In this episode, join us as we discuss the critical topic of winning legal cases for clients harmed by toxic mold, featuring special guest Kristina Baehr, an experienced and dedicated lawyer specializing in mold-related cases.

Key Points

• Why attorneys historically do not take on mold-related litigation cases and why this needs to change
• Kristina’s own personal story overcoming mold-related illness, being forced out of her home and becoming a hero and advocate for clients suffering from environmental toxicity.
• More on other environmental cases, such as the US Navy spill with jet fuel in Hawaii and how environmental medicine is reaching its way in to the legal system to help those patients who have been harmed

Our Guest – Kristina Baehr

Kristina is a national trial lawyer who represents sick people against the companies that made them sick. She founded Just Well Law to help clients recover financially so that they can rebuild their health and their lives.

Kristina is used to high profile, high stakes litigation.

As an Assistant US Attorney, Kristina then represented the United States in civil actions, including catastrophic personal injury. She defended Army doctors accused of medical malpractice, USPS drivers after catastrophic accidents, the Air Force in premises liability, and the VA and FAA in employment disputes.

After tragedy hit her own family, she returned to the plaintiffs’ side and founded Just Well Law to help other families in crisis. She built the personal injury firm she couldn’t find for her own family. Health and wellness require financial resources, and Kristina is relentless in pursuing the maximum recovery for her clients because she has been there too.

Kristina attended Princeton University and then Yale Law School. Committed to using the law as a tool of empowerment, she has helped people living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda find financial freedom, founded the domestic violence clinic at Yale Law School, and helped the Ministry of Justice of Liberia launch a sex crimes prosecution unit with the Carter Center. She served as a federal clerk for Nancy Gertner in the District of Massachusetts. And she teaches trial lawyers as an instructor for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.

https://www.well.law/
https://www.instagram.com/justwelllaw
https://www.facebook.com/justwelllaw
https://www.linkedin.com/company/just-well-law-plc

Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD

Dr. Jill Carnahan is Your Functional Medicine Expert® dually board certified in Family Medicine for ten years and in Integrative Holistic Medicine since 2015. She is the Medical Director of Flatiron Functional Medicine, a widely sought-after practice with a broad range of clinical services including functional medical protocols, nutritional consultations, chiropractic therapy, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, and massage therapy.

As a survivor of breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, and toxic mold illness she brings a unique perspective to treating patients in the midst of complex and chronic illness. Her clinic specializes in searching for the underlying triggers that contribute to illness through cutting-edge lab testing and tailoring the intervention to specific needs. 

A popular inspirational speaker and prolific writer, she shares her knowledge of hope, health, and healing live on stage and through newsletters, articles, books, and social media posts! People relate to Dr. Jill’s science-backed opinions delivered with authenticity, love and humor. She is known for inspiring her audience to thrive even in the midst of difficulties.

Featured in Shape Magazine, Parade, Forbes, MindBodyGreen, First for Women, Townsend Newsletter, and The Huffington Post as well as seen on NBC News and Health segments with Joan Lunden, Dr. Jill is a media must-have. Her YouTube channel and podcast features live interviews with the healthcare world’s most respected names. 

The Podcast

The Video

The Transcript

201: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill: Winning Legal Cases for Clients Harmed by Toxic Mold!

00:13

Dr. Jill: When I really knew something was wrong, was when I started having trouble walking up the stairs. I was supposed to be grateful and happy and healing and well and thriving, but I did not feel that way. I was so sick. Like always, I wanted to find an answer, and I had to figure it out. And I had to figure it out to save my own life. So I dove in.

00:38

James Maskell: Jill is the leading voice in biotoxin illness and chronic conditions that are driven by toxicity.

00:43
Bree Argetsinger: Oh my gosh, you're dealing with mold? You have to work with Dr. Jill Carnahan. 

00:47

Patient 1: Dr. Jill is the first person that actually began to shed some light on the problem.

00:53
Dr. Jill: What I do is listen to the patient, and we together talk about what else is possible. 

00:59

Patient 2: I don't know why I'm crying.

01:02
Patient 3: She saved my life.

01:06
Dr. Jill: The deepest lessons and most profound insights come in the suffering, come in the dark moments. Self-compassion is the healing transition that shifts something inside of us. It's actually the thing that we need most in order to heal. 

01:26

Narrator: Doctor/Patient—available now at DoctorPatientMovie.com.

Dr. Jill  01:36
Welcome to Resiliency Radio, your go-to podcast for the most cutting-edge information in functional and integrative medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Jill, and with each episode, we dive into the heart of healing and personal transformation. Join us as we connect to renowned experts, thought leaders, and innovators who are at the forefront of medical research and practice, empowering you on your journey to optimal healing. 

Dr. Jill  01:59
Hey guys! If you don't already know, I don't know where you've been at, maybe with your head in the sand, but my movie, Doctor/Patient, is now out. You can watch it, you can gift it, and you can share it. I am hoping that it inspires you on your journey. It's at DoctorPatientMovie.com. Be sure and take a look. Check it out. And I would love to hear your feedback. 

Dr. Jill  02:19
Okay, today I want to introduce my guest and I'm so excited. I've been looking forward to this interview for a long time. 

