Welcome to our podcast. My name is Kealy Severson and I'm here with co-hosts Erik Johnson and Alicia Swamy and we are Exposing Mold. Today we are here with Cameron Jones. Welcome, Cameron.
Dr. Cameron Jones:Hello, everyone. How are you?
Kealy Severson:We're good. Thanks so much for joining us. You know what I'm interested in hearing a little bit about from you just kind of based on what we were chatting about a little bit prior to recording is this idea of mold evolving from being previously thought of as an illness to changing form and toxicity. We do see a lot of manipulative language around what mold supposedly can't do because of what's in peer reviewed research. So I'm interested to hear not only from your perspective in the field doing these assessments, but also your understanding of where were you at in understanding mold illness in the beginning, when you started versus, has your perspective changed and if so, how has it changed?
Dr. Cameron Jones:It's a really good question. My perspective has changed. Look my PhD is in fungi, I've worked as a scientist for 30 years. My very first academic publication was on spore counting. It feels like a lifetime ago and I'm still at it, back in 1992. I guess to answer your question, maybe 15 or 16 years ago, someone rang me in my office and told me that their wife was experiencing adverse health, and that it was due to a water damage leak caused by a neighboring apartment. And I have to tell you that I was sitting in my office getting ready for the exam cycle and I was less than impressed with the intrusion of the caller telling me something that I hadn't really heard or I knew was. What I really knew from the bench, knew from the literature that I was reading at the time, which again, was incredibly biased. It was research that was fit into what I was interested in, and that was furthering the research endeavors for the rest of the group. And so my understanding of mold was really around direct infection, blood borne infections, candidiasis, and the types of infections and skin infections that are closer to classical microbiology, from staphylococcus and streptococcus and that type of overt infection. And so this concept that people could become ill from exposure in their homes, what was new to me, and in a sense, it was my good fortune that the person who rang me up was a physicist from the United States who was on sabbatical and coming to our university. And by bad luck for him, he purchased an apartment which had a neighboring water damage problem, which caused leaks into their front corridor. His wife, obviously, was what we now consider someone who is highly sensitive to mold. And to his credit he had via mail or had gone back to the United States and purchase these petri plates that you could get them which was self jelling. And he showed me all these petri plates when arrived at his apartment and said, look, look what is growing inside my apartment? Can you do better? Can we take better types of measurements? And of course, we were able to do that. And so that began a close relationship, sort of, I guess at the university level with someone with a very strong physics background who understood the aerosolization pathways within a building and how this could impact on microbes settling out onto surfaces and then becoming a source of concern. And again, in my mind, I was thinking direct infection, direct infection, maybe his wife is immunocompromised. And so in a sense, the initial approach to quantifying water damaged buildings and mold exposure was essentially looking at what can grow on a petri plate. And of course, we've moved a long way away from that, it's still a useful method. It's fantastic if you want to spend a lot of time at the bench and go through a lot of culture media. But there are other ways of quantifying what's in your indoor air. And this whole field of aerobiology, or aerosol science has really evolved out of really rock solid physics regarding how particles dispersed in space or in the air. And essentially, the principles from physics are so important in understanding how a building becomes water damaged, because you aren't. And I'm always saying this to solicitors during challenges in litigation regarding mold exposure, that you have to know what occurred, or at least what the reported water damage events were. And then you just have to follow what the diffusion pathways were known to be, or likely to be. And then you can then start looking at these issues that are in the purported standards that most of the litigants tend to adopt, which again, are the IICRC standards, and they focus overwhelmingly on what you can see. And this is good in one way, because at least it allows a practical approach to clearing up mold contaminated areas. But it is very limiting because it doesn't capture the more complex views of the cell cycle. And the fact that certainly, when there are air currents in localized areas, you're going to get fragmentation of the cell, it doesn't take into consideration just focusing on what you can see, the fact that a material is going to dry out and therefore thenspores are going to go into a dormancy phase. And then when conditions become more conducive to growth, then they're going to come out of that and then they're going to enter a lag phase and then go into exponential growth, etc. And these basic concepts of the lifecycle are often lost when people focus only on what you can see. And so there's interplay between the whole cell, the fact that it is growing on something, using its own mycotoxins to ward off invaders in the localized environment, those are emitted into the vapor phase. This has a strong connection with how much water vapor is in the local environment. So and how that condensation or water vapor is dispersed and comes into contact with people, and all sorts of things about natural ventilation and buildings. So these micron and sub micron fragments, when spores and cells break apart, they become aerosolized and all these particles are subject to shear forces, and then over time, they become distributed everywhere. So if we only look at visible mold, that is just a tiny component of the problem. And the issue of the mycotoxins the micron and sub micron fragments, the volatile organics, and then the specific types of mycotoxins that are present, or that individual fungi at the genus level, and also at the specific species component have actually evolved to allow them to cope with their environment. And so this whole issue of how people become exposed, and why their immune system is potentially triggered to become sensitive, a hypersensitive really depends on a whole lot of factors and it is not limited to just what you can see.
Kealy Severson:Thank you so much for explaining how some of the toxins become aerosolized. We see this discredited by some mold experts in the States, and I'm sure maybe you do too in Australia. We see this application of Big Tobacco type science where it's a fraudulent premise, and then industry funded or associated to kind of prove that premise. One of the common manipulations we see as people saying that mold doesn't cause illness, it's just a natural organism that you can find anywhere and the problem isn't really mold, it's the toxic environment in which mold feeds on because anyone who's worth their weight in salt with understanding mold will know that the mycotoxin toxicity will change depending on what the molds feeding on and It's just a really manipulative way to point away from mold. And I'm wondering how the perspective politically in Australia has changed through the years for you, because I know that you're in the courtroom scene a lot and you're hearing these politicized arguments being made against mold. What was the general consensus in terms of what an argument would look like and has that transition through the years?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Well, that's an interesting question as well. I think in Australia, there is acceptance of the fact that mold has a direct relationship to indoor livability and habitability, and certainly there have been positive changes at the federal level and at the state level for residential tenancy laws and rights. So it's now being enacted that no landlord can knowingly lease a property for residential purposes, if there is confirmed mold. And I've certainly had some civil rulings in the last 12 months that have taken advantage of that, and where the member who is equivalent to the judge has made orders stating that the property has to be returned to a mold free environment. I noticed yesterday in a ruling someone used mold neutral environment. So I think certainly in our country, there is good acceptance of the connection between water damage, leading to unwanted mold, leading to an impact on amenity and occupational health and safety. And that could be because of the extreme weather events that Australia certainly has suffered, certainly in the last decade or so. And there have been some significant and serious flooding events that have impacted certainly in Australia most recently in the last couple of months. But this is an episodic thing. This happens really regularly and then coupled with acknowledged breakdown of the ability of the municipal water suppliers to do proactive maintenance of their municipal water and sewage lines means that often they're reacting to problems and they themselves know that whole streets can be flooded with overflow because the pipe work just can't handle it. So I think in Australia, it's well accepted and a couple of years ago, there was a politician who has unfortunately just lost her seat a couple of weeks ago in our election cycle, called Lucy Wicks, who put up the Australian biotoxin. Essentially, it was a series of or basically it was tabled in Parliament and it's been a very important inquiry, because it got down on paper, the fact that there was this concept of a chronic inflammatory response syndrome. And certainly four years ago, there was consternation by a number of people, including myself on how the terminology was going to be applied because this issue of people responding in an inflammatory response, then often doesn't capture the requirement of a tenant, for example, who has moved into a flat last week, and suddenly discovers that the shower is leaking, and it's simply been painted over. They may not have any symptoms at that point in time. But they're attempting to get out of their lease because there's obviously been a cover up of an known problem. And so certainly, a couple of years ago, I was concerned about linking all mold exposure to an inflammatory response, because it doesn't then give credit to those individuals that, for example, respond with a more respiratory route, or for those individuals that you know, have already immunocompromised condition where it's difficult then to say, which came first. So the mold then is an added problem for that individual. But I think in Australia, there is good understanding about the adverse impacts of mold, and the consequence of the water damage being the mold. So I think the situation here is pretty good.
