This article announces how a school was relocated so its building could be tested for an explanation of employee illnesses. Has anyone looked at student attendance records? I was poisoned in a school but have no notion of what, if any, effects there were for others. These are not mysteries. We have the technology for discovering what is around us and the ability to comprehend our physical intolerances for the follies of our fast food/quick construction society. The cost of health care today, and the huge demand for it, tells the tale.

My letter:

To the Editor,

Every public building requires toxicological testing. Not an impotent OSHA checking on carbon dioxide levels and merely cracking a window. A competent assessment examines mold for potential toxicity. It assays airborne volatile and semi-volatile compounds from fuels, cleaning solvents, construction materials, and furnishings.

I have tested a variety of residences and offices with shocking results. Mid to high levels of pesticides banned decades before that foundation was even dug; formaldehyde exceeding levels found in FEMA trailers; methylene chloride from chemicals stored in a garage below an apartment. Not unlike any other residence or office. I became disabled in a school I was supervising after applications of multiple pesticides.

The human genome was not designed with PCBs in mind. Many common synthetic chemicals are less than sixty years old. We cannot survive the onslaught, unscathed.

Test and build, or rehab carefully. Sometimes you don’t get a second chance.

I should know.

Barbara Rubin