Toxic Black Mold Makes For A Potent Fungal Meningitis: Fairly healthy people with a bit of back pain

are ending up dead as black mold was injected directly into their spines. Sounds like a great terrorist or sci fi plot, yet to the horror of many it is true. The tainted black mold was the courtesy of the careless manufacture of steroid shots sold to 14,000 patients over many states. Doctors are in unchartered water as this fungal meningitis is not so easy to detect and is not very common. This is a toxic black mold meningitis; a truly different beast than what docs are used to treating. The source of the problem is New England Compounding Center. The suspected causes of the mold tainted injections are: a leaking boiler, dirty floor mats, a pool of water near a sterile room where the medicines were manufactured, and the worst being black fungal (mold) growths in steroid vials. Water intrusion was not immediately repaired and necessary cleaning was also neglected. There was a basic ignorance to understand what is necessary to prevent mold and kill mold. The moisture provided the perfect medium for mold growth. Mold needs warm, dark and damp conditions which this room obviously met. Since mold spores can travel, the sitting vials awaiting medicines were silently lined with invisible mold spores. NECC was in a hurry for some reason and failed to wait for the results of sterility checks which would have identified the molds presence. Sterility checks should have occurred before the manufacturing of the steroid shots. This fungus appears as a brown/black armor that can sneak past the defense system. The main culprit is: Exserohilum rostrum, usually found in dirt and grasses. Most infections from this fungus are skin infections found in immune compromised individuals according to Dr. David Perlin, (University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey). The problem is that human cells and fungal cells are very similar making it hard to target without massive side effects. The toxic mold then grows slowly burrowing its way from the spinal cord into the spinal fluid. It then has a direct path to the brain. The research with mold proves that mold toxins are able to go through the blood brain barrier and attack the brain - a serious problem. One death occurred in Maryland where mold pierced blood vessels in her brain leading to severe brain damage and death. Usually serious infections attack people with compromised immune systems like AIDS patients. This rare fungal meningitis is attacking otherwise healthy people which simply is a frightening proposition. The fact that the mold grows slowly is confirmed by the average of 42 days before patients show symptoms of a black injection according to the CDC. In contrast, bacterial and viral meningitis attack quickly, with obvious symptoms. Treatment for these identified patients includes using the drug Voriconazole. Patients require being monitored as differences in metabolism can make blood levels surge causing confusion, nausea, hallucinations and sometimes liver damage warns Dr. Carol Kauffman, professor of infectious disease at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. As of October 25tt, 24 of the 323 Americans with black mold meningitis have died. In 2002 a different fungal meningitis occurred 152 days after the shot.

We should be grateful that there are such strict rules for sterility of the areas of manufacturing of drugs. Mold in mass belongs nowhere. There are health implications within a moldy building. For the unlucky people with faulty genes, 25% of the population according to Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker, mold toxins pass through the bodies immune system with no antibodies produced to destroy them. Mold toxins are then free to go anywhere, including the brain, slipping through the blood brain barrier and exacerbating all sorts of health conditions. Taking care to make sure to prevent mold and kill mold well keep healthy patients from a black mold tainted steroid shot and possible death. Sources: CBS/AP October 25, 2012 USA Today.com/news/10/12/2012/Meningitis