Kealy Severson:I'm happy to hear that I know, we were originally supposed to have this as a panel talk with somebody else from Australia, and they had a different perspective. So I'm happy that we're able to lend a voice to yours.
Dr. Cameron Jones:Well, you know, I think I have to say a few things to again, four or five years ago, I think the clinicians have changed their involvement with advocating for patients as well. And certainly a couple of years ago, their aim was to confirm whether or not their patient's local environment, preferably at home, was defined as mold contaminated, and they really didn't care how they achieved that because that allowed them to offer clinical services to that patient. And back then it appeared to be really quite a rigid approach that was overwhelmingly following the Shoemaker protocol approach. They needed to feel that they were following through on the requirement to confirm that the environment was a trigger. And certainly then there was a lot of dispute over the validity of test methods like the ERMI, and PCR approaches like that, versus classical microbiology versus air sampling, particle sampling, spore traps, tape lifts, Rodak plates, the whole gamut of different approaches, or whether you need to look at flame ionization spectroscopy as a few. Occupational Hygiene as did in attempt to start measuring for mycotoxins or some type of volatile that at least could be implicated as some type of an environmental biomarker for exposure. And I see now how the solicitors are looking at this and I've got questions this week that I have to answer where the value of the ERMI taken, for example, three or four years ago and someone's case, as an example, instead of not accepting this and trotting out the common refrain that the FDA didn't like it a couple of years ago, you can now look at the values in the ERMI and start looking at some of the other standards in other countries that are looking at specific micro organisms like Alternaria and Cladosprium, which have got some well defined clinical thresholds already. And so in a sense, certainly, as an expert witness, I'm using that data to advocate for the patient or the client because even if I recognize that ERMI may just be taken from a singular singular source and may have bias in terms of how the sample was collected and non standard sampling and handling, etc. Almost you don't need to go there if the reality is that that individual reached out for some type of quantitative guidance, took advantage of the offering of ERMI, took that on board that that confirm that their environment was in fact mold contaminated. Who am I to say that there are potentially better methods that they had available to them? That's, in a sense, not fair. And so over time, with a lot of these cases, a lot of the different methods end up being applied anyway and overwhelmingly they confirm that, yes, if you're in a mold contaminated area, it's probably going to be measurable in a couple of different ways. So I'm seeing now the dispute not be so much over method and application, which it certainly was. And unfortunately, I've spent five, six days in the witness stand demonstrating how to use spore traps, and arguing with other people who have, in a sense, either put the flow rate never calibrated, or put it on for 15 minutes, have no idea what they were doing. And certainly a couple of years ago, members were very keen to trip you up on methodological problems with your equipment. Now, I think people are looking at it in almost stepping back and saying, Well, this is the data that's on the table about this particular building. These are the individuals that were exposed in that building, somewhere in here is the truth, and we can't discredit the health consequence any longer. And I think that's a good thing. And I think that COVID has started to tip the balance here, because people are more willing to accept that there is an illness consequence, from exposure to things that we can't see. So that is the only good thing that I feel has come out of the COVID hysteria.
Kealy Severson:Thank you for explaining that. I'm going to pass along to Erik and Alicia for questions. But before I let you go, I have one more question. That's a two part question. Have you ever been sick during an exposure? And also have you noticed that you're a little bit more forgetful now after a few years of doing assessments?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Look, I think I've told you this story, maybe eight or nine years ago, when I had a better relationship with the Victorian Health Department than I do now. I was asked whether I would go to an island called Nauru to do a mold investigation. And the individual who rang me up told me that it was a South Pacific Island really hot, really nice. You'll like it. Would you be interested in doing this? It would be a survey of mold, but they had some mold problems and a few buildings. And it took a couple of months to organize the trip. If you could call it a trip originally I was allowed to take another person with me. And I was told that there were just a few buildings that had some mold problems. Little did I know that it was essentially a prison for the refugees that were attempting to gain access to Australia and setting aside the political component to this, the mold problem was 100%. Essentially, it was all of the tents used by the asylum seekers because refugees is even back then that was not not a word that could be used. So asylum seekers was the term that was accepted at that point in time and all of their accommodation was affected by high humidity conditions and overuse of air conditioning, in a valiant attempt in an unsealed tent like building to make impermanent structures permanent for housing of the asylum seekers. But also because the Australian Government had outsourced the building of the essentially the prison to the army in the first stage, they used what were common, portable units that they sent to all the mines during the Australian mining boom. And so you had impermanent shelters used for daytime use that were transitioned and converted into a permanent accommodation. And certainly, even though I took another suitcase full of PPE and fully intended to wear it, when you go into a 40 degrees Celsius plus environment with a humidity verging on close to 100%. And then being told that if I start wearing Tyvek suits and masks that someone lit themselves on fire last week, and there's a whole range of people in hospital here, who are sewn their lips shut, we will have a riot here if you wear PPE, because people will naturally want to know what on earth they're being exposed to. And so I didn't wear any PPE, and very happily carried out my work for 18 hours a day. And it was wonderful scientific work, I would jump at the opportunity to do it again. But the only difference is that I did not wear any PPE, so I became sick pretty much immediately whilst I was over there, which again, the food was excellent. So it was not food poisoning in any way. But immediate headaches, nausea, gastrointestinal issues. And when I came back that moved on pretty much towards a colitis type event, which took some weeks to resolve. And the problem was that it also coincided with severe starting off with a feeling of fullness in the ear and move directly towards tinnitus. And the most significant problem was that my joints I now recognize became inflamed. But I never thought I'd ever be able to climb up a ladder to check someone's roof or, I could not kneel on the floor to prepare my spore traps or right on the Petri plates, I overwhelmingly had to sit down. It took two plus years of significant review of PubMed every single publication regarding exposure to toxins and supplementation, changing diet, attempting to start to exercise, which is incredibly difficult when you cannot use equipment. I thought at that point, I'd had vans for nine or 10 years, I could not get to the safely some days get between the accelerator and the brake due to the pain in the morning, it would resolve like an asthma type thing. When your cortisol levels raise, I would be okay by one or two in the afternoon. But the reality is that I start my day at seven, eight in the morning to go to people's properties. And you can't be incapacitated. And I thought that I would have to give up completely and somehow go back to bench work and just write papers and do that because it was incredibly incapacitating, it was a direct result of the high level mold exposure, it came on within two or three days of what I can only describe as massive exposure to mold. And unfortunately, there are other individuals who worked at Nauru, who I learned on return began legal cases against the operators and against various actors within that scenario, none of them to my knowledge had been successful at all. So in a sense, it's a disaster when you're exposed to high levels of mold, and I still have a small amount of tinnitus, which comes and goes. It is, in a sense, somewhat correlated in my mind with me going into highly water damaged buildings. Yesterday, I did a framing inspection. It's out in the air. It's almost pointless wearing PPE, because there's no walls, roof, and I can just vaguely hear it right now. You know, that'll go in a couple of days. It's not intrusive now. I'm very lucky but this is a real event. And, again, when symptoms dissipate, it's almost hard to remember how significant they were and how impactful they were. So whenever I hear the laundry list of symptoms, that mold exposure, individuals recite that they're not just reciting something they've memorized, this is actually happening to them. And I think that we have to be really aware that people are telling you the truth overwhelmingly about their bodies and it's only a small proportion of people that are taking advantage of mold as an excuse, in an attempt to achieve some sort of nefarious goal, you know, like getting a new mattress where there was virtually no water damage in the apartment, for example. Those were my health symptoms and again, if I didn't have a science background, and wasn't capable of finding research literature, and then seeking some advice from individuals, but I have to say, making my own decisions about what I would do, that's the only thing that I could do. So I feel very concerned for other individuals that are relying on their healthcare practitioner, relying on advice from the internet, and getting confused because the reality is, there's great information that you can piece together, and you can assist people getting from their existing circumstance into a better place. But sometimes people just give up and you know, it's highly concerning to me on how you help people navigate towards a better life, or a better outcome for themselves.
