Tha Chinese-Made Drywall: Emitting Sulphuric Acid Fumes?

The news carried a story, about an unfortunate guy who bought a new home (walls built with sheetrock panels from China).He and his wife were always sick, and all the copper and brass stuff in the house was turning black. A environmental chemist was called in-and it seems the walls are out gassing sulphuic acid fumes! The house now is unlivable, and must be torn down. My questions:
-sheetrock is basically gypsum witha mineral binder, between two sheets of cardboard-why would the mfg. ever add sulphuric acid?
-sheetrock is cheap, and made by a highly automated process. Why wous shipping sheetrock from China make any sense? Most of it (sheetrock) is made here.
It seems to me that the Chinese must have been selling the panels for lose to zero-otherwise, why would a builder use this stuff?

Gypsumis composed of calcium sulfate. Any number of manufacturing errors could result in chemical instability that would cause outgassing.

Clearly, it is cheaper to make it in China and ship it to America. Somebody is profiting from this.

It is cheaper.

FTR, Sheetrock is a trademark of the US Gypsum Co.

The news story I saw said that right after Hurricane Katrina, there was a shortage of drywall in the USA, so they were importing it from China. Don’t know if it’s still being done, but I know a clause I’m adding to any remodelling contracts I sign in the future.

That makes no sense. Why tear down the whole house? The framing isn’t out-gassing, and neither is the plumbing or wiring. All they need to do is send in a crew to strip the walls and re-rock.

The good news is that so far, the potentially bad wallboard is limited almost entirely to Florida - from what I understand, there was a local shortage of building materials post-Katrina, so some materials were shipped in from China, rather than waiting for US Gypsum to crank up production or relocate the heavy stuff from another state.

Sounds odd, but it sometimes is cheaper to bring in a freight container or two of something from overseas than it is to load up a truck and drive it in from a couple states over.

ETA:

oops… that’s what I get for typing up something, walking away for a while, then posting without previewing. :smack: