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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I don't agree with this administration's push against science in many venues, but hysteria over indoor air should be tempered with an understanding of the broad and deep dataset that exists on the subject.
I have taken a great many indoor air samples and evaluated I can't recall how many structures for similar complaints. I have evaluated actual health threats from contaminated sites, buildings where all exposed persons had running sores on their bodies, for example. I've been first man in on evacuated sites with employees hospitalized, collected dioxin samples, and evaluated lead poisoning in fragile populations.
Indoor air is notoriously prone to higher concentrations of formaldehyde, trailers can be worse, and new build homes are also typically quite high in formaldehyde. Newly built homes with excessive amounts of pressed woods (the glues supply the HCoH)average above levels which NIOSH set as being safe, and are often around or higher than the EPA .1 ppm number. After these have been used for some time, the concentrations most typically go down over the years although construction dictates what precisely will occur.
Also, if those numbers scare you? Don't ever drive a car because the concentrations of VOCs, including the class A carcinogen (known human carcinogen) benzene is ubiquitous in and around automobiles. Well, and in your homes and outdoor air and breath as well, but that's another story . . .
In terms of risk, the methodology for determining risks for cancer are obsolescent and imply risks when none can be factually determined. It's a mathematical model, not a fact-based determination of actual risks. The safety factors built into those numbers assure that exceedances above them will not produce an adverse effect. Risk modeling is based on a linear relationship, meaning no expsure is ever without risk. However, we know that there are thresholds for carcinogenesis and thus, some risk estimates are cearly de minimis terms of risk and should be excused from consideration.
"High formaldehyde" levels is a nice and scary catch phrase, but it's not relevant to a sound debate about public health. Your body produces formaldehyde, daily. Aldehydes are in fragrances and flavor all your foods (vanillin is an aldehyde).
.34 ppm formaldehyde in a new structure is common. If that level scares you there are tens of thousands of structures in the United States you should stay away from. Considering how common formaldehyde was in manufacturing a couple decades ago (carpet and drape finishing as examples), if these concentrations posed an actual risk, related cancers in excess numbers would have been seen in the US long, long ago.
Objective, peer-reviewed studies indicate concentrations in homes can exceed the highest level reported in the FEMA trailers. Older homes and older trailers with UFFI insulations can exceed that number handily. There are no outbreaks of these cancers in those homes, therefore the facts argue against this fear.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
