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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Inspector General
At a Glance
16-P-0308
September 8, 2016
Why We Did This Review
We assessed the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA's) actions to
address recommendations in
Office of Inspector General
(OIG) Report No. 13-P-0356.
Public May Be Making Indoor
Mold Cleanup Decisions Based
on EPA Tool Developed Only
for Research Applications,
issued August 22, 2013.
The Assistant Administrator for
the Office of Research and
Development was the action
official responsible for ensuring
completion of the corrective
actions we reviewed.
This report addresses the
following EPA core value:
• Science, Transparency,
and Rule of Law.
Follow-Up Review: EPA Updated Information
for indoor Moid Research Toois
What We Found
Corrective actions taken by
the EPA should help ensure
that the public has correct
information about EPA-
approved technology and
tools for evaluating indoor
mold.
In 2013, we reported that some licensees were
inappropriately marketing the EPA-patented
Mold Specific Quantitative Polymerase Chain
Reaction technology and the agency-
developed Environmental Relative Moldiness
Index tool. The OIG noted that some licensee
advertising could mislead the public into
thinking that the EPA had endorsed these
research tools for evaluating indoor mold for public use, even though the EPA
readily acknowledged that these tools were for research applications only and
had not been validated for public use.
The OIG's 2013 report contained three recommendations to address these
concerns. Recommendations 1 and 3 remained open with corrective actions
pending, and Recommendation 2 was closed upon issuance of the final report.
For the two open recommendations, the EPA completed agreed-upon corrective
actions. The EPA reviewed websites of active licensees to look for language that
suggests EPA endorsement, and finalized the agency's fact sheet on indoor mold
to include discussion on the tools' limitations. These actions resulted in updated
information, and agency reviews of licensee websites helped ensure that
information about the agency's tools is correct. We make no further
recommendations.
Send all inquiries to our public
affairs office at (202) 566-2391
or visit www.epa.gov/oiq.
Listing of OIG reports.

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