Kealy Severson:Thank you so much, Cameron. Alicia and Erik, do you have questions?
Alicia Swamy:I just have a few. Is it okay, if I ask, Erik? So, you know, it seems that air testing is pretty much insufficient. I think we can all agree there. Are there any tips on when to use air testing and when to not and basically, it seems the inability to identify spore species is a limitation that can be remedied. So why isn't PCR testing used with air
Dr. Cameron Jones:I think because, it's an interesting sampling? question. I like particle counting, I've got a strong maths and physics background. So if I had my way, I would be using particle counters all the time, I used to use it on every single inspection on a room by room basis, because the PM 2.5. And PM 10 give you really good graphs, which define what is in the air space and I'm not that fussed about what is the contribution to the PM 2.5 other than its size range, and then the dynamics that will naturally occur in that room. However, because there is no consensus around how you carry out PM 2.5, other than for soot and road issues or road construction, no one wants to hear about it. And I was challenged so significantly all the time on it that in a sense, I lost my nerve, and I stopped doing it that was good in one way because it meant that you would focus more on I guess, the visual observations and listening to the client rather than mapping out their particulate matter pathway. But I love PM 2.5 and 10 measurement, I think that approach to, regardless of the index, whether it is the cumulative, whether it's the weight, whether it's the cumulative mass, whether it's the optical density values that are measured, I don't really care, that type of data finally resolves the air quality. And then you can drill into what is potentially contributing to that particular material. And then the alternative is to look at whether or not it is realistic to start going after some of these more interesting pints and acids and things that contribute to the mycotoxins and I certainly see that that is going to be an evolving approach. This thing to DNA barcoding, or environmental scanning for microbes in the environment very much like ERMI does, can definitely be done. But it requires a lab to have the reagents and the stock solutions in the fridge and be willing to accept enough work whereby it's cost effective to carry that out. And certainly we've got full PCR at my lab, and we used it extensively during COVID, essentially to measure the COVID on surfaces. Now, every time I purchase kits for various different fungi. By the time we prepare the buffers and stock solutions and get everything organized, we end up using it on one job and essentially throwing it out. So the cost differential is not quite there because it's not streamlined enough yet. So that is a concern to me, but PCR is definitely good, because you get species level data. But then the alternative for many people is how about we just accept that there's visual evidence of mold, or this spore trappers failed on a total number basis. And then often the individual is going off to their health care practitioner, getting the Great Plains urine mycotoxin screening and failing it, or they're failing some other practitioner driven approach, like the visual contrast sensitivity, or their list of symptoms means that they're probably mold exposed. So taking all this together, I'm certainly seeing that all of this is appearing in papers, or sorry, in paper trails, about people's disputes around water damage, and mold. And so I think all of the data has been well accepted now. But where do I see things going? I think that spore trap testing has been unbelievably damaged by one or two vendors who have attempted to use image analysis to replace a human microscopist. And I know of a number of labs that are aggressively attempting to push image analysis based spore trap classification and counting into the marketplace. And the problem with the algorithm behind the software is that it supposedly takes advantage of artificial intelligence, which is certainly does, certainly possible. And certainly I using the various different libraries that are available for image classification, it's really easy to hack together, you know, your 36, core spore group fungi and take a group of images and train them on an AI and get really good results. But the problem is that these individuals sold the software system with hardware, which didn't use high enough resolution to capture the images. And they cheated by then mathematically multiplying the pixels in an attempt to identify everything and you get into all sorts of problems doing that. And so I see a lot of lab reports that I can instantly tell that there's really been no human intervention in the classification of the spores here, because they will have outdoor controls with outrageous numbers, which then are very self serving for whoever ordered that report because it's very easy then to say, Look, your outdoor controls so high, that therefore all your indoor levels, which are also massively high are okay. And so I think that there's a big problem here with occupational hygienist attempting to take advantage of the marketing behind automated spore trap counting. And I've got to say it's a laborious process, if it is done by hand, great, yes, it can be semi automated in terms of data acquisition, to, in a sense, interrogate the the images, rather than down the barrel of the microscope up Oculus. But at the end of the day, this is a something that is is in a sense, best done by hand, to get good results. And I know that the corollary to this is, well, the error uncertainty is carried over throughout the exercise of measurement. But the problem with these simpler systems is that they get worse. And so what I see on the tables to these reports, is massive levels of tiny spores, and never seen anything else. And this is a shame because you can produce a document with tables, which looks persuasive, but really doesn't sort of satisfy the credibility if you understand how to actually do the quantification manually. So I think that's a big problem and if we move more towards PCR, at least you'll have species identification, and then instead of talking about total numbers or total amounts, then you're saying for example, like I mentioned, if Alternaria and Cladosporium and various different other bacteria are there, well, then you can say these are known water damage fungi. Therefore, we need to investigate this. This is proof enough that the environment needs remediation. Alicia I don't know if that answers your question?
Alicia Swamy:Yeah, that was great. Thank you. I want to dive deeper into the particulate, the laser particulate counter that you like to use. Now, the only issue with that is, are you well, I mean, I'm not sure maybe you can educate us on this. Are you able to decipher what's in the home in terms of what particulates you find like, can you find that this person has very dusty home and you know, you're picking up a bunch of PM 2.5. Is it telling you it's for mold, or can it basically be just anything in the environment?
