Reston, VA

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Health Writer Salutes The Federal Interagency Task Force On Problem Drywall For Stating This In Its Latest Guidance Documents

Michael D. Shaw, contributing columnist for Health News Digest, has been covering the tainted Chinese drywall situation since it broke back in 2008. In a story dated June 30, 2010, he explained important findings that emerged from work done by famed Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL), sponsored by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Chamber testing of drywall samples, whereby the actual out-gassing rates were measured, was compared to the so-called "marker" of strontium content. Early on, it was thought that a strontium content greater than 1200 parts-per-million was indicative of tainted drywall.

The strontium content could be easily determined in a suspect residence, using an portable X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) instrument. Thus, Shaw notes, many home inspectors purchased the expensive XRF "guns," and went out to check homes.

However, the results from LBNL completely disproved the notion that strontium content was predictive of tainted drywall. There were drywall samples with high strontium content that did not out-gas at all, just as there were heavily out-gassing boards (including the second worst one tested) that had low strontium content, Shaw explains.

Unfortunately, the initial findings were not enough to stop the promoters of XRF home testing, who are charging high fees to give useless reports to hapless and scared homeowners. So, on August 27, the new Interagency Task force--comprised of CPSC, HUD, EPA, and the CDC--released a more aggressive statement on the matter, which states in part:

The Task Force does not believe strontium has a causative role in the problems reported with the problematic drywall. Furthermore, the Task Force believes it is appropriate to remove the strontium level as a corroborative factor due to the possibility that its use may lead to false-positive results where a homeowner may mistakenly believe their home contains problem drywall

Shaw adds that in February 2010, XRF testing had already been thrown out of the major federal case on tainted drywall.

Michael D. Shaw

Executive VP/Director of Marketing

Interscan Corporation

Reston, VA

703-796-6063

First Url: Shaw's June 30th story, as mentioned above

Second Url: Shaw's blog