It has now been twenty years since the tragic death on Long Island from carbon monoxide poisoning of celebrity tennis player, Vitas Gerulaitis. Media attention at that time served to raise awareness about the invisible, odorless gas that is still the number one cause of accidental poisoning deaths in the U.S. In the twenty years since, it has become standard for homes across the Nation to have carbon monoxide detectors, and this has undoubtedly saved many lives.
Unfortunately, even if you have a good quality carbon monoxide detector in your home, your family may still suffer from low-level carbon monoxide exposure that can cause headaches, chronic fatigue, dizziness, memory loss, nausea and a range of other symptoms that your doctor may find hard to diagnose. The carbon monoxide detectors used today that could save your life from acute poisoning, ironically may provide a false sense of security when it comes to chronic, low-level exposure to the toxic gas.
 A question many of us should be asking, especially if we’re experiencing recurring headaches, fatigue or other symptoms that might be dismissed as "just sometime going around," is whether our homes might be making us sick. Consider these real-life examples:
- A 39-year-old woman has for several months, experienced fatigue, headaches and memory lapses. After visiting multiple specialists, no diagnosis could be made.
- A 10-year-old boy complaining of chronic migraines sees multiple doctors who found no physical problem, and could only recommend darkening his bedroom to lessen light exposure.
- A 33 year old woman began having headaches and feeling very tired. Her two children occasionally awoke in the morning with headaches, dizziness, and nausea. They believed they all had a touch of the flu or had eaten bad food. However, visits to the doctor could not identify any cause.
In each of these cases, the problems originated from carbon monoxide exposures due to faulty heating systems or appliances. Levels of carbon monoxide that will not trigger your standard home carbon monoxide detector can still make you sick. This problem is greater now because winter “cold and flu” season is also when heating systems and space heaters are in use.
 The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Journal of Medical Case Reports all state the importance of educating doctors and the public that exposure to low-levels of carbon monoxide can cause illness. But, more awareness of this issue among doctors and the public is still needed.
Prevention is the key to avoiding carbon monoxide poisoning. Recently, the Suffolk County Legislature declared January 2014 “Carbon Monoxide Awareness Month” in an effort to raise awareness about the dangers posed by carbon monoxide in homes and buildings. Many public officials have joined the campaign to raise awareness by posting information on social networking sites. (Download a copy of the Long Island Carbon Monoxide Safety & Prevention brochure)
Carbon monoxide is produced whenever a fuel such as natural gas, oil, gasoline, kerosene, wood, or charcoal is burned. If heaters and other appliances that burn fuel are not working properly or are used incorrectly, dangerous levels of carbon monoxide can result. Pregnant women, infants, the elderly, and people with anemia or with a history of heart or respiratory disease are especially susceptible.
To protect your family, in addition to carbon monoxide detectors, be sure to have an annual inspection, tune-up and cleaning of your heating system, fuel-burning appliances and chimneys at the beginning of each heating season.
To be assured that your home is safe, we recommend a free or low-cost home energy audit through the NYSERDA Green Jobs/Green New York program. Not only will a certified auditor be able to generate a report detailing how efficiency upgrades can save you money on heating and cooling costs, but the audit requires a safety check, including a carbon monoxide test, of all your home’s fuel-burning appliances, some of which you may not even have considered. Vitas Gerulaitis, for example, succumbed to carbon monoxide from a pool heater.
Based on interv iews with home energy auditors, the Sustainability Institute at Molloy College believes that as many as 150,000 homes on Long Island may be exposing families to sub-acute levels of carbon monoxide.
To arrange for an energy audit of your home, please start here: (www.longislandgreenhomes.org) In the past three years, over 7,000 Long Island homeowners have received free or low-cost home energy audits, including combustion safety testing, from certified home energy auditors. This success has been due to the work of seven Long Island towns that are promoting the program in a unique cooperative effort, along with the Community Development Corporation of Long Island, the Long Island Progressive Coalition, and the Sustainability Institute. We urge you to take advantage of the program now. Funding for the free audits is not guaranteed to be continued. Although the program on Long Island has the best numbers of any region in the State, we still have a long way to go, and funding for the consortium of towns and not-for-profits promoting the program has not been renewed.
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