When one has worn shoes such a mine, the
right to speak out has been earned, probably not once but
many times over.
Negligence
Not being a lawyer, I cannot
define this term nor present arguments that might hold up
in court, but I will provide commentary that is worthy of
consideration.
Failure to build a structure
that is safe is not acceptable. Safety includes more
than using the right size timber for piers and joists and
headers. It means that it will be safe for humans and
their pets to occupy the structures. As such, off gassing
and mold are serious issues. We use toxic building
materials, but what this means is that in addition to formaldehyde
and other hazardous chemicals that torment people, mold is
mutating so as to be able to decompose increasingly toxic
building materials. Failure to manage water and the
risks of water intrusion, moisture condensation, floods,
and leaks is thus irresponsible and probably negligent, this
almost exactly in proportion to the materials used to build
the structure. The question is simply: who is
responsible for remediation?
All potential
sources of moisture and all mold growth must be addressed,
even if expensive. For an occupant, the
option is to depart or see that the issues are corrected. When
I was at the entry level on the mold learning curve, a practitioner
who had to burn all of his patient records, books, and office
furniture related his horror story. This is one solution. The
second story was of a work place in which four employees
had become seriously ill. The company was quietly paying
for their medical care and remediating the building. In
the situations I described on the previous
pages, one landlord responded properly but the other
apparently has no intention of doing so. I do not even
know if the problem with the air quality in the hotel was
reported. Anyone who files such a complaint risks being
labeled a crank and trouble maker.
There are, however, enormous
moral issues. I feel that I have paid dearly for my
silence. My lawyer was constantly telling me not to
print anything because it would be used against me. What
about those who are ignorant of just how serious mold is? I
totally understand how dangerous mold is, and I
can't be silent any longer.
All along, I have been sharing my findings
with a handful of doctors and researchers but what about
all the people who are still naive about mold?
The more I learn, the better
able I am to reconstruct what happened with my dog as well
as Bob. Bhakti
had been vomiting often. I was consulting in Germany
and had discussed her symptoms with the doctor there. He
said, "Ingrid, absolutely for certain, Bhakti has stomach
cancer." He
was definite beyond anything I usually see with medical diagnoses. She
had hemorrhaged very badly and the veterinarian said the
x-rays showed "gases in her stomach". The
lab tests showed that the kidneys and all other vital organs
were failing. I now understand
perfectly that this was mold: it made holes and the
mycotoxins caused the organ damage. However, as I have
said in many emails, mold is very seldom diagnosed and many
cancers are actually mold-related. My rough estimate
is that about one-third of all cancers can be linked to mold,
but I can't prove this. I am just estimating on the
basis of what I have seen.
Bhakti was a very compliant
patient. She would take any medicine I gave her, and
she was the sweetest and most beloved creature on Earth. I
did not, however, think of mold in the stomach. I was
still learning and we all pay dearly for what we do not know.
Bob also retched a lot. We
would go out for dinner and he would sometimes leave the
table and come back looking totally exhausted. He had
a melanoma inside his eye, but it seemed contained. Three
weeks before he died, he had a battery of exams that revealed
the presence of duodenal ulcers. He couldn't eat anything
and went into multiple organ failure.
Neither Bob nor I understood
enough about mold; but all large property owners
and builders do understand mold as do the insurance companies
and their negligence is therefore intolerable and sociopathic.
Hurricane Damage
I lectured in the Bahamas about
a year and half ago. Having lived in Hawaii for twenty
years, I was thrilled by the trade winds and sea air so
I had turned off the air conditioning in my room. When
I got to the airport, I noticed that everyone else was coughing. People
told me they had been staying in hotels that were undergoing
renovation following hurricane damage, meaning that if less
than perfect mold remediation protocols were followed, all
moldy materials would be wildly disseminated, resulting in
incalculable long-term harm to guests who stayed in those
hotels.
Far on the other side of the
alley, I have had occasion in the last days to phone many
lawyers. There seem to be countless firms gearing up
to make mold the next cash cow for lawyers. Unlike
asbestos issues, mold medical complications can appear very
quickly, but the precedents for multimillion dollar settlements
do not exist which is why insurers are trying to limit liability. The
reason is "they know" so to the extent that they know, they
are remiss if their response to a legitimate claim is not
immediate.
The lawyers are busy. The
lucrative side of what is to come will be endless defense
of large corporations: insurance companies that are
denying claims, enormous employers who are not providing
safe working conditions for employees, big contractors who
are throwing together subdivisions and large complexes, and
public places such as schools, hospitals, hotels, and even
libraries. Representing the claimants will be tedious
but lawyers on both sides make a living by dragging out the
process as long as possible. This is also not conscionable
but unless the world changes, we should expect protracted
litigation with an occasional landmark outcome in which someone
has to pay millions or billions because they wittingly and
negligently failed to correct a known hazard to health.
As one person said, there are
too many lawyers so why would this litigation be any swifter
or more satisfactory than asbestos or tobacco or mercury
amalgams or aspartame?
To the extent that huge awards
will be sought for alleged suffering, you can be sure the
insurance industry will continue to support bad science. Unfortunately,
I have been in the position since the beginning of the AIDS
epidemic to see how this works. No matter what one
can say, it works against the patient.
Anyone who has concrete information
on just how dangerous mold is will be ridiculed and efforts
will be made to discredit the research as well as conclusions. For
this reason, you can expect better research to come from
countries that do not have a history of gigantic settlements. The
best mold studies I have seen are coming out of Australia
and India, but there are some here, even though the researchers
have been flamed.
This said, I only know one
person who claims to be cured of mold infection. I
am not sure what to say about myself. I feel I have
conquered many of the issues: allergies, fatigue, slurring,
memory loss, cognitive dysfunction, and dizziness. Most
stiffness is also gone. Most skin discoloration is
gone and some of the skin tags have disappeared. I
do not, however, know about internal toxicity or organ damage. I
was most concerned about the way mold decomposes organic
material. Ever since I observed this in live blood
analysis, I have been totally aware of just how dangerous
mold is.
Ironically, I have tried on
a number of occasions to present this understanding to other
researchers but they have not seen it with their own eyes
and thus do not know exactly what to make of what I have
told them. I can send pictures but without a video,
it won't make total sense. Unless all mold is actually
eliminated, the potential for havoc would remain and this
is the basis of the contention that mold infection is incurable. I
was not sure until a week ago when my own blood held up properly
for the first time in years. I realize no one understands
what I am saying nor what the ramifications are. I
have to present the information with a stronger foundation
for interpreting the observations.
All I can say at this juncture
is that those of you who are trying to correct your health
through supplements and antimicrobials are not
exhibiting a proper understanding of the real issue. There
are molds used in the production of many supplements and
these are more than likely to make you worse, not better.
Secondly, bacteria and mold
are enemies. This is how penicillin was "discovered"
by Alexander Fleming. He was studying Staphylococcus
aureus and noticed that one culture had died because of penicillium. So,
think of antibiotics as the opposites of probiotics and you
are more likely to address your issues properly.
In my case, I used antifungal
herbs, not antimicrobial ones. To survive mold in the
forest or jungle, a tree must have antifungal properties. It
is usually in the bark, sometimes inner bark, like cinnamon.
I am certain that no matter
what I publish, only the most sincere seekers will apply
the ideas effectively. This is how it is at this time,
but at least I will have tried to fulfill my obligation to
protect others so that no one goes through what I have been
through. The more you understand, the better
your responses will be to your challenges.
With blessings!
Ingrid Naiman
1 October 2006
Insurance
Nightmares 
