{"id":416996,"date":"2026-07-29T20:24:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T20:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/416996\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T20:24:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T20:24:34","slug":"study-suggests-threat-of-mold-associated-illnesses-underappreciated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/416996\/","title":{"rendered":"Study suggests threat of mold-associated illnesses underappreciated"},"content":{"rendered":"

By MIKE STOBBE,\u00a0AP Medical Writer<\/p>\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A first-of-its-kind U.S. study suggests invasive mold infections may be an underappreciated \u2014 and potentially deadly \u2014 threat.<\/p>\n

The researchers detected about 450 cases in Atlanta-area hospitals over five years. About a third of the patients died in the hospital.<\/p>\n

The findings, published this week<\/a> by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, come from an attempt to better gauge how common these kinds of illnesses are. The government does not require doctors to report the illnesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of the first time we\u2019ve had an estimate like this,\u201d said the CDC\u2019s Dr. Jeremy Gold, the study\u2019s senior author.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s important to understand it now, because the problem may grow in the future, he added. Mold exposure is a recurring problem in the wake of hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters influenced by climate change, researchers have found.<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree that the frequency of fungal infections will likely increase with climate change,\u201d said Dr. Jeffrey Jenks, an infectious disease researcher at Duke University.<\/p>\n

\"FILEFILE \u2013 Mold grows on the walls of a home in the Gentilly area of New Orleans Tuesday, June 12, 2007, damaged by the floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon, File)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there\u2019s a growing population of older people who are more susceptible to such illnesses, Gold said.<\/p>\n

Invasive mold diseases are rare infections caused by certain species. Most people who get infected inhale mold spores, but they can also enter the body through cuts or wounds or from contaminated medical equipment.<\/p>\n

The spores don\u2019t cause health problems for most people, but they can be life-threatening to some, including the elderly, cancer patients and others with weakened immune systems.<\/p>\n

Previously, CDC researchers estimated<\/a> more than 15,000 hospitalizations a year could be tied to invasive mold disease.<\/p>\n

To better understand how common cases might be at a local level, the research team worked with four Atlanta-area hospitals and their affiliated outpatient clinics to look for potential cases from 2020 to 2024.<\/p>\n

They initially identified nearly 1,000 potential cases, but winnowed the number down to about 450 by ruling out patients who may have had signs of exposure but didn\u2019t qualify as having invasive mold disease.<\/p>\n

The researchers found that hospitals can expect to see 3 to 5 cases per year for every 100 inpatient beds. The rates were higher at larger academic hospitals that tend to see more complicated illnesses.<\/p>\n

Most patients had impaired immune systems or \u2014 in a number of cases \u2014 were weakened after falling sick from COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Mold exposures can occur in hospitals or other healthcare facilities, but the study did not try to determine where each patient was first exposed, Gold said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to generalize what was seen in the Atlanta area to other parts of the country where mold may be more or less of a problem, he said. But it should give hospital administrators at least a rough idea about whether the number of cases they see is what might be expected or whether it\u2019s an outbreak, Gold added.<\/p>\n

Jenks called the study\u2019s findings \u201cvaluable,\u201d but said \u201cseeing results from similar studies done in different parts of the United States would be helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By MIKE STOBBE,\u00a0AP Medical Writer NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A first-of-its-kind U.S. study suggests invasive mold infections may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[166813,166814,166812,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-416996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-invasive-mold-infections","tag-mold-illnesses","tag-mold-associated-illnesses","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}