Just-Released Book Offers Help and Hope to Victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and Flooding

Katrina 2nd anniversary update: Book reveals that FEMA knew trailer designs would lead to mold, clean up of environmental toxins ignored, and unreported health effects to exposed residents skyrocket.

Hurricane Katrina evacuees pen the book, MOLD: The War Within, which exposes the negative health dangers of mold and toxic chemicals from Katrina and Rita that have left thousands of hurricane-hit area residents, remediation workers, and volunteers struggling with increased levels of physical, mental, and emotional illnesses two years later.

Researchers and authors, Kurt and Lee Ann Billings, point out that the health effects of mold and chemical exposures often can worsen, not diminish, with the passing of time if not properly treated. Negative health challenges are rampant in the Gulf Coast hurricane-hit areas due mold reinfestation from shoddy remediation work. At the Katrina 1st year anniversary, mold was growing through newly installed sheetrock, New Iberia chemist Wilma Subra reports in MOLD: The War Within.

Children are at high risk in moldy and chemical environments, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Kids with respiratory and allergy histories are at even higher risk, Gina Solomon, MD, explains in MOLD: The War Within. The book details other high-risk groups such as the elderly, people with existing medical conditions such as diabetes, HIV, leukemia, etc., people who have undergone recent surgery, pregnant women, and people taking immune-suppressive medications such as nasal and/or oral steroids, which are common misprescribed treatments for mold and allergy management.

David Straus, PhD, reveals in the book the ways in which exposure to indoor sources of mold can make people sick: infection, inhalation of mold spores, and inhalation of mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are toxins produced by certain toxigenic mold species. The well-known “black” mold, Stachybotrys, is a toxigenic mold.

Mold- and chemical-related illnesses are not always easily identified by medical doctors. According to Timothy Callaghan, MD, DC, the symptoms of mold exposure are often misdiagnosed as psychiatric illnesses. In MOLD: The War Within the authors detail common medical misdiagnoses and mistreatments, and examine effective alternative treatment options that restored their family's health.

According to New York Times Best-selling author Doris Rapp, MD, MOLD: The War Within is the ultimate “Why and How To” book that "… offers practical realistic help and suggestions so others who have been hurt will know what to do and where to go for the help and assistance they need."