History
In the 1930s, mold was identified as the cause behind the mysterious deaths of farm animals in Russia and other countries. Stachybotrys chartarum was found growing on wet grain used for animal feed. The illnesses and deaths also occurred in humans when starving peasants ate large quantities of rotten food grains and cereals that were heavily overgrown with the Stachybotrys mold.
In the 1970s, building construction techniques changed in response to the changing economic realities including the energy crisis. As a result, homes and buildings became more airtight. Also, cheaper materials such as drywall came into common use. The newer building materials reduced the drying potential of the structures making moisture problems more prevalent. This combination of increased moisture and suitable substrates contributed to increased mold growth inside buildings.
Today, the US Food and Drug Administration and the agriculture industry closely monitor mold and mycotoxin levels in grains and foodstuffs in order to keep the contamination of animal feed and human food supplies below specific levels. In 2005 Diamond Pet Foods, a US pet food manufacturer, experienced a significant rise in the number of corn shipments containing elevated levels of aflatoxin. This mold toxin eventually made it into the pet food supply, and dozens of dogs and cats died before the company was forced to recall affected products.
Read more about this topic: Mold Health Issues
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“I feel as tall as you.”
—Ellis Meredith, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 14, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)