Dr. Cameron Jones:It thing could be anything. So basically, it's just the quantum of material that is in that size range or class when it is subdivided based on the optical interference as it passes the laser beam. So it's purely a numerical approach, but it's really good. So provided you do the entire home, and the outdoors. And you know, like dealing with lots of data. It's really effortless to get great interpretable results out of it. So yeah.
Alicia Swamy:Great. Thank you and aside from what you mentioned earlier about the potential of people developing AI, maybe machine learning programs for better identification. Are you seeing any emerging new technologies for rapid identification that seemed worth using in the future?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Well, I'm not sure what your view is on ATP swab testing, which again, was developed for hygiene monitoring. Again, it's something that I used to use as an approach to surfaces, especially in bathrooms, showers, and kitchens when people talked about their fears regarding solid surfaces. And I found it useful to exemplify or demonstrate the connection between something that looks clean from something that has an optical density readout to it. But but I'm starting to see people relooking at ATP, again, because of COVID. And when I saw this last year, about COVID, people were trotting out using ATP handheld units to validate their, what they claimed to be their deep cleaning approach to COVID. And I thought, oh, what a shame that this is reemerging as a method of choice, which doesn't necessarily, you know, has so many confounding factors like, you know, the impact of detergents and the impact of other materials and whether or not there was or was not a biofilm present. But again, I'm starting to think that all of these semi quantitative methods have their place. As long as it's not the only thing. That's the problem, when the hygienist or occupational minded individuals starts to attempt to quantify results, they're usually limited by their access to tools, their own skill, their awareness of how this fits into the overall narrative. And in a sense, you can with one or two or three data points for a property taken with one type of device, you get a bias view. And so a part of me wants to say, no, no, no, let's just go down the pathway that we want two types of airspace testing per home and two types of surface tests and leave it at that, versus the other individual that, for example, is just so keen to try out their ATP meter, I sort of think they all have a bit of a place. But I too, would love something that was a little bit more robust, I still maintain that you need data on every room in the home, if you are, especially if the individual was claiming that there is a series of building defects, usually they do affect more than one location in the home unless they are like a direct plumbing breach. And I think that my whole approach to indoor air quality monitoring is always to do the entire home, I never do just one or two rooms, because I want an entire map of air quality throughout the property, so that I can, you know, provide a targeted series of recommendations that accurately reflect just the disparity between different rooms and how they impact on people's feeling of amenity and what they could be exposed to. So I think that as we move into more molecular based techniques, may be different types of electronic sensors may be different to specific electronic sensors that are able to move towards enzyme linked immunosorbent assay type basis or moving to mass spectrometry, I think they're going to have to be cheap enough so that you can do it on the whole house, and not just end up with a singular data point. But if you are going for a singular data point, my view is to put the emphasis then on the biomarkers in the human patient, to then say yes, this individual is definitely showing signs of inflammation and this is how we're measuring that. This is now another marker for white blood cell count, for example. So this whole thing becomes much more quantitative and will allow it to be interpreted accurately, because people are usually telling the truth about their symptoms and their exposure history. And it's just this huge area of how do we actually quantify this to some degree to give a surety to a third fourth party who was highly skeptical, or has something financially to lose by the outcome of that determination. And so I am an advocate for quantitative science. But where you can't optimally achieved that semi quantitative is better than nothing.
Alicia Swamy:I agree, I think you brought up some really good points, and that there's a lot of room for advancement in this field, as we start to see this becoming more of a problem. And yeah, you brought up some great points, like the hygenists are very limited to their equipment, you know, it really takes a varied approach to understand the environment. And when you take that type of approach, it's very costly. You know, we understand that a lot of the mold inspectors that do specialize for hypersensitive individuals, I mean, they're charging a lot of money. So I guess there's opportunity here, how can we develop something that's better and that can quantify what's going on a more holistic, thorough approach that doesn't break the bank on people? Because it seems like a lot of people go through so many testers, so many inspectors. They don't just go through one, you know, because that one doesn't do a thorough job, or the test doesn't come out the way that they thought it was. It's just It's a field that is extremely limited and there's a lot of gaps and holes. And I think what people need to understand is that, you know, it has its limitations. And just because you bring out one inspector that provides you one test, with one methodology that's not showing you the full picture of your home, you really have to trust how you feel. And I'm just I'm really curious Cam. So what are your thoughts on the trichothecene producing molds like Stachybotrys? If you find this, say you find one or two spores in someone's home, What advice do you give them or just what are your thoughts on on these particular molds?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Yeah, again, I've changed my thinking about this. And I'm much more persuaded now, again, because I've seen so many data reports force, essentially spore trap counting, which I know have been done by a computer. And so in my effort to try to work out why this just doesn't make sense for buildings that I know other labs have already analyzed, or I've analyzed. And then there is this lab report, that just doesn't really make sense, I have now started to look at every single species in there, and how that species is known to contribute to adverse health. And this is in the individualized literature's around these micro organisms, or about what some of these studies showed. I'm very persuaded by this now and I'm incredibly interested in any biomarker tests that are done urine testing, and all, which I think definitely is really valuable. I think that you know, there's a really interesting paper that just came out recently that was looking at whether or not they could collect condensation from dwellings that would capture the, as you mentioned, the aldehydes and the phenolic acid contribution that is present in water vapor as a way of measuring indoor air quality. And this research out of Finland is is incredibly persuasive, because they've been looking at some of the classical ways of quantifying mold damage in a home, using classical culture techniques. But then they have been using more advanced techniques of gas chromatography type approaches to measure and measure whether or not there are particular peaks seen for particular contributes in the environment. And they're getting some great results. It hasn't worked all the way because I've gone through some of the research that they have published on the way to their latest paper and sometimes they haven't been successful in identifying particular mycotoxin type acids. But overwhelmingly, they're getting great results. And I'm really encouraged by this, because this is an alternative to collecting air, it's looking at the contribution of the the water vapor present in the air as being capable of capturing these non particular components, but these chemical moieties in the air, and then saying this is how people are becoming unwell, not just the mold, physical object itself or its breakdown products, but the actual volatiles that are emitted by the constellation or the whole mycobiome, microbiome, whatever word picture you want to use for all the living things in that via in that home. And I think that that is probably where the research, that's where the practical commercial objects are going to have evolved to because I think that's the only way you're going to be able to quantitatively evaluate the air space and link it directly to the breathing because everyone can understand that there are particles in the air. And so the default position is get rid of the particles, the problem is gone. But if we look at the air quality, the water vapor, people can link that to the fact that they acknowledge that there is moisture in the air, and that therefore they're breathing that in at the same time and that there could be chemicals in that water, which are causing them harm. And that's where I personally feel that this field is going to move towards in the next couple of years.
Alicia Swamy:Thank you for that. So just to circle back, Stachybotrys, is it a cause for concern? Or is it something that is just.
