by Sharon Noonan Kramer

In late October of 2014, I received a message which stated that Marianne Dreger, Publications Director for the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM), had told an ACOEM board member that the ACOEM position statement on mold would be sunsetted and removed from ACOEM’s website in early 2015. Many times since the first of the year, I have checked ACOEM’s website to see if the information I received of Ms. Dreger’s statement was correct.

Early this week, I checked the site once again.  Much to my delight, it was true!  The ACOEM mold position statement, “Adverse Human Health Effects Associated with Molds in the Indoor Environment” no longer appears on ACOEM’s position statement and guidance page.  No denotation of its sunsetting anywhere on the site.  No announcement made to ACOEM’s occupational and environmental physician members.  Just Poof!  Quietly gone like it never existed!

So why is this vastly important to the future health and safety of countless Americans and why it is important that the public, physicians and policy setters know of this sunsetting?  Because it marks the end to fraudulent public health policy via false proof of lack of causation of illness from exposure to biocontaminants in water damaged buildings.

Background:

In 2002, three expert defense witnesses in mold litigation were specifically brought into ACOEM to write their mold position statement.  The scientific fraud that was then promoted into policy by the mass-marketing of the bogus position paper, was that two of the three ACOEM paper’s authors, Bruce J. Kelman and Bryan D. Hardin, had scientifically proven mycotoxins could never reach a level indoors to harm anyone.

Flying in the face of the basic tenets of toxicology, the duo claimed to have proven lack of causation by simply applying math extrapolations to data taken from one rodent study of mold. The two fraudsters are co-owners of Veritox, Inc. and are prolific toxic tort expert defense witnesses throughout the United States. Among their many clients is the U.S. Department of Justice.  Hardin is a retired Deputy Director of the CDC’s National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).  (See January 2007 Wall Street Journal for greater detail)

The fraud in the ACOEM mold statement becoming U.S. medical policy in 2002, and remaining policy for over twelve years has aided many an insurer, employer, landlord, builder, property manager and property seller to escape liability for causation of severe illness and even deaths. Thousands of lives have been devastated by the false concept that it is proven biotoxins in water damaged buildings could not have harmed them.

It is easily billions of dollars of wasted medical testings and treatments that attempt to treat while naysaying the true cause of the symptoms. The burden of care for those injured in their workplace, has been cost-shifted off of many a workers comp insurer and onto the taxpayer via needed social services for the disabled and their families.

While following the teachings of ACOEM, medical schools and medical non-profits, by and large, chose to harm people further by claiming their pleas for help for severe illness after exposure, were only being made because they were mentally ill or fakers trying to scam building stakeholders.  Infants and small children, who have not be able to receive viable medical care, have been among the accused scammers. The litigation over the years has been horrendous with the ACOEM mold statement being the fraudulent mainstay of the defense in the vast majority of cases.

Needless to say, the paper in its various uses over the years, is undoubtedly one of the dirtiest tricks ever played on the American public by leaders of America’s medical communities and non-profit organizations who influence medical policies and practices. The politics in governmental organizations and in courts which have aided this fraud to continue, is shockingly inconceivable to those who are concerned for the health and safety of their fellowman and for the future integrity of United States courts.

But the good news is…..

Science and medicine continue to advance to greater understanding of how to prevent and treat these illnesses.  ACOEM removing the scientific fraud from their website and sunsetting the false concept that it is proven these chronic, debilitating and sometimes deadly illnesses could not be caused by biotoxins in water damaged buildings, is a huge milestone toward achieving that understanding and toward stopping scientific fraud upon the court.

In other words….

The Wicked Witch is FINALLY DEAD!