Essay - In the Past Decades, the Quality of Indoor Air Has...

In the past decades, ***** quality of indoor air has received and increasing amount of attention, including a large ***** of discussion about sick building syndrome, which has been recognised since the 1970's. Certainly, most North Americans spend ***** majority of our lives indoors, and the quality of ***** indoor air environment ***** been shown to play a huge role on our he*****lth. A wide variety ***** ***** pollutants can have an effect on human health, including ********** *****bacco smoke, volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) and biological pollutants. Biological indoor pollutants include dust mites, cockroaches, effluvia from pets like birds, rodents, dog and cats ***** mold.

Early investigati*****s into sick building syndrome often gave a multi-factorial explanation for the symptoms of occupants. However, *****se investigations ***** could not explain the long duration ***** effects. Further, investigations into indoor air quality have historically ignored the problem of mold, and failed to give a clear history of water damage, or adequately document the presence of mold.

*****, mold falls into the category ***** ***** pollutants that can affect human *****. The statistics on the presence of mold in the indoor envir*****ment are compelling: one third to half of all buildings ***** damp conditions that can enc*****age the growth of biological pollutants like mold and bacteria.

The Center for Environmental Studies, University ***** Nevada, and Los Vegas was originally developed to deal with a wide variety of indoor issues. Interestingly, ***** UNLV centre had begun to focus primarily on *****, due ***** the large number of mold-related ***** air quality health complaints. The ***** center investigated 72 cases in 1998, 92 in 1999, and a staggering 156 in 2002. The centre ********** ***** about the most common mold, stachybotrys, a***** with the other 300 kinds ***** *****spergilli present. Of over 90 buildings ***** by UNLV in the Las Vegas Valley, over one third showed significant ***** growth.

*****, two of the highest-pr*****ile sick building cases in the United States have been traced back to excessive mold growth ***** exposure. *****se cases are the Grant Sawyer Build*****g and the new UNLV Library in Las Vegas. When ***** ***** Sawyer building opened in 1995, the government workers employed there complained about a wide ***** of allergic and respira*****ry symptoms, as well ***** headaches, chronic fatigue, and other illnesses.

When tests for infectious agents ***** chemicals turned up blank, the idea of mold exposure was investigated. **********, the cause was eventually determined to stachybotrys mold spores from water-*****d ceiling tiles. The water damage occurred as a result of defective heating valves. When the ***** tiles were replaced, and the heating valves were repaired, ***** clinical symptoms of the occupants improved significantly.

Molds are a subset ***** fungi, and one of the ***** ubiquitous forms of life on ***** planet Earth. They exist in almost all ecological niches, so it is likely no surprise that humans come into direct contact with molds on a const*****nt b*****is.

Fungi ***** important in that they allow of the recycling of the