Web Exclusive - Mold Neurotoxicity: Validity, Reliability, and Baloney
The complaints plaintiffs have been making in toxic mold cases are variable and nonspecific. They do not constitute a syndrome or pattern of essentially identical complaints from one case to the next. Neither do their neuropsychological test scores fall into a consistent pattern. There is no fingerprint test profile or pattern of complaints generally recognized as being associated with mold neurotoxicity.
The so-called “study” most often cited as evidence of neuropsychological impairment due to mold neurotoxicity is not actually a scientific study at all. It was not peer reviewed in any conventional sense. The methodology was so weak it will never be accepted for publication in a high quality scientific journal (and as of this writing has never been published in any scientific journal, regardless of quality). The paper purports to have evaluated persons exposed to stachybotrys atra but used no control group and did not include a standardized test battery administered to all the participants. Alternative toxic exposures were not investigated – not even other mold exposures. The participants did not all take the same tests and the author has testified that he only reported data from a few tests he selected as more likely to produce what he was looking for. The neuropsychological test scores of the people studied were notable for being normal, not impaired, but lawyers and a small number of experts refer to these findings as evidence of mold neurotoxicity. Furthermore, an examination of the data employed in preparing the manuscript shows that the paper was not a completely accurate reflection what was actually done. In the only other relevant study involving objective testing, as distinct from subjective reports (a study that was published in a peer-reviewed journal), the briefly mentioned finding was that the mold cases performed better on cognitive testing than the controls (Hodgson et al., 1998). Sudakin (1998) found an increase in self reported neurobehavioral symptoms in a case report but cautioned readers that these individuals had been exposed to reports of adverse health effects of toxigenic fungi exposure prior to making their subjective complaints in hindsight after a delay. These symptoms improved substantially after leaving the building. Many of the people Sudakin studied were making claims for compensation.