MomsAgainstMold.org

Valley Fever is a fungal infection caused by coccidioides, organisms that reside in the soil here in the Southwest. It's one of the reasons I stay away from construction sites and swirling dust now that we live in Arizona. According to Wikipedia, "Coccidioides immitis is dormant during long dry spells, then develops as a mold with long filaments that break off into airborne spores when the rains come. The spores, known as arthroconidia, are swept into the air by disruption of the soil, such as during construction, farming, or an earthquake."

Residents of Joplin, Missouri were exposed to a similar fungal organism, and the resulting systemic infection proved fatal to at least three of the tornado victims. Dr. Uwe Schmidt, an infectious disease specialist at Freeman Health System, said his hospital treated five Joplin tornado victims for the infection, known as zygomycosis (zy'-goh-my-KOH'-sihs). According to this June 10 Associated Press article:

Zygomycosis, also known as mucormycosis, is a sometimes-fatal infection that spreads rapidly and can be caused by soil or vegetative material getting under the skin. It's more prevalent in people with weakened immune systems or untreated diabetes but can affect healthy people who get badly hurt.

This earlier post referred to research which suggests that toxic dust found in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait may be contributing to adverse health effects for many U.S. military personnel. The following article appearing in the Army Times lists some of the researchers' specific findings pertaining to heavy metals.

Microbiologists Dale Griffin of the U.S. Geologic Survey and Capt. Mark Lyles of the Naval War College analyzed dust samples taken in Iraq and Kuwait in 2004 and found a wide range of heavy metals at rates in excess of World Health Organization maximum safe exposure guidelines. Some don’t even have maximum exposure guidelines because they are not expected to be present in airborne dust. The elements of “greatest concern” and the proportions found in dust samples: