ABSTRACT
A cursory review of the medical literature regarding water-damaged buildings and human health can be confusing because two opposing views exist. This chapter eliminates the ambiguity by evaluating “naysayer,” “yaysayer” and summary literature from two different time periods: Up until 2010 and from 2011 through 2018. From the earlier time period, a 2002 article created the unproven hypothesis that sufficient mycotoxins were unlikely to be amassed in an indoor space to cause serious human illness. Several other reports accepted this negative argument as the basis for their conclusions. A few large review summaries found ample evidence for some health associations, while other symptoms and illnesses were thought to need more evidence. The epidemiologic and animal experimental data from the less recent time period demonstrated significant data supporting illness caused by allergy, infection, toxicity and multiple non-allergic immune mechanisms. The more recent time period included a systematic review with a near-consensus of epidemiologic studies demonstrating single-system and multisystem illness, with hundreds of associations between indoor dampness/microbial growth and adverse human health effects. Chronic inflammatory response syndrome is a multisystemic illness with published symptoms, physical exam findings, reproducible biomarkers, characteristic imaging and transcriptomic abnormalities.
