ABSTRACT
At great expense, Michael Wagner of Bayville, New Jersey, had his house torn apart. He paid $20,000 to have the new insulation removed from the walls of his house because it made him and his family sick. Shortly after the insulation was installed, Wagner began having equilibrium problems, severe headaches, and nosebleeds; his capacity to handle stress dwindled. “Eventually I collapsed at work and had to be rushed to the emergency room,” he recalled during a television interview. 1 After health officials pinpointed formaldehyde emanating from the insulation as the probable cause of the family's symptoms, Wagner sued the manufacturer and the installer, who settled out of court for $225,000. The Wagners had suffered from formaldehyde sensitization.
