traffic controllers deeply affected by the effects of toxic mold. The mycotoxins affect the brain and nervous system. Knowing what I know makes me nervous to fly into certain airports. The air traffic controllers union has had a very difficult time getting the proper remediation corrections made in these towers. These are some of the reasons we need more regulatory oversite of mold conditions in all workplaces. Very few private and governmental administrators recognize the value of keeping their workers healthy and more productive. Thus, they won't look out for the interest of the worker unless they have to. It would be nice to have more employers start to understand the value of looking out for the health and welfare of their workers so, they can reap the benefits of a healthy workforce. In an ideal world they would do it without government regulation. But, those gems of companies are hard to find today, in this era of companies buying out other companies, and reducing their employees to the bottom line. With that I will get off my pulpit and go back to my cave to help people get their health back. Feel free to email me or visit my web site.