The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today announced a joint grant to Dorr G. Dearborn, Ph.D., M.D., of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, for a study, in mice, of how a black mold, or fungus, causes infant lungs to hemorrhage, often killing them. If infant mice react like infant humans, the study may help doctors understand, control and perhaps prevent the Stachybotrys atra -related illness which has been serious in at least 34 infants, with bleeding from the lungs, and caused at least ten infants to die over the past four years in the Cleveland area alone. Dr. Dearborn, who is in the medical school's pediatric pulmonary division, will expose infant mice to the fungus at three to seven days of age, and sacrifice them days to weeks later for microscopic examination of the lungs to understand how the fungus causes lung hemorrhage.
Cases continue to occur.
Dr. Dearborn also thinks that the disorder probably extends beyond Cleveland. With CDC's Ruth Etzel, M.D., Ph.D., he continues an informal national survey of all pediatric pulmonary centers that so far has identified more than 60 similar cases of lung hemorrhage in infants across the country over the last four years. The fungi Stachybotrys atra , one of a number of black molds, requires water soaked cellulose to grow, typical in homes where there has been water damage from flooding, plumbing leaks, or roof leaks that soak building materials such as insulation, gypsum board and ceiling tile. The medical term for the condition observed in infants is pulmonary hemosiderosis. Its symptoms are coughing up blood or nose bleeds, particularly in infants under six months of age, and chronic cough and congestion, with anemia.