Dr. Cameron Jones:No, it's a serious concern. And again, it's a little bit like a car collector, for example, they may have a particular preference for a class of vehicles linked to a color, or engine, or make a model. If you choose to look at the world from the viewpoint that I want to find these particular microorganisms. That's entirely valid, and just as sensible, in approach to view mold contamination through the lens that is this microbe present or absent. Rather than looking at the different grained approach, I sort of say that that's the course of the fine grained approach. And it can reverse itself. So if you want to look for Stachybotrys, and you find it, well, that is a dead giveaway, that you've got a major sport producer that produces really large spores that are going to settle everywhere and be cross contaminated if the site hasn't been handled well. And it's really important to know that information and yes, picking up a few spore trap, or sorry, picking up a few spores within a spore trap. When they're multiplied out, there's loads and loads of them in the air space. So finding even a small amount is an indicator of a much bigger problem. And it is indefinitely important to know that information. So yes, I think that species level identification will always have a place, taxonomy will always have a place in air quality science.
Alicia Swamy:Thank you for that. I'm sorry, Erik. I was gonna pass the buck over to him. But I just have one more question. Now that you're seeing just major climate disasters, it seems like in Australia right now, or just have been recently, you had made a comment that really stuck in my mind, and I just want to expand upon it. Are you seeing high spore levels outside? Okay, so, so when you when you find this as an issue for people, what advice do you give them if they have major issues outside?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Yeah, that's really interesting and I've been certainly here in Victoria, we're down in the southern part of Australia, it is colder here than it is up in the north. Obviously, the impact of this is that we don't have high humidity fluctuations in that we don't have 100% saturated humidity levels linked to hot conditions. So the indoor condensation type problems are overwhelmingly related to heating our buildings, and you know, condensate forming on cold surfaces. But to answer your question, it's really cold now we're in winter, but for the last seven or eight months, we've had a very low rainfall here in Victoria and consequently, the outdoor spore levels have definitely moved away from normal levels that we would see all the time to being 2, 3, 4 or 5 times higher, which means that any lab report that does a simplistic indoor outdoor ratio is overwhelmingly getting a wrong conclusion for their assessments because if that's your only criteria for thresholding, essentially a good or a bad residence. If the outdoor control is quite high, and there's no explanation for why then it's difficult to understand what's going on. So I think that extended periods of warm climate, with episodic rain events, without significant obvious seasonal changes, like a more commonplace mean that the outdoor levels are definitely rising. And look, they're starting to fall back to normal now, but you know, certainly a couple of weeks ago, if you have intense rain, and then it's really quite warm, ambient warm temperature, which is different to preceding years, you're naturally you know, the plant the relationship between mold and botany is so linked, that we can't discount the reality that you know, the plant lifecycle impacts on the mold lifecycle, which in turn impacts on what's in the airspace and you see this with the pollen counts as well.
Alicia Swamy:Absolutely, I'm just I'm just wondering only like if you see someone who's extremely sick and you've tested that area multiple times, and it just keeps coming back at high counts at what point would you advise that they possibly move or spend some time away until maybe the seasons change to see how they feel?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Yeah, this is a sensitive, a gray area. Look, if people's personal symptoms are, if they know that when they spend time away from the home, their symptoms reduce or become something that is tolerable, then they've got to go, they've got to move, it is pointless attempting to fix the home, if you have no control over the property, this issue of when to stay or when to go or what is capable of being cleaned. This is often really, what's possible, theoretically, is impossible to implement practically. And this is up to the individual and their own risk tolerance. And they need to know their body. And I think it does require that individuals make a direct connection between their living environment and their symptoms as being mold related, or at least home or office related. And once they've done that, then it's really up to them to take control of their immediate destiny, and move away from something that is potentially causing them harm. So I am an advocate for taking control and not just hoping it will go away, or hoping that the treatment that's being offered is going to work.
Alicia Swamy:Fantastic. Thank you so much Cam, I really do appreciate that answer. And I think a lot of people can appreciate that answer because it is a definitely a gray area, you don't ever want to tell anyone that, hey, your region might actually be a sick region. It's not just your building. But you know, it is a real thing and having that validated by you, who is a scientist and understands mold and fungi in the environment. I do appreciate that. I'm gonna pass the buck over to Erik, and thank you for your answers.
Erik Johnson:Okay, well, it's glad to finally meet you here. And likewise, I'm talking to people from Australia. So your history starts about 15 years ago and it's amazing to hear that despite having a background in microbiology, that there was no familiarity with mold illness until 15 years ago.
Dr. Cameron Jones:Correct? Absolutely.
Erik Johnson:Do you have a major event or some moment that people in Australia point out as being the real start point of mold history?
Dr. Cameron Jones:No, there is no one event that I'm aware of that would make people suddenly say this event became the starting point for this. Our country floods regularly. Certainly there's several states that are in one city, Brisbane, in particular, that have had a whole of CBD flooding regularly. There are parts of Australia that are prone to serious drought and there have been major efforts to coordinate waterways to provide water for farming and agriculture, that has had an impact on everything. So I would say that in Australia, everyone is cognizant or aware of the interplay of quite severe storms and floods and droughts and fires. So I wouldn't say Australians are any unnecessarily any more environmentally conscious, other than they recognize that it's a reasonably hostile country, that everyone lives on the perimeter of the country, due to the climate factors that affect this country. So it's not domesticated and regionalised and city based. It's just all around the perimeter due to the hostile environment. So I think that mold is an accepted consequence of erratic weather.
Erik Johnson:And yet I'm watching people in Australia, the doctors and researchers, particularly those concerned with ME/CFS were talking about mold, as if they've encountered it for the very first time, no history of mold having this kind of adverse effect.
Dr. Cameron Jones:I think that that's just plain ignorance of the medical clinical literature around microorganisms. I think that anyone who was focusing on to do with it, even your local person who works with people's feet, podiatrist has got a better understanding of the impact of mold on human health, necessarily than a lot of GP's that only dealing with walk in walk out patients regarding their their immediate requirements and aches and pains. I think that there are a
Erik Johnson:Take Lucy Wicks for example. I mean, when her huge number of GP's that are incredibly ignorant of the science. I'm not sure why that is, I think that there is a disconnect between early learning ability and their admission to medical practice. And I too, have had numerous debates with well educated doctors who have just had zero comprehension regarding the impact of what what you breathe. And if it's not a known toxic chemical with the SDS and Material Safety Data Sheet, they just can't comprehend that something can cause illness. So you're right there. But I think we've seen this COVID is especially the wholesale adoption of a herd mentality view regarding respiratory impacts on human health. And I think until individual clinicians and healthcare people and until the Allied Health Professions, you know, who do a wonderful job of individually standing up to counter the mainstream boring medical approach that if it doesn't fit into something that is covered by a Pharmaceutical benefits scheme type response, then it doesn't exist, that needs to be broken. And in I would have hoped that, you know, COVID, might have changed this, but it sort of seems to be going in the other direction, rather than accepting that human health is more complicated than what fits into something that is covered by our equivalent of a Medicare benefit. So that does concern me and it's up to the scientific societies. But it's really up to the people who decide to step into the public arena to make a big noise about this and like each of you are doing individually. story appeared, it was a shocker. People weren't accustomed to seeing anybody, particularly in a position of power a prominent person taken down by toxic mold and then speaking in terms of becoming hyper reactive, having to avoid buildings, and really being in peril for health because of it. So that's the kind of story that I was interested in, is when did that kind of report emerge?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Well, the equivalent of, here in Australia, the go to what they consider the gutter press, I'm certainly not defaming anyone now, but like the gutter press, like the Daily Mirror and that type of more sensationalist reporting is where all of these stories tend to appear. And I think that probably comes down to really the ability of the journalists to run with a story that's got an emotional hook. So I think that the mainstream will, the mainstream TV media will only go a tiny way into anything that's got a science and technology hook. They just don't want to get into the complexities of this and try as I might, every time a producer says, Would you like to talk about A, B and C? I said, Yeah, but I'd also like to talk about this and they go, that's just fantastic. We want to do that. But you know, there's there's zero airtime, you're cut off. Uh, you know, I'm cut off in anticipation of the key question for the key talking points that I want to get across it, you know, it's left at the level of, well, what does, you know, Mr. And Mrs. Jones, want to do today. So you're right. And so the only media attention that mold gets is usually linked to something that's happened, like a fatality, or a you know, like a death or an extreme illness or something really obvious that is visually compelling that someone can take a photograph of, fortunately, the media is a bit like that, if you can't photograph.
