CDC tests confirm FEMA trailers are toxic .. Sierra club warned in early 2006 ...

CDC tests confirm FEMA trailers are toxic | Agency to relocate Gulf Coast residents because of formaldehyde fumes | By Mike Brunker | Projects Team editor | MSNBC
updated 6:23 p.m. CT, Thurs., Feb. 14, 2008
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More than two years after residents of FEMA trailers deployed along the Mississippi Gulf Coast began complaining of breathing difficulties, nosebleeds and persistent headaches, U.S. health officials announced Thursday that long-awaited government tests found potentially hazardous levels of toxic formaldehyde gas in both travel trailers and mobile homes provided by the agency.
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Levels of formaldehyde gas in 519 trailer and mobile homes tested in Louisiana and Mississippi were — on average — about five times what people are exposed to in most modern homes, the CDC reported. In some trailers, the levels were nearly 40 times customary exposure levels, raising fears that residents could suffer respiratory problems and potentially other long-term health effects, it said.
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Paulison also defended FEMA’s response to the problem, which surfaced in late 2005, when some travel trailer occupants began reporting breathing difficulties, headaches and nosebleeds.

“I think we have moved very quickly based on what we knew,” Paulison said Thursday. “… We did the best we could do with the information we had.”

The Sierra Club began warning about formaldehyde levels in travel trailers by early 2006, after conducting its own air-quality tests. FEMA officials initially dismissed the environmental group's testing, saying the trailers conformed to industry standards. ...