CA Dept of Health, Remove Insurer Fraud From Policy Over Sicknesses From "Toxic Mold"

This petition is important because public-servant health officials need retraining about the types off illnesses people acquire from water damaged buildings, and proper retraining of how to take a code enforcement complaint.

We, the undersigned, demand that the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) cease discrimination of the environmentally disabled by removal of any and all reference to the retired ACOEM Mold Statement, "Adverse Human Health Effects Associated with Mold in the Indoor Environment" from all California public health advisories and public servant educational materials. People are dying from the systemic discrimination over Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome from exposure to microbes and their toxins found in Water-Damaged-Buildings. (CIRS-WDB is a form of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome CFS). The bullying by public health policy and discriminatory insurer fraud being mass-marketed as legitimate science by government agencies must stop here with the California Department of Public Health.

This is because under California Senate Bill 665 signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown in October of 2015, “health officers” employed by CDPH will have greater influence over determining tenants’ rights and water-damaged-building health hazards. If the health officers continue to be taught by the CDPH that CIRS-WDB is a figment of the tenants’ imaginations by continued promotion of “Adverse Human Health Effects Associated with Mold in the Indoor Environment”; then landlords and their insurers will have no liability for causation of the tenants’ newly acquired environmental disabilities (CIRS-WDB).

The BUCK STOPS IN CALIFORNIA for the government-backed insurer scam (occurring for well over a decade nationwide) in deadly discrimination of the environmentally disabled. It is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by science fraud in policy (the debunked toxicology risk assessment model “Veritox Theory” in the retired ACOEM Mold Statement). Even with ACOEM no longer promoting it, the State of California still is in public health policies, physician education, and public servant educational materials by publications such as “Mold in Indoor Workplaces”. Stop it, NOW! People are dying from the fraud in policy.

PETITION DEDICATION

This petition is dedicated to the late Jared Dussault. Jared was fifteen year old environmentally injured boy living in Florida. He was bullied into hanging himself. Beginning in the fall of 2014, he, his mother and two younger siblings were being treated like criminals for saying their water-damaged-apartment caused them to experience CIRS-WDB and that the bad faith acts of others with powerful political connections to cover it up, were only figments of their imagination.

The abusive insult to devastating injury drove him to take his life. Like so many others being maliciously deemed liars and horrifically harassed over the Toxic Mold Issue at a time in their lives when they need the most help; all he wanted was to be believed that they needed help when telling the truth and to be treated like his life mattered and he was Somebody – which contrary to the teachings of insurer fraud as a matter of public health policy by public health agencies -- he was.

BACKGROUND

In October of 2015, Governor Jerry Brown signed California Senate Bill 655 into law. The bill was sponsored by CA Senator Holly Mitchell (D-LA). It was strongly supported by the “nonprofit” California Apartment Association (CAA) and according to them the bill establishes as law, “Visibility: The mold growth must be visible. No more air tests that tenants and their attorneys attempt to use to delay evictions and avoid the payment of rent. Confirmation: The mold must be determined by a health officer or code enforcement officer to rise to a level that endangers the life, limb, health, property, safety or welfare of the public or the occupants. No more last minute tenant self-declarations that the mold exists.”

The CDPH, who employs the “health officers” is marketing scientific fraud which claims to scientifically prove microbial toxins in WDB will never reach a level to harm. The way they are doing this, is by promoting a retired medical position statement of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) “Adverse Human Health Effects Associated with Mold in the Indoor Environment”

The fraud in the ACOEM Mold statement which causes discrimination of those disabled by CIRS-WDB, began to be formulated in 2001. Two toxic tort expert defense witnesses in mold litigations from the corporation of Veritox, Inc. , calculated a linear-no-threshold (LNT) risk assessment model, the "Veritox Theory" . They professed that their model proved "Levels of exposure in the indoor environment, dose-response data in animals, and dose-rate considerations suggest that delivery by the inhalation route of a toxic dose of mycotoxins in the indoor environment is highly unlikely at best, even for the hypothetically most vulnerable subpopulations.”

In 2002, the "nonprofit" medical trade association, American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) legitimized the fraudulent Veritox Theory LNT by making it a position statement titled "Adverse Human Health Effects from Mold in the Indoor Environment" . Commonly referred to as the "ACOEM Mold Statement" it has been used as "current accepted science" in nearly all mold litigations to deny insurer and other stakeholder liability when disability and death are caused by exposure to poorly maintained and water-damaged work places, residents, and schools.

To quote from the 2007 Wall Street Journal article titled, “Court of Opinion, Amid Suits Over Mold Experts Wear Two Hats, Authors of Science Paper Often Cited by Defense Also Help in Litigation” regarding ACOEM’s role in mass-marketing the insurer fraud/Veritox Theory “They [two owners of Veritox, Inc., Bryan Hardin and Bruce Kelman, co-authors of the ACOEM Mold Statement] took hypothetical exposure and hypothetical toxicity and jumped to the conclusion there is nothing there."