Erik Johnson:That's how the history started in the United States, for sure, with fatalities with movie stars, like Ed McMahon getting sick, you know, and nobody could figure it out. And next thing, you know, because they went in and looked for the mold that was doing it, it was Stachybotrys, and we didn't have a headline story, death mold, killed, my dog has died, mold had made him horribly sick. So when the stories emerged, it was really just like that it was sensationalism, but it was from people reporting their experience and looking for specifically what was different to the environment that was showing up and it was Stachybotrys. So that's how it got such a bad name. Australia has a very different trajectory because when mold illness started being reported there, they looked to the United States, found Dr. Shoemaker Here, and he did his work. Totally true. So it got transplanted and they kind of put all their eggs in one basket basing their concepts of mold illness on one man on Dr. Shoemaker.
Dr. Cameron Jones:That's true. Very true. And it's really interesting how you look back on history to see the debates around whether or not there is any clinical significance to this whole mold exposure issue, as I said, that one of the leading barristers that is an advocate, usually for developers, who is very pro minimizing the impacts of water damage, appears to have changed their perspective, and is very willing to accept the medically significant consequence of water damage causing mold, and then having that been failed to be addressed properly, or not at all. So I think there are changes happening and I'm not sure what's driving that I can only, you know, my feeling is that it is due to a greater awareness of illness in the world in the community. But, you know, I hope that there is a hope that the COVID pandemic also is at some point connected with autoimmune illness and an immune challenge and becomes co linked. I think that there is a huge dialogue here about the impact of vaccine only approach to solving the SARS COVID 2 issue and the impact of vaccination on immune compromised in selected people and many people. And I think that that dialogue is certainly beginning. Certainly, I get a number of referrals from people who it's hard to tell now, what is causing their problems where they have serious symptoms that appear to be related to mold exposure, but their dwellings check out virtually perfectly fine, or nearly Okay, so there's a fine line in the not too distant future, where the consideration about in from my perspective, the impact of vaccine injury, on lowering or creating immunosuppression, and how that is connected with exposure to allergens is going to become very important to be talking about a lot and investigating a lot.
Erik Johnson:Dr. Shoemaker has recently added COVID to his list of this ever growing list of suspects, which are responsible for CIRS. So now, it's like, okay, it's caused by pfisteria and brown recluse spider bites, by COVID. I mean, what isn't CIRS. So in addition to all the rest, he's branched out and switched his focus on to actinomyces. In particular, extent, that whereas for many years, CIRS was presented as primarily a mold illness, probably a mold illness. Now, he says, we may have to abandon that completely. Those who use mold on their blogs and business aims are going to have to reverse that because mycotoxins are actually less, according to him, less than 7% of CIRS. How is Australia responding to this?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Look, I have no response to that. I don't know. I think that, for me, my viewpoint and my perspective on water damage assessment is very much at the assessment stage and at the expert witness level, the clinical there are so few clinically driven cases, legal cases, where people are claiming damages. They're usually driving it due to breach of contract, unusual delays, delays that were foreseeable, underlying building defects, something around someone's legal responsibility that has not been met. And so the clinical impact is very much the third component of this. But as I'm trying to advocate, it's becoming a very important component. But it is not the one that I believe is tipping the balance. Overwhelmingly, the solicitors approach is looking at someone who has breached their duty at some point and then there are all these other ramifications. So in terms of answering your question about whether I see a debate around inflammatory like conditions called chronic inflammatory response syndrome, and the ideology of that and whether it is due to, you know, a cofactor from COVID infection or actinomycetes or for us cyanobacteria, you know, some of that rivers and lakes have massive algae problems all the time. So that is just well acknowledged in Australia as a problem. So I'm, at least from my perspective, I'm not seeing much of a debate around the contribution of different elements to making someone immunocompromised, I just at least I'm able to advocate that it could be a whole lot of different things.
Erik Johnson:Now, I'm a little different, because when something makes me sick, I want to know specifically what it is. It's the algae bloom, I want to know that, it its a brown recluse spider, well, then that's what I'm going to call it. And if it's from toxic mold, Stachybotrys in a building. Sure, and of course, that so I really I questioned Dr. Shoemaker's strategy in extending CIRS to be so many things. It's now it's a euphemism for toxic soup. So I know Macquarie University has got a sizable grant to analyze chronic inflammatory response syndrome, and see if it's a viable entity and whether or not they're going to narrow the definition and apply it in a practical sense, as a illness entity in Australia. So are you going to be working with them on that?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Look in a roundabout way, certainly in a
Erik Johnson:I think it's inevitable that there will be a non funded capacity, I'm increasingly aware of what Macquarie University is doing with chronic inflammatory response syndrome, which is a direct result of the biotoxin inquiry. How I view this is that this will be academic research that moves towards trying to define terminologies as applying to events. There is real, and I don't want to do a disservice to the Australian research, which I understand is just just beginning. But there is such excellent research in the literature occurring elsewhere, that I'm quite confident that the information is retrievable, and is going to add to our understanding of this that hence why personally, I was a critic of this narrow or nebulous concept, chronic inflammatory response syndrome. I think with COVID and the what we are hearing about D or antibody dependent enhancement, those types of responses, I think are going to be well understood by the general public well, before the research from Macquarie or any other university comes out. So I'm not necessarily overly concerned about definition, linkages. I think that certainly for the clients that I meet, overwhelmingly, there's a water damage event, or there is a dilapidated age building, or there is a poorly maintained office and usually these are easy to verify and understand issues. And as I said, has said before, the consequence of the water damages is mold. Mold is multifaceted, and then has a individualistic impact on the person, which takes into consideration lots of different components, either a respiratory, lung based, cardiac, neurologic, or some hard to pin down, inflammatory like response, which is taking advantage of all of those organ dysfunctions to contribute to it. So I'm not sure that debating the words in Australia is going to contribute much of anything. clash of paradigms, as these definitions are brought to bear on each other. For example, they're going to ask, what is the relationship with biotoxin illness, or you know, pfisteria to CIRS? And what relationship does CIRS have to chronic fatigue syndrome? You've got quite a few people in Australia who've been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, which Andrew Lloyd treats is primarily a psychological problem, and they're going to want to know if their chronic fatigue syndrome has anything to do with CIRS.
