I just visited South Florida, and the hurricane damage of last year has spawned a new, terrifying threat! It is black mold! According to the lawyers who advertise on TV, black mold in your house, condo, etc., may be killing you! One fellow down there said that he had to tear his house down, because he was suffering from flu-like symptoms that were caused by mold spores.
So, is this real or just junk science? Seems to me that black mold has been around for years-is the Bar Assoc. just discovering its potential? Also, I know that molds are microscopic fungi, whic produce spores only when wet (alive)-you dry out, clean up, and the mold is gone.
So, whats the truth? 
I hate to be a Googlebot, but Quackwatch has an interesting article on mold toxicity.
That’s a good article that identifies this whole thing as another lawyer driven boondogle to enrich a few at the expense and grief of the many.
THis is exactly the same thing as the big asbestos “threat,” which was exposed about five years ago in a three page article in the Austin American Statesman as a lawyer scam. That article revealed that, although two thirds of Americans had probably been exposed to asbestos (breathed it), there were only ten thousand related illness reported annually. That is 5.7 ten thousands of a percent of the population. I wouldn’t wish asbestosis or mesothelioma on my worst enemy, but folks, that doesn’t qualify as an epidemic.
I read an article recently which stated that you’d be hard-pressed to find a house of any significant age in Atlanta which didn’t have some black mold growing somewhere.
As an aside: lawyer-bashing is fun, but if lawyers can’t convince a jury (12 people in my state, usually), they don’t win. Are juries stupid? Or are the insurance defense lawyers not stepping up to the plate and exposing junk science when it turns up in court?
Right on.
Juries are not (generally speaking) stupid, but neither are they capable of determining complex scientific questions with any reasonable precision.
As you’ve probably guessed, not all black molds are toxic. The greatest danger seems to be from Stachybotrys chartarum, a mold that was virtually never found indoors until about 20 years ago.