N.C. wants answers on formaldehyde in manufactured homes, classrooms
In response to the federal government's findings of dangerously high formaldehyde levels in manufactured homes provided to families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley sent a letter yesterday to the head of the state Manufactured Housing Institute seeking more information about the units' safety. Easley also asked the state Board of Education to to check the portable classroom buildings used by many school systems to ensure they are safe from toxic fumes. There's clearly cause for concern: A 1999 study [PDF] by the Environmental Working Group of air quality in California's portable classrooms found problems with volatile organic compounds including formaldehyde, benzene and toluene, as well as toxic molds.
Labels: north carolina, public health, regulatory oversight
2 Comments:
CA study found serious IAQ issues in only a small percentage of classrooms. It also found problems in both portable AND traditional classrooms. Portable classrooms are not, in and of themselves, the problem. Improved maintenance would greatly improve performance. Free resources available at non profit trade association's website - www.modular.org.
note on trailers and other formaldehyde sources: Rich Murray 2008.02.23
So far, I haven't seen anyone else connect these black dots, and ask, "Since formaldehyde is formaldehyde, whether from trailers, dark wines and liquors,
tobacco or wood smoke, faulty stoves and heaters, or aspartame, then all these sources have to be discussed publicly, vigorously, accurately, now, since it is neurotoxic and carcinogenic, impairing fertility and increasing
birth defects -- right to life issues, anyone? ---
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1455 --- FEMA slow to safety test Katrina toxic trailers, Charles Babington of Associated Press --
1 ppm formaldehyde in air is about half the daily dose from 3 cans aspartame diet soda and ten times the 1999 EPA alarm level for drinking water: Murray 2007.07.23 --- Rich Murray mforall@comcast.net 505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
formaldehyde in FEMA trailers and other sources (aspartame, dark wines and liquors, tobacco smoke): Murray 2008.01.30
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.htm
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1508
The FEMA trailers give about the same amount of formaldehyde daily as from a quart of dark wine or liquor, or two quarts (6 12-oz cans) of aspartame diet soda, from their over 1 tenth gram methanol impurity (one part in 10,000),
which the body quickly makes into formaldehyde -- enough to be the major cause of "morning after" alcohol hangovers.
Methanol and formaldehyde also result from many fruits and vegetables, tobacco and wood smoke, heater and vehicle exhaust, household chemicals and cleaners, cosmetics, and new cars, drapes, carpets, furniture, particleboard, mobile homes, buildings, leather... so all these sources add up and interact with many other toxic chemicals.
BN Ames and LS Gold, 1998, have presented detailed information that there is no increase in recent decades for most cancers, and that common carcinogens do not result in significant exposures to the average human population.
However, individuals are not average -- each person has a unique genetic makeup, resulting in a huge range of variation of vulnerability to specific chemicals, as is well evidenced in the case of methanol, formaldehyde, and formic acid, especially with regard to behavioral effects.
Each is subject to very wide ranges of exposure levels.
Many are in especially vulnerable groups, depending on diet, obesity, sex, exercise, life stress, age from conception to very old, unusually severe toxic exposures, injuries, and diseases.
It is clear that a variety of multiple chemical sensitivity syndromes do exist, often with remarkable hypersensitivity.
Methanol, formaldehyde, and formic acid toxicity are unusual, in that humans are far more vulnerable than any other mammal, as much as ten to sixty-fold, which complicates the utility of animal data.
The unusually long human life span also increases the role of long-term chronic low-level exposure.
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