“The role of mold in CFS [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome] has received nearly no scientific study, just like many other promising areas of research in the illness… My recovery has almost certainly come through physiological changes in response to my avoiding mold.” Julie Rehmeyer, science author.
October 6, 2014, Washington Post What is chronic fatigue syndrome, and why aren’t we doing more to treat the illness? by Julie Rehmeyer
“HHS’s [United States Department of Health and Human Science] handling of the latest controversy has only intensified skepticism. The majority of committee members chosen to develop the new definition have no professional experience with the disease, says Derek Enlander, a CFS specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. As he put it, ‘Do you want a podiatrist to treat your grandfather with lung cancer?‘
…..These disputes are heartbreaking when the needs of CFS patients are so great. Even the high-quality treatment I got from Klimas helped me only slightly. A year after I saw her, I heard from some patients who had significantly recovered from CFS through assiduously avoiding exposure to mold and other environmental contaminants.[1] Although I considered the theory wacky, I was desperate enough to experiment. And for me, it worked. Two years later, I can go running, write articles and travel with my new husband. Every time I do, it feels like a miracle…Yes, we need a sound, accepted definition, but we also need so much more. It’s time to treat patients with respect, to move beyond political squabbling and to make an investment in researching this illness that is in proportion to the devastation it causes.
[1] “Back from the Edge: How One Man’s Discovery Brought Him From Desperately Sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome To the Top of Mt. Whitney in Six Months“ by Dr. Lisa Petrison
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January 9, 2007 Wall Street Journal, “Court of Opinion, Amid Suits Over Mold Experts Wear Two Hats; Authors of Science Paper Often Cited by Defense Also Help in Litigation“ by David Armstrong
“The paper [American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) “Adverse Human Health Effects from Exposure to Mold“] has become a key defense tool wielded by builders, landlords and insurers in litigation. It has also been used to assuage fears of parents following discovery of mold in schools. One point that rarely emerges in these cases: The paper was written by people who regularly are paid experts for the defense side in mold litigation. The ACOEM [American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine] doesn’t disclose this, nor did its paper.
The professional society’s president, Tee Guidotti, says no disclosure is needed because the paper represents the consensus of its membership and is a statement from the society, not the individual authors. The dual roles show how conflicts of interest can color debate on emerging health issues and influence litigation related to it…Building groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have cited it to rebut the notion that mold in the home can be toxic….
The paper’s authors [Bruce Kelman & Brian Hardin of VeriTox, Inc] say their conclusions are validated by the Institute of Medicine’s paper. But the author of the Institute paper’s mold toxicity chapter, Harriett Ammann, disagrees, and criticizes the ACOEM paper’s methodology: ‘They took hypothetical exposure and hypothetical toxicity and jumped to the conclusion there is nothing there.’
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October 2007, International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, excerpt STATEMENT ON MOLD from “ACOEM, A Professional Organization in Service to Industry” by Sharon Noonan Kramer
The ACOEM Statement on Mold was introduced in 2002 as an evidence-based statement and published in JOEM [Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine] The policy statement by ACOEM is that mold exposure in an indoor environment could not plausibly reach a level of exposure to cause toxic health effects…
In the spring of 2003, Veritox, a risk-management company that provides defense testimony in mold litigation, and of which two of the authors of the JOEM article are principals, was paid $40,000 by the Manhattan Institute to convert the ACOEM Statement on Mold into a “lay translation” to be shared through the United States Chamber of Commerce with stakeholder industries—real estate, mortgage, construction, and insurance.
The authors unfairly presented the essence of the mold controversy as,“Thus the notion that ‘toxic mold’ is an insidious secret ‘killer’ as so many media reports and trial lawyers would claim is ‘junk science’ unsupported by actual scientific study.”
The authors and many other ACOEM members have cited the JOEM paper and the ACOEM Statement on Mold before the courts in an effort to deny illness claims when testifying as experts on behalf of those with financial stakes in the building and finance industries. Although the defense testimony has been deemed to be an unscientific nonsequitur by the Institute of Medicine and by the courts, ACOEM continues to deny that there is any basis in fact to dispute its position statement.”
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(2002 to present) The CRIMINAL BACK STORY INVOLVING CALIFORNIA JUDGES & JUSTICES; U.S. LEGISLATORS; the U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; and the U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
I, Sharon Kramer have a bachelors in marketing. In 2005, I wrote of how the U.S. Chamber was involved with Veritox, Inc., ACOEM, U.S. Congressman Gary Miller (R-Ca), and the Manhattan Institute think-tank to mass market the fraudulent concept that it was proven mold toxins in water damaged buildings (WDB) could never reach a level to harm. Kelman & Hardin of Veritox, Inc., were paid to pen the scientific fraud for the U.S. Chamber as they forged the name of Andrew Saxon, MD, of UCLA as their co-author. By having the UC name on the fraud, it lent undue credibility in the eyes of many courts and America’s physicians.
