Listen children and I will tell you about something strange and magical:
The word, idiopathic.
Idiopathic is an adjective describing a disease or condition that arises spontaneously or for which the cause is unknown.
For reasons unknown, many conditions which are PROBABLY caused by mold are defined as being idiopathic.
Doctors and science have made resolute connections between mold and allergy, which is why you so frequently hear them all talking about MOLD ALLERGY instead of mold related diseases.
In other cases, you have incidence of “Organic toxic dust syndrome, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and allergic lung disease” where massive exposure to (read this as “inhalation of”) mold which results in lung damage. This can be confirmed in some cases when lung biopsies reveal the presence of mold. But after survival of the initial attack, sometimes pulmonary fungal infection does not leave a direct connection to what caused the damage. The clear relationship between fungus and the infection of infants and the elderly has been proven. But sometimes the proof is so elusive (because symptoms mimic so many other conditions), that many symptoms which are mold are defined as idiopathic—pending proof in the scientific community.
Specific events happen in young children: growing lungs have frail capillaries which are easily stressed by environmental pollutants (including Stachybotrys.)
Idiopathic disease is not actually idiopathic; that is, it has a cause. It just has not been defined yet. It has been defined in the case of allergy; it has been defined in the case of mycotoxicosis (consumption of mold-contaminated food.) Mycotoxicosis is one of the reasons why peanuts and peanut products are so often recalled. (See Peanut Recalls
Idiopathic mold illness can be in the realm of the early stages (somewhere between exposure and full-blown illness) of mycotoxicosis (systematic mold infection) or after someone has recovered from mycotoxicosis. There are a vast number of molds, a vast number of potential mycotoxins they can excrete, and obviously a vast number of potential symptoms, which can make the agent of exposure especially difficult to pin down.
To make this word more of an issue, consider the legality of mold problems. When an illness is called idiopathic, then it becomes more difficult to prove in court. So those power brokers with a vested interest in mold not being unhealthy (insurance companies, landlords, builders and the like) are able to take advantage of the slippery nature of the connection of so-called “idiopathic” disease and its source; and thus victims of mold—people who have been made ill by mold—are ultimately the ones who are left without recourse.