From: SNK1955@aol.com
To: SlossN@gao.gov
Sent: 2/9/2010 12:13:32 P.M. Pacific Standard Time
Subj: GAO Recommendations to EPA on Mold not being followed. FEMA Katrina Trailers
Hi Nicholas,
How are you? I was wondering what the GAO is doing to follow up on its two recommendations to the EPA with regard to Federal interagency coordination of information and public advisories on the health effects of mold.
After the two year audit, the GAO made two simple recommendations to the EPA:
U.S. GAO – Indoor Mold: Better Coordination of Research on Health Effects and More Consistent Guidance Would Improve Federal Efforts. [http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-980 ]
Recommendation: The Administrator, EPA, should use the Federal Interagency Committee on Indoor Air Quality [CIAQ] to help articulate and guide research priorities on indoor mold across relevant federal agencies, coordinate information sharing on ongoing and planned research activities among agencies, and provide information to the public on ongoing research activities to better ensure that federal research on the health effects of exposure to indoor mold is effectively addressing research needs and efficiently using scarce federal resources.
Agency Affected: Environmental Protection Agency
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
What has the GAO done to follow up on the above recommendation?
Recommendation: The Administrator, EPA, should use the Federal Interagency Committee on Indoor Air Quality [CIAQ] to help relevant agencies review their existing guidance to the public on indoor mold–considering the audience and purpose of the guidance documents–to better ensure that it sufficiently alerts the public, especially vulnerable populations, about the potential adverse health effects of exposure to indoor mold and educates them on how to minimize exposure in homes. The reviews should take into account the best available information and ensure that the guidance does not conflict among agencies.
Agency Affected: Environmental Protection Agency
I am writing you today because I am fed up with the politics that is adverse to the health and safety of the American public. Four years after the audit request into the health effects of mold by the late Senator Edward Kennedy and we are STILL no further along to stop the deceit in science over the mold issue than we were four years ago.
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.
Besides authoring the Chamber’s “scientific” view which absurdly professes to scientifically prove the toxins of mold are not toxic; FEMA’s mold experts and the owners of VeriTox, Inc, Bryan Hardin and Bruce Kelman, also authored the mold position statement for the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. (ACOEM).
Their conclusion that it is scientifically proven the toxin of mold are not toxic to humans have NEVER been duplicated. Never. Not ever. Never.
ACOEM’s part in the Federally sanctioned mold debacle is, “Adverse Human Health Effects of Mold Associated With the Indoor Environment” (2002)
FEMA’s Expert Witness List includes the US Chamber/ACOEM authors of VeriTox, Inc. Bruce Kelman and Coreen Robbins.
SEE 23 MINUTE VIDEO DEPOSITION OF FEMA’S EXPERT, BRUCE KELMAN, BEING FORCED TO DISCUSS THE DECEIT IN SCIENCE OF THE US CHAMBER ET AL;
As I think you are aware, VeriTox has been trying to silence me about the deceit in science mass marketed to the courts by the US Chamber of Commerce et al., by strategically litigating in the San Diego court system for five years. They sued me for the word “altered” that was within the first public outing of White Collars teaming with White Coats to perpetrate a fraud on US courts.
It has cost me well over $1M not to be silenced in the name of public health. My family has been harmed and held out in despicable false light by unscrupulous journalists Daniel Heimpel and Jill Stewart of LA Weekly, trying to silence and discredit me and thereby discredit the words of all the mold sick and injured.
Even the Manhattan Institute, (architects of the US Chamber’s/FEMA’s scientific fraud that falsely claims to be written by a physician), blogged that Daniel Heimpel (who won the LA Press Club Award for Political Investigative Journalist, 2008) and Jill Stewart falsely quoted them in Heimpel and Stewart’s horrid and politically motivated yellow journalism. No less than 10 people stated they were falsely quoted or not even interviewed by Heimpel. Jill Stewart sits on the board of the LA Press Club.
Brian Hardin is a retired US Assistant Surgeon General/Deputy Director of NIOSH. Bruce Kelman (FEMA’s Expert Witness) comes to the mold issue from Big Tobacco. Heimpel and Stewart knew this when they wrote. Heimpel has now morphed into an award winning children’s advocate “investigative reporter” for Newsweek and the Huffington Post. The parent company of LA Weekly, Village Voice Media, knew Heimpel’s and Stewart’s writing was promoting a scientific fraud adverse to public safety and health over the mold issue, as they had run a legitimate article on the health effects of mold 3 years earlier.
After five years, the San Diego courts FINALLY seem to be getting a clue about this strategic litigation being adverse to public health. They are asking questions with answers submitted in Response to the Courts Query on January 28, 2010.
“WHEN this Reviewing Court acknowledges what legally cannot be
denied: Kramer’s overwhelming, uncontroverted and irrefutable evidence that seven judges and justices ignored Kramer’s overwhelming, uncontroverted and irrefutable evidence of Kelman’s perjury on the issue of malice and ignored Kramer’s vast evidence of Scheuer’s willful suborning of Kelman’s criminal perjury; THEN seven years worth of scientific fraud perpetrated on US Courts over the mold issue by the US Chamber of Commerce et al, will immediately cease by the acknowledgment that their author of their scientific fraud has no qualms about lying under oath to the courts and strategically litigating; and while their other author does not disclose he is a party to the strategic litigation.”