For my efforts to expose a massive public fleecing, I was framed for libel with the aid of several leading California jurists for my 2005 writing. They collusively worked with Veritox and their attorney, Keith Scheuer, to make it appear that I was a liar and had lied about the conspiracy to defraud the public with scientific fraud. Multiple material court documents were falisfied by jurists and clerks of the court rendering them legally void to be used for any purpose — including trying to shut me up under the color of law.
In 2010, Veritox, Inc. and Scheuer filed a second lawsuit against me, in which the void on its face judgment from the first case was the sole foundational document. They were trying to scare me into silence of multiple California judges’ and justices’ criminal roles in aiding Veritox et.al.’s scientific fraud to continue in policy and courts nationwide.In 2012, I was jailed in San Diego, California for refusing to be coerced to sign a false confession of being guilty of libel, which would have aided to cover up the fraud upon the court if I had signed a false confession. I was given a false criminal FBI record — by a judge whose court had no subject matter jurisdiction and the San Diego County Sheriff Department. Multiple times, the San Diego County District Attorney has refused to intercede to stop the massive crime, the continuing public fleecing and the retailation all under the facade of law.
Veritox sometimes serves as toxic tort defense witnesses in federal cases. They are hired by attorneys of the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ). Often times, even when they are not the defense experts, their scientific fraud is cited as an authoratative source that it is proven mold toxins do not harm; thereby aiding to stop liability for causation of illness, disablity and death — including among the families of our military men and women who give their lives to protect our families from criminals and enemies both foreign and domestic.
To date, the California jurists who committed the multiple acts of falsifying court documents to aid the scientific fraud of Veritox to continue to harm the lives of thousands; still refuse to recall, rescind and vacate the undeniably falsified court documents in Veritox’s cases against me. As I January 2013, I was threatened via a coram non judice fraud upon the court order, that should I pursue any legal action in the California state courts to stop the massive fraud, I will be deemed a vexatious litigant — even though I have never initiated litigation in my entire fifty-nine years of life.
As such, I am in the process of filing a federal RICO lawsuit in a effort to stop the massive public fleecing by federal contractors et.al., and to remove some very big bad apples from California’s judicial branch. I am also speaking out, along with many other California citizens, about the criminal practice of court document falsifications being systematically concealed in the California judicial branch time and time again; and the retaliation people experience when they refuse silence of the fraud upon the court and extensive damages it causes.
In my own matter, when (not if) it is acknowledged that officers of the California courts and their clerks falsified court documents while trying to silence, intimidate, discredit and ruin me for exposing government aided fraud; the scientific fraud of Veritox will immediately cease to be in public health policies, workmans compensation policies, and United States courts — by the acknowledgment that they are nothing more than well connected criminals and phoney, con artist pseudo-scientists.
Of worthy mention, Veritox owner, Bryan Hardin, is a retired Deputy Director of the HHS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. (HHS CDC NIOSH). Veritox owner, Bruce Kelman, is a long-time Big Tobacco expert defense witness.
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October 2014 My planned statement before the California Judicial Council on October 27th or 28th:
“My name is Sharon Noonan Kramer. I reside in Escondido, California. I have a degree in marketing. I am a medical journal published author. The subject of my publications is: the scientific fraud that it has been proven toxic mold in buildings could never reach a level to harm, disable or kill; and how the fraud was mass marketed into United States public health and California workers compensation policies for the purpose of misleading US and California courts to deny liability for causation.
In my now decade of travel through the California legal system, it has come to my attention many times that jurists and clerks sometimes falsify court documents and electronic records. This act is legally defined as fraud upon the court. It, and concealment of the falsifications, are defined as felonies under California Penal Code 134.[1] When left unaddressed, the felonious acts can have devastating impact on not only the harmed litigant, but the public and the defrauded judicial system as a whole.
As such, I join the Center for Judicial Excellence; Barbara Kaufman, Esq; California Governor Edmund G. Brown; and California Attorney General Kamala Harris; in the understanding that the Judicial Council has the ultimate duty to end the practice of falsified court document concealment, in collusive fraud upon the California courts.
Toward that end and in lawful accordance with California Government Code §77001.5[2], I respectfully request the following:
1. the Judicial Council promptly establish a committee to hold noticed public hearings whereby citizens may share the direct evidence of falsified court documents/fraud upon the court with the committee members; and
2. the proven falsified court documents then be provided by the Judicial Council to the state legislature and the California Attorney General; and
3. the Judicial Council set clear policy by which:
a.) court employees — including judges, justices, clerks and administrators — who participate in fraud upon the court, are reported by the Judicial Council to the California Attorney General for punishment of the criminal acts; and
b.) damages caused by concealment of falsified court documents are mitigated.
On behalf of the citizens of California and all the United States, I thank you for your prompt attention to this gravely serious matter.”
Read CJE’s Statement of Public Concern in its entirety HERE.
Dina,
It seems it could be a good idea to get this info to the DePaul University researchers who are surveying those who knew people now deceased from ME/CFS.
There were many female workers at kaiser who suffered and some died because of mold exposure. The symptoms of CFS fall into the category of these workers who worked there. Thanks for the article. I’ll try and send this out to others who were only diagnosed for fibro..but not MOLD exposure or CFS.