There are many articles floating around today discussing the possibility that mold played a part in the deaths of actress Brittany Murphy and her husband Simon Monjack. They both reportedly suffered from respiratory problems, which may have been a complicating factor in their deaths. It is kind of weird that they both died of similar (perhaps even identical) maladies in such close time proximity. And they did live in the same home.

Take for example, Mould in your home can kill as actress Brittany Murphy’s death linked to fungus in LA mansion:

A more unlikely end to the Hollywood dream could not seem possible – but this week it was reported that the deaths of actress Brittany Murphy and her British screenwriter husband Simon Monjack might have been caused by mould growing in their luxury Los Angeles home.

Murphy, who starred in such films as Clueless and Sin Sity, was only 32 when she died last December – at the time there was speculation her death was linked to drug abuse or an eating disorder.

When Monjack died in May at the age of 40, his death was blamed on heart failure.

Now, in both cases, the cause of death has been recorded as pneumonia and anaemia, and experts have suggested mould could be to blame, damaging the couple’s respiratory systems.

The tabloids should have a field day with this!

Then again, it’s probably just an Internet rumor as there plenty of counterclaims to the mold hypothesis. As in Coroner: No indication mold killed Brittany Murphy or Simon Monjack:

A coroner’s investigator dismissed online speculation that the pneumonia deaths of actress Brittany Murphy and her husband, Simon Monjack, may both have been related to viral mold inside their Los Angeles home.

“There were no indicators that it was from mold,” Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said Monday.

Murphy, 32, and Monjack, 39, died five months apart in the same bedroom of the home they shared with the actress’ mother, Sharon Murphy, in Hollywood Hills.

The preliminary autopsy concluded that Monjack’s death May 23 was caused by acute pneumonia and severe anemia, “just like Brittany,” Winter said last week.

But what do most coroners know about mold anyway?

More on the Brittany Murphy Mold Issue

Brittany Murphy’s Mother Denies Mold Report

Toxic mold not cause of Brittany Murphy, Simon Monjack deaths

Murphy, Monjack’s Home Investigated For Toxic Mold

Toxic Mold Possible Factor in Brittany Murphy’s death?

Cover of May 22 edition of ScienceNews

You know it is a good day at the library when you walk by the magazine rack and see a false-color electron micrograph image of a conidiophore on a cover. It was the cover of the May 22, edition of ScienceNews, which happened to contain a feature article entitled I, Mold by Laura Bell. It is available on line from the magazine website:

In the germ world, fungi usually lack the flair of viruses or bacteria. To people with normal, healthy immune systems, a fungus will rarely show itself — even though you carry around a microscopic film of fungus on your hair and skin, and take in invisible clouds of fungal spores with each breath. While many other microbes prefer to make a living through disease and death, a fungus is often content to wait for its host to die of something else.

As can be garnered from the first paragraph, the article has a medical mycology focus, with reference to Cryptococcus, Aspergillus and Candida. Bell does a nice job of weaving together recent research and comments from fungal researchers to provide a timely update on the state of progress in fighting fungal diseases.

Yeast cells of the related species C. neoformans visualized using a light India ink staining (CDC/Dr. Leanor Haley)

It’s not every day you get clued in on a story of possible mycological interest by visiting the Drudge Report (FYI, to balance things out, I also check The Huffington Post). But, there it was–Potentially deadly fungus spreading in US, Canada.

A potentially deadly strain of fungus is spreading among animals and people in the northwestern United States and the Canadian province of British Columbia, researchers reported on Thursday. The airborne fungus, called Cryptococcus gattii, usually only infects transplant and AIDS patients and people with otherwise compromised immune systems, but the new strain is genetically different, the researchers said.

(Note: Most folks don’t seem to know that species names should be italicized and therefore don’t do it. Even so, if I see that error in an excerpt, I add the italics. However, this blogging software doesn’t seem to allow italics in post titles.)

The Reuters article is based n a recent report in PLOS Pathogens, Emergence and Pathogenicity of Highly Virulent Cryptococcus gattii published by researchers in the US, UK and Australia. PLOS Pathogens is open access so I am sure they won’t mind the full abstract being reposted here:

Cryptococcus gattii causes life-threatening disease in otherwise healthy hosts and to a lesser extent in immunocompromised hosts. The highest incidence for this disease is on Vancouver Island, Canada, where an outbreak is expanding into neighboring regions including mainland British Columbia and the United States. This outbreak is caused predominantly by C. gattii molecular type VGII, specifically VGIIa/major. In addition, a novel genotype, VGIIc, has emerged in Oregon and is now a major source of illness in the region. Through molecular epidemiology and population analysis of MLST and VNTR markers, we show that the VGIIc group is clonal and hypothesize it arose recently. The VGIIa/IIc outbreak lineages are sexually fertile and studies support ongoing recombination in the global VGII population. This illustrates two hallmarks of emerging outbreaks: high clonality and the emergence of novel genotypes via recombination. In macrophage and murine infections, the novel VGIIc genotype and VGIIa/major isolates from the United States are highly virulent compared to similar non-outbreak VGIIa/major-related isolates. Combined MLST-VNTR analysis distinguishes clonal expansion of the VGIIa/major outbreak genotype from related but distinguishable less-virulent genotypes isolated from other geographic regions. Our evidence documents emerging hypervirulent genotypes in the United States that may expand further and provides insight into the possible molecular and geographic origins of the outbreak.

An interesting feature of these PLOS papers is a section called Author Summary, which seems to be a “take home message” sort of a thing that is written in less technical language:

Emerging and reemerging infectious diseases are increasing worldwide and represent a major public health concern. One class of emerging human and animal diseases is caused by fungi. In this study, we examine the expansion on an outbreak of a fungus, Cryptococcus gattii, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. This fungus has been considered a tropical fungus, but emerged to cause an outbreak in the temperate climes of Vancouver Island in 1999 that is now causing disease in humans and animals in the United States. In this study we applied a method of sequence bar-coding to determine how the isolates causing disease are related to those on Vancouver Island and elsewhere globally. We also expand on the discovery of a new pathogenic strain recently identified only in Oregon and show that it is highly virulent in immune cell and whole animal virulence experiments. These studies extend our understanding of how diseases emerge in new climates and how they adapt to these regions to cause disease. Our findings suggest further expansion into neighboring regions is likely to occur and aim to increase disease awareness in the region.

With good open-source research and information like this directly available, there isn’t much need for me to add anything else!

More on C. gattii

Why we should care about Cryptococcus gattii

A rare genotype of Cryptococcus gattii caused the cryptococcosis outbreak on Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada)

Cryptococcus gattii Research at the University of British Columbia

Deadly New Fungus Emerging in Oregon Expected to Spread

Cryptococcus gattii at University of Adelaide

A Podcast on C. gattii from the CDC

Researchers found a rare — and dangerous — fungus in the rural Milwaukee suburbs. It’s called blastomycosis.  The discovery was first reported by the Wisconsin Medical Journal.

Someone ought to leave a comment for the writer explaining that blastomycosis is a disease and not a fungus.

More on Blastomycosis:

Systemic Fungal Diseases

Blastomycosis in Dogs

Blastomycosis at Google Health

Blastomycosis at CDC