As was known in 2007 when the GAO and Senate HELP Committee Specifically deleted looking into the conflicts of interest over the mold issue; ACOEM and the two VeriTox owners, Bruce Kelman and Bryan Hardin, had been written about on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in January 2007 for their escapades over mold and how it was carried out for the purpose of unduly influencing litigation adverse to the interest of the American public.
Given the above, I can’t help but feel that the GAO and Senate HELP are themselves partially responsible for the situation of continued conflicts of interest within the EPA and FEMA; wasted tax dollars; and Federal “science” that not in the public interest with regard to serious mold induced illnesses in US citizens. One can hardly even pick up a newspaper these days without reading of the EPA, FEMA and elected government officials feigning ignorance.
If the following aspect of the GAO audit that was to look into the conflicts of interest over mold induced illness had not been Specifically deleted from being investigated in the audit; then this political gamemanship of the US Chamber of Commerce et al, would have been forced to stop long ago to the benefit of the American public.
Specifically deleted from the GAO audit:
“What medical and scientific standards are used in determining the admissibility of evidence of both acute and persistent health consequences resulting from exposure to mold? Which individuals and organizations have promulgated these standards and what, if any, conflicts of interest exist regarding these standards?”
The CIAQ Webinar of February 3, 2010 could only be described as disgusting, disrespectful to the public and adverse to the health and safety of the American public. There was no mention or any progress report of any Federal Interagency Workgroup of Mold on the agenda. This is because they were directed not to meet by David Rowson of the EPA.
When Mr. David Rowson, Director, Center for Asthma and Schools, Indoor Environments Divison, US EPA was asked questions during the Feb 3 rd meeting regarding the progress of the interagency mold workgroup; he hemmed and hawed and stated that the approximate 50 US citizens on the line of the teleconference would have to wait til the end of the meeting for it to be discussed.
Despite the lack of respect for the American public, approximately 35 citizens did stay on the line for over 3 hours waiting to be heard only to have Mr. Rowson leave the meeting room when they were finally able to speak at 4PM.
Mr. Phillip Jalbert, who heads the CIAQ, has been doing the best he can to follow through on the recommendations of the GAO for the benefit of public health – with No funding provided to him to carry out the important change for public health and obviously no support for the GAO recommendations within the EPA – with FEMA benefiting from NOT INFORMING the public and NOT SENDING CONSISTENT MESSAGING from our Federal government.
The lunacy of the matter at hand is best summed up by neurotoxicologist, Dr. Kennith Hudnell, who has done much research into the health effects of the toxic components of mold and left the EPA over two years ago. Although Dr. Hudnell could not stay on the phone for over 3 hours on Feb 3, the following is the statement he was prepared to make:
“I am Dr. Ken Hudnell. I served as a neurotoxicologist at EPA for 23 years. My focus for the last dozen years was on biotoxins and associated human illness, including fungal mycotoxin-induced illness. The Federal Interagency Committee on IAQ is needed to ensure Federal agencies give consistent information on mold-related illness, enable one group to be aware of all Federal efforts on the topic and fill any research gaps, and reduce duplication of effort. It is hard to imagine that some people still do not recognize the need for stronger interagency coordination. How else can our country take a cohesive and comprehensive approach toward solutions for mold-related illness and other major challenges that we face?”
H Kenneth Hudnell, PhD
Chapel Hill, NC 27517″
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.
Tell me again, for WHOM does the Federal government work and HOW are my tax dollars being used in the interest of US citizens????? Given the situation at hand; and what is at stake for the health and safety of the American public; I have three questions for the GAO:
1. WHAT is the GAO’s intent of following up on their recommendations to the EPA regarding the work of the CIAQ to promote accurate, consistent mold health information?
2. WHERE is the change we were promised with the Obama Administration? From what I am witnessing, I see no difference from the Bush Administration with regard to serious environmentally induced illnesses in the United States of America and the insurance industry’s influence over both sides of the isles of Congress.
3. Does NO ONE in our Federal Government have the strength, inclination or desire to stand up to the US Chamber of Commerce, the Insurance Industry and their medical frontmen for the sake of the health and welfare of the American public??????
Sorry to be so directly brutal, Nic, but unnecessary death and illness in the American public and Federal conflicts of interest adverse to public health and safety is a brutal subject. PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!
Sincerely,
Sharon
760-746-8026
“Changes in construction methods have caused US buildings to become perfect petri dishes for mold and bacteria to flourish when water is added. Instead of warning the public and teaching physicians that the buildings were causing illness; in 2003 the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform, a think-tank, and a workers comp physician trade organization mass marketed an unscientific nonsequitor to the courts to disclaim the adverse health effects to stave off liability for financial stakeholders of moldy buildings. Although publicly exposed many times over the years, the deceit lingers in US courts to this very day.” Sharon Noonan Kramer
Information on Riverstone Residential knowingly exposing tenants to extreme amounts of mold toxins at Toxic Mold Infested Jefferson Lakes Apartments in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Toxic Mold Infested Jefferson Lakes Apartments managed by Riverstone Residential
Katy's Exposure 