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American Morning

More Workers Taking Employers to Court Citing Health Problems Caused by Toxic Mold

Aired August 13, 2002 - 07:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to break the mold now, not necessarily the story that you want to hear over your breakfast hour, but it's an important one. More and more workers are taking employers to court citing health problems caused by toxic mold in the workplace.
Sherry Waters, an attorney with the Louisiana Department of Social Services, says toxic mold at her New Orleans office building made her and other staffers sick. She is now part of a lawsuit against Plaza Towers and the state.

Sherry Waters joins us now from New Orleans, along with Jeffrey May, who joins us from Boston. He conducts air quality tests for property owners. He's also written a book called "My House Is Killing Me."

Good morning to you both. Welcome.

SHERRY WATTERS, ATTORNEY: Good morning.

JEFFREY MAY, AUTHOR, "MY HOUSE IS KILLING ME": Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: All right, Sherry, first of all, tell us how long you worked in this building and how sick you got.

WATTERS: We moved in in September of '96 and the symptoms that everybody started getting sick in about the first, after the first month, the moving in. And it just kind of got progressively worse. It started with sinus-like symptoms and got into respiratory problems, headaches, fatigue, some bleeding even some people experienced.

ZAHN: And what made you eventually discover it was mold in this building that was causing your symptoms?

WATTERS: Well, we would see mold. I brought a picture of some of the mold in our building if you'd like to see it. But we'd see the mold and at first -- it took us a while to make the relationship between the two things. We would notice that we didn't have the symptoms when we weren't in the building or like on vacations or weekends, and we did have them when we were in the building. So it took us a while but we eliminated all other possible causes.

ZAHN: As we mentioned, there's a lawsuit now pending against Plaza Towers, and I do want to mention that we contacted the management for that building, B.G. Real Estate Services, and they maintain a policy of not discussing ongoing litigation. But they have said that they deny all unsubstantiated allegations.

Do you figure to succeed with this lawsuit?

WATTERS: Yes. You don't have the number of people we had all getting sick with similar symptoms and similar experiences and not have, you know, have that as their only common cause. I think we're going to prevail.

ZAHN: Jeffrey, I want to bring you into the discussion now to help educate consumers out there. You help inspect homes before people go in and buy them. Run us through a checklist of what people need to be aware of not only in the home environment, but work environment. MAY: Well, it's a pretty long list so it's not something we could really just go over in a little show like this. But I think the most important thing is really what people feel. It's, they have to believe themselves. If you, you know, if you go into an environment the way Sherry did and you feel sick, the most important thing is you say look, I'm, you know, I'm fine before I go to work or I'm fine before I was in the house. I'm fine on vacation. And then when I come back I'm sick.

And you have to believe yourself. It's very, very crucial. And I think that's key.

ZAHN: You also advise people to very carefully look over air conditioners if their homes or apartments come with those and air conditioning coils and furnaces and humidifiers. We're looking at some pictures now -- and I know you've got to do a broad stroke here -- but what do you want to alert people to? MAY: Well, I think, you know, if people are buying houses, if they've got allergy problems, certainly it's very easy to just take a look inside the, look inside a duct with a mirror. The pictures that are sort of flashing by, you had moldy air conditioner coil. It's very, very common. It's hard to see. It's hard to access but a lot of the coils both in homes and businesses are completely covered with mold.

Almost every furnace, humidifier that's out there actually is, has, you know, puddles of things growing inside it. So there are a lot of really hidden sources in buildings that can make people quite sick and it's very important to keep up the maintenance and to investigate those areas.

ZAHN: Sherry, finally, we've got 10 seconds left, some 9,000 lawsuits filed in the U.S. and Canada over the last 10 years over these kinds of problems. What do you say to people out there who take what you're saying seriously about the health condition but think you're just jumping on the bandwagon here?

WATTERS: Well, we just want a healthy and safe work environment and all of this was perfectly avoidable if people take care of their buildings and maintain them, don't let the water intrusion grow into this situation. It doesn't have to happen and we don't have to be exposed to this.

ZAHN: Well, we're glad your feeling better and are going to try to stay on top of this lawsuit. Sherry Waters, thanks so much for joining us.

WATTERS: Thank you.

ZAHN: And Jeffrey May, appreciate your time as well.

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