Dr. Cameron Jones:Yeah, that's really interesting. I know that there's some finished work that there was a review that I read, I think a year ago that the fine detail escapes me, but the takeaway message was that a personal reporting mold, illness type symptoms is sent to a psychologist or a psychiatrist for treatment, that environmental illness is not acknowledged. And yet, I've got research coming out from the same country that is just fantastic with response to the impact of water damage, mold, and mycotoxins. So I think that there is a disparity between maybe public health medical research funding and more general research and I think that papers are being published and as long as they're being published, people are going to be able to, at least from my worldview, use these to argue for people, I think maybe what you're saying is at the clinical level, there's going to be a lot of misinformation translated into care. And yeah, I agree that that is terrifying, and more of the health care clinical, you know, those individuals that work directly with the patient to provide immediate care need to be jumping into this indoor air quality arena, because that's the only way we can overcome this and move away from the word play to, you know, clinical outcomes. So I think that the signers have no problem changing words, I think that the doctors, the medical doctors have a major issue with terminology. And I think that they are constrained by wanting to adhere to a a term based diagnosis as opposed to a a more holistic way of defining their case notes. And it's probably just laziness on their part, that they're not doing the research. They're not integrating that research. And they're not making the effort to put pen to paper to create a a more difficult to write sentence, which captures exactly what their patient is reporting. And that's only going to be improved by, as I said, more clinically minded individuals speaking out to make the change happen and not focus on words.
Erik Johnson:Yeah, I can't see how they can have disparate views of the same disease in different countries. So I think that definitions and terminology is going to become extremely important, because there's got to be a clash at some point in one country as the technology develops, to make definitive statements about a particular syndrome name, and what's going to happen another country when they've been using that name. But there have been a little lax and haven't come up to speed on the research.
Dr. Cameron Jones:I instantly agree with you how this is going to play out? I don't know, I really don't know, I would, I would like to said pre COVID that individual doctors make their own decisions. But after seeing the herd mentality here on a big public health issue, I'm not sure that there is an individual determination in the behind closed doors in the clinic when assessing patients. So I think you're probably right, the definitions are fundamentally important. But whether or not they are going to encompass all of the contributors to adverse health from an air inhalation viewpoint, or from just this concept of the microbiome and, you know, all the marketing around the commonplace household cleaners, for example, that are constantly taking motifs of illness and allergy and adverse health on people, whether or not that will filter through to these more rigid word play that I know your what you're saying is the truth. But whether the words will be somewhat dynamic, in that they are more encompassing, have a more 3D view of the impact on health. I would hope that would be the case. I think that the science is there to achieve that. And I'd be really interested to see what a medical doctor would have to say to this because they often take polarized views that I see is very non scientific and I'm probably not the right person to ask this question to I think we need a clinician to put their head on the block and defend their paradigm better around your question.
Erik Johnson:Absolutely. Somebody will step up and defend the paradigm. Have you read mold warriors by Dr. Shoemaker.
Dr. Cameron Jones:Oh, yeah, I've got an in the other other office.
Erik Johnson:Ah, so then you know, my story?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Yes. Yeah, I do. Yes.
Erik Johnson:Okay. So back in 1985, I was offered an opportunity to start, literally start syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome as its first prototype. And I saw how they were playing games and say, well, we don't know anything about mold, so we're not going to study it. And we're not going to listen to you. Well, we carried on we prototypes we survivors, after the CDC and NIH gave up and we found toxic mold in the buildings that were making people sick, and it was Stachybotrys and Stachybotrys has been shown repeatedly to have the exact qualities necessary to suppress the immune system and result in this kind of outcome. So I thought it was really sad that it would, the doctors would fight about this, and I didn't want it to take decades for the rest of them to learn about this. So that's why I volunteered to serve as a prototype. So we can get instant action on this. And when I was corresponding with Lucy Wicks, I told her how Australia is using a chronic fatigue syndrome definition, it is based on nothing. Well, actually, it's modified, it was taken from the original Holme's chronic fatigue syndrome. So it is a derivative. So it is related in some respect, but they're not looking at the same evidence that the original chronic fatigue syndrome cohort was. So now that we've already settled the matter, we found out that the original basis of the original chronic fatigue syndrome was a toxic mold. And they're trying to say that, because they've got some kind of political boundaries of expensive water, the different border, that they don't have to abide by our definition, and they don't have to incorporate mold into their version of chronic fatigue syndrome. So eventually, I feel that what's gonna have to happen is somebody's going to have to step up and tell these people, if chronic fatigue syndrome is already known, in the original country where it was developed, it's time for you people to step up and look at the science and bring your concept, your definition, your name into accordance with what's already been found, or abandoned it and create a new name because you've dropped the ball.
Dr. Cameron Jones:Well, this is the thing, isn't it, chronic inflammatory response syndrome was a new term, and its introduction raises all sorts of issues, because it was really from my perspective adopted by the clinicians and the medical doctors, more so than the general scientific community. And and I think that, you know, you're 100%, right, defining the boundaries, or the opportunities around these definitions is really important. But again, I come back to the fact that from an environmental science point of view, there's lots of different ways to define the same impact on a building or a person, but from a medical point of view that doctors do need to take advantage of different ways to explain things, and I certainly see letters from I've got one for a medical doctor that, you know, just says mold exposure, that is sufficient for some arenas, but then for others, you need a really good, super sharp definition. So I do understand that and certainly chronic fatigue or anything to do with fatigue, certainly in Australia that's not linked to ticks is certainly considered somewhat suspect. So you're right, but I just don't, I don't deal the patient doesn't come into my office, the patient gets referred to me, or it's insurance driven work, or it's just general public. So I'm not the right person to adequately answer this, I'm afraid, but I know that the doctors should be capable of standing up there. There are enough clinicians out there with dual degrees or multiple capacity to comment as a scientist and as a medical doctor.
Erik Johnson:Yeah, chronic inflammatory response syndrome is just a name that Dr. Shoemaker made up. It's a colloquial term and has no official binding power, whereas chronic fatigue syndrome, Holme's 1980, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is it was adopted by the CDC, it's in the medical literature. This is a term that despite it for nature, as trivializing, and there's a story behind that, but it is an official syndrome. So it has more power than CIRs does. My proposal to Lucy Wicks was in a parliamentary inquiry, I explained to them that if you read mold warriors, you can understand that toxic mold was found 35 years ago, and documented. So this isn't speculation. So they can go ahead and insert mold into this discussion for what chronic fatigue syndrome is in there's no need for delay on it.
