Tests have confirmed that while the faulty Chinese wallboard may be toxic and harmful to the health of those people whose homes are lined with the stuff, Chinese drywall is not radioactive. As a precaution, the government carried out tests to insure that the material is not even more dangerous than it already is and the tests came back negative.
The Herald Tribune reports
Tainted Chinese drywall is known to smell and corrode metal, and is suspected of making people sick. But state and federal investigators have determined one thing the wallboard is not: radioactive.
Scientists with the Florida Department of Health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission analyzed multiple samples of drywall for “radiological evidence of phosphogypsum contamination,” according to the agencies’ final draft report obtained by the Herald-Tribune.
They found none.
The report concludes “there is no phosphogypsum contamination in the drywall samples tested” and that “neither imported nor domestic drywall tested pose a radiological concern,” the report says.
While there is rarely good news when it comes to the material, that it is not radioactive is obviously a positive. Homeowners are suffering a lot out there, from Louisiana to Mississippi to Florida and on. Hopefully a resolution will emerge that will help people get out of their detrimental homes and into the home they believed they were buying before all of these problems emerged.