From 2005 to present, the CDPH has marketed the fraudulent Veritox Theory LNT by directing physicians to the ACOEM Mold Statement. To quote from the CDPH publication, "Mold in Indoor Workplaces" page 4: ,“Physicians can refer to the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) statement, Adverse Human Health Effects Associated with Molds in the Indoor Environment. www.acoem.org/guidelines/article.asp?ID=52.”

The above link on the CDPH website is broken because ACOEM is no longer marketing the insurer fraud in discrimination of the environmentally disabled, and neither should the CDPH. As WorkCompCentral accurately reported earlier this year in their article, “ACOEM Takes Down Position Paper commonly Used to Defend Against Mold Claims”, “It was a litigation defense argument right from the get-go”
True science dictates that an LNT cannot be used by itself to determine lack of causation of illness and thus lack of liability for the causation. To quote from the “National Research Council’s (NRC) Committee on Science, Technology, Law, Policy and Global Affairs’ third edition of Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. “ (Page 662) “Note that many subjective symptoms are poorly modeled in animal studies. Thus, complaints that a chemical has caused nonspecific symptoms, such as nausea, headache, and weakness, for which there are no objective manifestations in humans, are difficult to test in laboratory animals.”

In 2002, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) began marketing the fraudulent Veritox Theory. They were participating in Mold Conferences with Veritox, Inc. owners and other prolific toxic tort expert defense witnesses. Bryan Hardin, co-author of the Veritox Theory, retired as a Deputy Director of CDC NIOSH in 2001 – shortly before beginning his career as an expert defense witness in mold litigation and a co-owner of Veritox, Inc.

The U.S. Department of Justice has repeatedly relied upon the fraudulent Veritox Theory LNT to deny federal liability for causation of CIRS-WDB in military families living in moldy military housing , and in other federal buildings where federal employees have been harmed, for now over a decade.

The retaliation of whistle-blowers over the Toxic Mold Issue and the use of the fraudulent risk-assessment in policy by the hands of state and federal government agencies and courts, has been shamelessly horrendous as disabled people have lost all they own from the systematically marketed fraud, the Veritox Theory. As accurately stated by ex-CIA agent and author of “From the Company of Shadows” Kevin Shipp :

"Repeatedly, the federal government has concealed the existence of toxic mold in government buildings and on government bases. Certain agencies have gone as far as claiming personal injury suits for toxic mold and other exposures are ‘classified,’ to keep them from reaching the courts. Similar obstruction is used by the US military to conceal toxic exposure of military personnel and their families. As a result, federal employees and their families have suffered serious medical injury, incurred significant medical bills, had their personal possessions destroyed due to contamination and have been financially ruined. This has become a common modus operandi used by federal agencies to silence plaintiffs in federal toxic torts suits - because it has worked in the past. In many cases, federal employees or service members who file these complaints suffer severe retribution, including demotions and the loss of their career. This has caused several injured federal workers to refrain from reporting their illnesses, for fear of retribution."

Just days after Governor Brown signed SB 655 into law, the deceptive marketing began to try to keep desciminatory science fraud in policy and California “health officer” practices, even after it was retired by ACOEM. A HuffPo blogger with a Ph.D., Blair King, published an article tiled “Truth About Toxic Mold” . Attempting to resurrect the dead risk-assessment model “Veritox Theory” by Hardin, Kelman, Saxon, after ACOEM sunset the paper from their public affairs page/ACOEM policy earilier this year; he cited the paper as published as a medical journal publication.

To quote from the Blogger King’s HuffPo article: “As for the mycotoxins, the research is also clear: Current scientific evidence does not support the proposition that human health has been adversely affected by inhaled mycotoxins in home, school, or office environments (Hardin Kelman and Saxon, 2003)”


REASON FOR PETITION
The reason I wrote this petition is to illustrate how many people will whine and moan that no one is helping them, but will not take the few minutes of time to read and sign a petition to shut down the fraud that harms them, their clients and friends.

The excuses will range from “I can’t sign that if so and so did, because people may think I like that person” to “I’m too sick to read and sign a petition. I need someone to do something to help me, now – not everyone else in the future” to “I can’t sign that because I am too professional to have my name on a petition with a bunch of people who are beneath me, aka my clients with no degrees in higher education” to “I can’t stand the methods used by others to try to stop the fraud, even though I agree with their message. Therefore, I am just going to keep on complaining about no one helping remove false science from policy that it’s proven WDBs do not cause CIRS, while lives continue to be destroyed” or “I can’t sign this because my work to stop the fraud for years (that hasn’t stopped) is government funded” or “I make a lot of money going around the country as an “expert” and sitting on committees to stop the fraud in policies. If it actually stopped, then what would I do?” and (my all time favorite excuse) “I am working on it in my own way and could not dare to support the efforts of others. It’s just not what I do.”

I am anticipating about 100 signers at most. As such, the above noted insurer scam will continue because the mold community (and supporting CFS community) can never get its act together to speak in a unified voice – even on one simple item like demanding a public health agency remove retired scientific fraud from policy – while lives continue to be destroyed.