To: Grainne who wrote (88003 ) 11/1/2004 4:28:27 PM From: E Read Replies (2) | Respond to I've heard people say that Edwarda's death was from a fungus contracted when she was working among her friend's aunt's mildewed books, but if that's the case, her sister didn't know it at Edwarda's funeral, where we spoke, and still didn't know it some weeks later when we talked on the phone. The doctors told her that it was a massive viral infection that "overwhelmed" her, causing organ failure. Why it became so serious was the mystery. She had been under a lot of stress for a long time, though, and I've always thought she faced whatever infection it was that struck her with a compromised immune system. While most fungi cannot actually "infect" healthy people (except for certain species which cause athlete's foot and jock itch), the spores of a number of different types of mould may contain toxins which, when breathed in over a long period of time may result in a kind of poisoning. One such fungus, named Stachybotrys chartarum (sometimes called Stachybotrys alra), produces a potentially toxic chemical in its spores, which can be absorbed by the body when the spores are breathed in. This mould, which typically appears as sooty black patches on very wet drywall and other papery materials, has been linked to a wide range of serious illness in adults, and in several alarming, recent cases where extensive contamination was present, to fatal lung haemorrhage in infants. tenantsunion.org
