Homeowners with toxic drywall reported 8 deaths to federal officials

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Homeowners with toxic drywall have reported eight deaths to federal consumer safety officials, though no direct linkage has been found.

From June 2009 to December 2009, federal officials received eight complaints linking toxic wallboard to deaths, according to a Scripps Howard News Service analysis of almost 2,700 drywall complaints to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and 467 follow-up inspections by the CPSC, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In a ninth case, one of those follow-up inspections reported the death in 2008 of a 9-year-old boy, after his family's St. Rose, La., home was remodeled with toxic drywall.

The deaths reported to the CPSC were primarily among elderly people or youths with long-standing medical problems and appear to have occurred mostly between 2006 and 2008 -- before concerns surfaced in the fall of 2009 about the safety of the drywall in the homes.

A spokesman for the CPSC said there is no scientific proof of a link between drywall and the deaths.

"There is no evidence to date that any individual has passed away due to health issues associated with a home that has problem drywall," spokesman Scott Wolfson said. "CPSC and our federal interagency partners care about and are working hard to assist all of the affected families."

Wolfson would not answer questions about how federal officials have investigated the reported deaths.

Aside from the nine deaths documented in complaints and an inspection report, Scripps Howard also located a 10th death suspected to be linked to toxic drywall. Steve Aboulafia, 56, moved into a half-million-dollar home in Cape Coral, Fla., in February 2007. His aging mother, Gertrude, 86, came to live with him in January 2009. Shortly after moving in, his mother began having mini-strokes and headaches. She died in June 2009.

"I feel like I'm the one who killed her, in a way, because she was in my house," said Aboulafia, who is now renting a condo in nearby Fort Myers. "If I had known sooner, we would have moved out. But I didn't know how bad it was."

Those who have had a loved one die say they aren't sure how much the toxic drywall is to blame. The deaths occurred before concerns surfaced about the drywall, including widespread reports that it causes nosebleeds, breathing problems and headaches. Because of this, Aboulafia and others didn't consider connecting family members' decline to the toxic fumes until months or years after the death.

As federal authorities determine how to fix tainted homes and major litigation begins against Chinese wallboard makers, unanswered questions are mounting about the toxic material's health effects.

The concerns come as the federal authorities are developing a plan to fix tainted homes. Last November, officials from the CPSC and other federal agencies released scientific findings that homes with toxic drywall did indeed release elevated levels of certain types of toxic materials.

At the time, CPSC officials said they would use the research to draft fixes. In January, officials announced how homeowners could determine if they have toxic drywall. However, to date scientists do not definitively know why toxic drywall -- much of which has been imported from China -- is releasing a rotten-egg-smelling gas and causing anxiety among thousands of homeowners, mainly in Florida, but also in 36 other states, including Louisiana and Virginia.

Like other unanswered questions, it's unclear how dangerous the toxic drywall is. Health experts said there is little evidence that the fumes could cause death. However, because toxic drywall acts as an irritant, it could trigger deadly asthma attacks, according to Dr. Barbara Manis of the Rockville, Md.-based Building Health Sciences, an environmental health consultancy.

But Manis, who specializes in indoor-air issues and has studied toxic drywall, said that there is no evidence that toxic drywall would contribute to heart attacks. Also, it's unlikely that the drywall would cause cancer, which would take years or decades to develop, she said.

One of the main chemicals released by toxic drywall, hydrogen sulfide, is both an irritant and a chemical asphyxiant that affects the body's ability to use oxygen and the central nervous system, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Sometimes, illnesses linked with toxic drywall aren't actually caused by the fumes, said Dr. Vincent Castranova, a spokesman for the Society of Toxicology, a professional organization. Rather, people convince themselves they are sick because they smell a foul odor, said Castranova, who studies how pollutants affect breathing for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

"If I were in a room and I could smell the rotten-egg smell, and I had headaches or nausea, it's very difficult to prove that that is because the chemicals are causing me to become biologically ill, as opposed to the smell making me think I am uncomfortable, which causes me to have symptoms," Castranova said. "There's a psychological issue here as well."

(E-mail Isaac Wolf at wolfi(at)shns.com)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)

With sidebar: DRYWALLCOMPLAINTS