Disaster Help has to be Healthy

Earlier this week, I read an article on MSNBC.com about the FEMA trailers that were supposed to be sent to help disaster victims from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, plus recent flooding victims around the country. Shock doesn't describe how it felt to learn that these people have become victims again.

For Congress to step in to tell FEMA lawyers to stop "covering their **%!" and admit the problem instead of focusing on liability issues, tells you how this agency feels about poor disaster victims. Air quality in these trailers is so poor that the agency has an 'immediate order' to stop using these taxpayer-funded disaster relief trailers due the use of formaldehyde. So they wasted taxpayer dollars and they used these poor hurricane victims as lab rats for a known carcinogen.

Formaldehyde is an airborne chemical used in composite wood and plywood panels in inexpensive furniture and in the 'walls' of the travel trailers purchased by FEMA after Katrina. It is considered a human carcinogen -- or a known cancer-causing substance, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the EPA..

Most people don't realize that they grew up with natural wood products in their home -- carved pieces that are now considered heirloom. However today, many inexpensive methods of manufacturing furniture make the use of formaldehyde quite common. These fumes are a leading cause of the degradation of indoor air quality.

In hot and humid climates, the fumes become unbearable in these small trailers and it is deplorable to learn that FEMA was trying to cover-up the reality -- young children and elderly are most at risk from respiratory, sinus, intestinal, skin rashes, insomia and headaches -- all signs of formaldehyde poisoning.

Would you want to put your child into a chemical factory where they sleep in fumes that are known cancer causing agents? Can you imagine all these poor hurricane and flood victims spending their last few dollars to buy a trailer from the FEMA agency? How many children will have to get sick, cancer or learning disabilities?

Its time to step up as consumers, and taxpayers to insist that we have a right to products that do not degrade indoor air quality. I believe a healthier home environment is based on safe products that do not contribute to the degradation of indoor air quality.