Posted on 07/03/2008 11:39:31 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Atlanta, GA (AHN) - High level of formaldehyde have been detected in trailers and mobile home occupied by victims of Hurricane Katrina, says a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Formaldehyde, a preservative commonly used in construction materials, is carcinogenic and can cause breathing problems.
The trailers were provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to hurricane victims in 2005. The agency no longer provides them, but the mobile homes are still in use.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California was tasked by CDC to measure formaldehyde concentrations in trailers and emissions from specific parts of each trailer, such as walls, floors, ceilings, tables and cabinets of four vacant, never-used trailers provided by FEMA. The four trailers emitted formaldehyde fumes ranging from 173 to 266 micrograms per meter per hour in the morning to 257 to 347 micrograms per meter per hour in the afternoon due to increasing temperatures.
CDC has recommended that FEMA use different building materials to produce emergency housing.
Processed wood products such as particleboard and plywood have been detected as the main source of formaldehyde, which can irritate the skin, eyes, nose and throat. High exposure levels may cause cancer.
Nearly 15,000 people displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita along the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005 are still living in such trailers, FEMA said.
One would think that three years would be sufficient time to get a job, buy a car, rent an apartment, and move on.
The libs and the DNC will blame Bush and FEMA for poisoning poor black people now. No one is to blame but the manufacturers of those trailers and/or the treated lumber. Obviously FEMA didn’t order trailers with toxic chemicals. And yes, it would seem that many of those 15,000 people still living in free trailers (paid for by our tax dollars) would have found some other digs by now.
Information about formaldehyde in mobile homes and portable buildings has been around for decades. Why is this news? [No answer required.] If it’s legal to produce these buildings, then this is not an issue. Kids go to school in them, for goodness sake.
Anybody with any sense who’s ever lived in a trailer—oxymoron, I know—but it’s the only housng some can afford, knows that trailers smell like formaldehyde. Open the windows, sprinkle some ground coffee around, and get over it.
Back in the olden day, when we bought a new trailer-house, we just left the windows open for a few days and aired it out.
Now we send the CDC in.
How did I ever survive?
“Kids go to school in them, for goodness sake.”
The military uses them extensively on bases all across the globe for extra office space and classrooms, too. :)
The lived in homes prob have lower levels of formaldehyde
IIRC somehow peroxide was involved.
>>>OXYMORON<<<<<
What kind of condescending attitude is that?
Yeah, cause the windows are open, doors are open, air is circulating.
Coffee grounds work better and smell better too! :)
I would guess that when people live in them that the doors get opened at least twice a day; the tested trailers were empty, parked in the sun and tested with the windows and doors shut.
What was left out of this excerpt is that the CDC also recommened better ventilation.
Left a d out; sorry.
Not so much condescending as been there, done that—and didn’t whine about it!
Can I whine now? I want my...fill in the blank. Stomping feet, throwing myself on the floor, banging head. Wait—nothing’s happening. I’m confused!
We can agree that whining should stop and the people that don’t like their situation should buck up and make it better themselves.
But you came across as in anyone who lives in a trailer doesn’t have sense.
Even if its by choice. I have lived in one before. By choice. I didn’t settle for it. I chose it and the piece of land that came with it.
Supposedly this gadget cleans the air—not masks it. http://www.airfantastic.com/
I wonder why they are trailers when the government gives them away to lay-abouts but mobile homes when the Clintons are from a place where they are parked? I have known for twenty years that they contain high concentrations of formaldehyde, but I suppose it comes as a shock to many yankees.
Didn’t mean to. Sorry! Have lived in trailers most of my life—guess that’s why I don’t have much sympathy for someone who gets a free trailer and then whines about the smell.
Those freeloaders will die of old age before they leave those trailers voluntarily, formaldehyde or no formaldehyde.
Open a freakin’ window Morons.
I’d guess they were suffering more from “free-ride-a-hyde”
One would think that three years would be sufficient time to get a job, buy a car, rent an apartment, and move on.
++++++++++++++++
Many of these holdouts never had a job, never had a car and simply don’t have the capacity to find a place to live and move on. They’ve never had to do anything for themselves and at this point don’t have a clue on how to do anything for themselves. Remember that these folks are victims and therefore have no responsibilty to improve themselves. Only government can do that and therefore must do it for them. /s
Geez dude.
When you buy a new trailer, it ain’t been used.
Did you not read, ‘new trailer’?
However, four previously unoccupied trailer homes were tested.
The study could be improved by testing occupied trailers to determine if higher than average levels are sustained after several years of occupation. I suspect the levels are lower after the homes have been lived in, aired out, and occupied for a while.
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