Dr. Cameron Jones:Listen, I hope it happens. We've had a major government change in the last couple of weeks, and there's the impact of public publicly elected officials that have a strong environmental bent is definitely that they have the numbers now. So it'll be interesting to see whether or not things that are somewhat tenuously linked to the environment become into their radar now apart from, you know, energy and windmills and carbon credits, and, you know, very political economic tools around climate, so I'm not sure I don't know where it's gonna go. But I would hope that someone takes on the Lucy Wicks achievement and moves the moves it on. Certainly, I saw something and I think it was from at least being expanded on by the Macquarie group, that research group that we touched on briefly before that there was another politician that was making advocacy for changes around tendency to be more well defined. I'm not sure how that went, sometimes there's a reading of speeches that lead nowhere.
Erik Johnson:Yeah. I've read from Macquarie has looked into chronic inflammatory response syndrome and seen Dr. Shoemaker's work, then they must have seen that toxic mold actually started chronic fatigue syndrome. So they're already aware.
Dr. Cameron Jones:But listen, you're 100%. Right. I think that the the issue is that when a lot of these universities and the academics that are, you know, fall into these roles to do the research, obviously, they're going to do a literature review. But the problem is that as you recognize as well, that historical literature review often is completely disconnected from the agenda of the research. And I think that's just a pitfall of almost all grant driven research, that there is an objective in mind, and that objective is going to be followed through on and met and, you know, then then it's just well, you know, does is, is does this serve any value to society, apart from its own publications. So look, I don't know.
Erik Johnson:That's why we formed Exposing Mold, bring this out, tell the world how these agenda driven politicians are separating science from their whatever endeavor that they're engaged in and they are really doing the public a disservice.
Dr. Cameron Jones:Well totally and my view is well, is that the alternative news media and social media is driving information delivery to the world, and that grant funded university backed research in many cases, is only there to satisfy the objective and the narrow confines of the research that the grant is for, and therefore its value to society rests with the narrow focus, and often is not valid on a widely deployable scale. And hence why you need people who are speaking out about public health implications to say, this is the value of this, this is the component in there that is useful and valid at this point in time and whilst there's a lot of material here, it's just not that important. And I think that's the whole point of public health narratives, critiquing the science and medical research and I think it's fundamental. And I think we need that and the public wanted, it's retrievable, more people turn to the alternative news media and what they can find themselves than ever go into PubMed. And yet, the material that's in the public domain impacts on you know, more elegant research that, you know, we all can define when we read it and see it. And so what you're saying I don't think is lost in, in history. But I think that it's just a matter. The overall objective is for people to become well or empowered to derive their own health, and not be unwell, really.
Erik Johnson:And we've got Griffith University, looking at ME/CFS, we've got the Australian psychiatric crowd, who's in total control of chronic fatigue syndrome. And then we've got Macquarie, looking into biotoxin illness and CIRS. And so at some point, all these people, as they strive for power, are going to come into conflict with each other. And they're going to say, okay, who's got the real entity, who owns chronic fatigue syndrome? And I did tell, you know, Professor Lloyd, it ain't him. There are facts and evidence about how the syndrome was coined and I'm expecting good researchers to look at that evidence and ask some hard questions.
Dr. Cameron Jones:I agree with you. And you know, I'm unfamiliar with some of the points that you've touched on, but I can empathize because I am a critic of the university driven research spectrum in it not just in Australia, because I think that is it is a narrow focus on I think, you know, there there is a strong link to my personal story about being ignorant of an entire massive domain of science just due to age and ignorance and myopic zeal to follow through on my own personal research interests, which furthered the research interests of my center and group and university and also the hierarchy of science, technology driven research. It is so hierarchical, that those working in it often don't recognize the fact that they do tend to spend too much effort protecting territory rather than just doing the science and letting the public take advantage of it. And I just don't worry about it anymore because I don't require funding to do my own work. But those who do, obviously have a very self centered view on how they would potentially put try to protect their domain and that would go for any area.
Erik Johnson:That's what they're doing. They're protecting their turf. Well, I'd like to leave you with this concept that's already here that was at the very center of the creation of the most controversial syndrome in medical history. I mean, millions of people the world over, have fought over this thing, and utterly failed to bring up the concept of mold, even when they were told to. So I would like to suggest that it's possible that mold as it is acting now was unknown, that accounts for its unfamiliarity, that something happened in the environment is mold has changed so dramatically, that it was previously unknown and that's what we need to be looking into.
Dr. Cameron Jones:I agree. And I think your contributions to this and sustained contributions to this are recognized, I think that the I think that the medical community is is in somewhat disarray around mold as they are around loads of other problems. And and I think they're their own worst enemies, and not being a medical practitioner. I stand outside that and I'm pretty harsh critic of this. But I think moving towards the future of where we're all going to go. Everyone is aware about illness and infection and transmission. And I think that mold is an entity is so is being increasingly recognized the impact of climate and whether or not mold has been potentially, you know, for example, there's a whole nother dialogue around the bio weapons and bio weaponry opportunities that exist around pathogens, not just bacteria and viruses, but also fungi. There's a rich history in the literature regarding that factor. I think that as climates, increasingly warm, there is an adaptive change in the microbes to be capable of growing at slightly higher temperatures. And so we suddenly see all these issues affecting thermotolerant, microorganisms affecting dishwashers, seals, or being able to be more virulent and less capable of being eradicated with the the known antifungal drugs, simply because they're capable of growing in host close to the body temperature, like us. So I think that there's a whole lot of stuff that's going on that is not well discussed. And you individually, you as a collective and as individuals are all champions of, you know, facts and science and truth and advocacy, and access to good quality information that you can internalize and then take action on because at the end of the day, that's what we all want. So I yeah, we've discussed a lot here.
Alicia Swamy:Yeah. We really appreciate it. And you know, you are in Australia, and I want to go through your qualifications because there was another Australian that was basically saying, who is a social media influencer who was saying mold does not cause disease. And boy, did you get some backlash? Yeah, she's not anywhere near your level of qualifications. I just want to go through, again, you're a microbiologist, you're a chemist, you're an expert in fungal spore identification. You've done so much work overseas, you know what's going on in this realm and I have one final question for you Cam, does mold cause disease?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Yes, absolutely. That's a no brainer.
Alicia Swamy:Thank you. That was a nice alley oop, you know, slam dunk in there. So we'll send this conversation over to her just to stop that bickering back and forth. We really do appreciate your time and you know we do have an Australian audience and we do work with some like Sean and Caleb we've interviewed of the toxic mold support group in Australia and they've been great. And I'm just curious if anyone who is listening from Australia and they want to consult with you, where can they find you?
Dr. Cameron Jones:Biological Health Services is the name of my consultancy and for anyone who is looking for a more clinical approach, I work collaboratively at the National Institute of Integrative Medicine here in Hawthorne, Melbourne, Victoria, there are a lot of clinicians there that are mold aware and certainly aware of various different allergies, talking about chronic fatigue. So it's not just mold. Certainly my discipline, focus is the environment and moldy buildings. But National Institute of Integrative Medicine is a really good not for profit group of clinicians in the main that focus on a range of different more complicated health problems. And so they're very good but to Giological Health Services is where you can find me and I'm reasonably active on most social media.
Alicia Swamy:Fantastic. Well, thank you, Cam, and thank you to all our listeners. We'll see you next time.