Mould Exposure Standards

No scientific exposure standards currently exist for mould. Some believe that the development of exposure standards could be years away. According to the EPA’s report on Indoor Air Quality, the EPA has not established uniform air quality standards covering airborne biological substances such as fungal spores. This is due to a lack of convincing epidemiological evidence.

Even with the EPA’s statement of health concern, there are still no EPA regulations or standards today for mould contamination and exposure. The reason for this, according to the New York City Department of Health’s Guidelines of Assessments and Remediation of Fungi in Indoor Environments is “susceptibility varies with the genetic predisposition, age, state of health and concurrent exposures. For these reasons, and because measurements of exposure are not standardized... it is not possible to determine precise ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ levels of exposure for people in general.” One can draw an analogy between mould and cigarette smoking. The exact number of cigarettes per day that lead to cancer has never been defined, yet it is generally recognized within the epidemiological and medical communities that smoking is a clear health threat. Nevertheless, the growing mountain of anecdotal medical evidence leads many experts with whom we have spoken to speculate that some standard of safe and unsafe exposure will eventually be developed for mould, just as they were with radon in the late 1980’s.

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