Kids Getting
Sick from School
FAIRFIELD, Conn., June 5, 2002
 (CBS) At
McKinley Elementary School in Fairfield, Conn., school's out -- not just for
summer, but maybe for good, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod.
When a number of teachers and kids reported a rash of unexplained
symptoms, local allergist Dr. John Santilli, put two and two together. He had
testing done for mold in the school.
"They found the typical indoor molds aspergillus, penicillium. But
what they found that was significant was stachibotrys," said Santilli. "Once we
started getting the testing results back it became obvious that McKinley was not
a problem, but a huge problem." Santilli estimates some 40 to 60 students and
staff got sick from the mold. Two cases were serious enough to require
hospitalization.
According to town selectmen Ken Flatto, the problem started with some
late summer flooding. "When I went in to clean out materials in a closet,
the materials had black mold all over them," said Joellen Lawson. That
cleanup took the 23-year teaching veteran out of the classroom and into
the hospital, under the care of Santilli.
"I felt like
something was standing on my chest.
My skin was crawling. I had hives and my face was puffed up like a
pink."
Portland teacher Janis Ingersole
"He said my symptoms -- the respiratory symptoms, the neurological,
the sensory disturbances that I have been suffering for years were totally
consistent with exposure to high levels of mold," she said.
Santilli says he has a dozen kids and teachers homebound. "I won't let
them go back to school." Stories like Lawson's become even more alarming
when one realizes some 14 million American children attend schools with
poor environmental conditions. In the last decade the rate of allergic
disease -- like asthma -- has doubled in the nation's classrooms. Many say
that's also the place to look for the cause.
In Portland, Ore., parents started asking questions when students and
teachers at Whitaker Middle School started complaining of fatigue, head
aches and flu-like symptoms. Said teacher Janis Ingersole, "I felt like
something was standing on my chest. My skin was crawling. I had hives and
my face was puffed up like a pink."
When the school was tested, what was first thought to be radon turned
out to be mold. Leaks from an old, poorly maintained, drainage system
caused flooding. The flooding spawned mold. "How many more teachers have
to get sick before people realize this is a serious public issue?" asks
Lawson. She is now pushing Connecticut legislators to enact new air
quality standards in state classrooms.
"Children should not have to attend school where they are going to
acquire a life-long illness." Joellen Lawson is making the dangers of mold
her last lesson -- now that it's left her unable to teach anything else.
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