Kristina is a national trial lawyer who represents sick people against the companies that made them sick. She founded Just Well Law to help clients recover financially so that they can help rebuild their health and their lives. After tragedy hit her own family, she returned to the plaintiffs' side and founded Just Well Law to help other families in crisis. She built the personal injury firm that she couldn't find for her own family. Health and wellness require financial resources, and Kristina is relentless in pursuing the maximum recovery for her clients because she has been there as well. She attended Princeton University and Yale Law School and is committed to using law as a tool of empowerment to help other people. 

I know you guys can't wait to get into this, so we're going to get right into it. Kristina, thank you so much for coming on the podcast!

Kristina Baehr  03:14

I'm so glad to be here!

Dr. Jill  03:16

Yes. So let's start with your story. I always love to [know] how people get into what they're doing. Obviously, you have a personal story that deals with mold. But before that, did you always want to be an attorney? And how did you get into the practice of law?

Kristina Baehr  03:32
I'm going to start at the end, which is that I was poisoned in the house that I was living in, which is why I'm here. Before that, I always wanted to be a lawyer since I was a little girl. It's interesting that my current work, helping families in environmental recovery, is very much aligned with where I started. When I graduated from college, I worked in Uganda, and I helped people living with HIV and AIDS. They were trying to find their economic freedom through economic empowerment tools. I did that. Then I went to law school at Yale. After Yale, I worked in Liberia and set up a sex crimes prosecution unit. So, I spent a lot of time in the community organizing and empowerment sphere. Then I went to patent litigation, which is completely different. I did that for a long time. I learned really high-stakes federal litigation skills. And I started not feeling well. 

Kristina Baehr  04:36

I know you know this story, but I started feeling dizzy. I had just made partner and was coming up. It was that season when I was making partner and thought maybe it was just stress. I started going to a lot of different doctors. This was 2017. I had migraines that wouldn't go away. I had never had migraines in my life before. I had these rashes that wouldn't go away. At some point, someone thought maybe it was testosterone, so they were giving me testosterone pellets. It was really anything that I could figure out. Doctor after doctor: “Maybe you should consider leaving the practice of law or reducing stress in your life.” So I did that. 

Kristina Baehr  05:19

In an effort to get well, I went to the US Attorney's Office, and I was Kristina 2.0. I was doing government work, I was slowing down, and I was taking care of my body. I was gluten-free, sugar-free, and dairy-free. You would be so proud of me. And I got sicker. Then they sent us to quarantine at home, and I got sicker. That was the spring of 2020 when everyone was inside all the time. I started seeing my kids regress in their milestones, but I couldn't focus on any of that because my computer screen would get blurry. I thought of driving into oncoming traffic. I couldn't figure out what was going on with me. These were not thoughts I'd had before. The fuzziness, confusion, and feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. I finally met a doctor named Dr. Pichardo who gave me a bunch of different tests, mycotoxins was just one of them—I'd never heard of mycotoxins before—and ultimately found the root of the problem, which is that we were living in a house that was slowly poisoning our family.

Dr. Jill  06:30
Wow! And we just briefly talked before coming on how [with] these kinds of circumstances in our lives—it's not like we choose them or that we feel like they happened to us like that in that sense—there's this destiny thing that when we take what our suffering is in our families and ourselves, turn it around, figure things out, and then go and make a change in the world… That is what you are doing. It's my story, too. I always say that I was never going to be the mold doctor, but then I got really, really sick, and I had to figure it out to save my own life. And you did the same thing. You had to figure it out to save your family's life. So what was that like as an attorney, all of a sudden realizing what was happening? And then go into the legal aspects, because that's where it really gets tricky, doesn't it?

Kristina Baehr  07:12
I was doing personal injury defense for the United States, which was a new field for me. I had been in patent litigation before and, like I said, in Africa before that, so I had never done personal injury work. But I knew a case from the defensive side when I saw one. Here we were, a family of six—two pretty special kids. We have four kids, but two of them were having really hard time. One of them was running into walls and had bruises all over his forehead. We lost our house and everything in it. Surely that's a case. Liability is clear. There is black mold. You can see it on my daughter's wall.

Kristina Baehr  07:58

We started peeling back the layers of that case—it's a construction case. The walls weren't flashed properly. The roofer had told the builder: “I didn't flash the chimney because the Mason wasn't here.” The builder's foreman looked at him and said: “Just rig it. Do it on the outside.” They did it on the outside, and then water came into that wall. That was my daughter's wall. We have great pictures of the beautiful pink and white striped wall on one side and, on the other side, a completely black, disintegrated wall. And that's where she had been coloring all day every day during COVID, during the shutdowns. So no wonder she had kind of become crazy and violent. [inaudible]. So we moved out of our house. That was the first step of getting well, which, you know, is hard to do! That's not easy. 

Kristina Baehr  09:05

I want to tell your listeners—because I know that there are people who are listening who are in a toxic house right now—I know you think you can't afford to leave, and I want to tell you: You cannot afford to stay. You cannot afford to stay. That was the place that I came to with our own house: “This house—we're not well.” And I think that that house would have killed us because, by the time we left, I had a tumor. I collapsed and I was taken to the emergency room. I had internal bleeding, and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I was a physical mess. We could talk about why that is. There's the cytokine storm and it attacks every organ in your body and all the things. But I was so sick. 

Kristina Baehr  09:55

I started building the case against the people who poisoned our family. As I was doing that, I realized that there weren't very many other lawyers who were doing it. Lawyers in Texas would not even take my call. If they were a personal injury lawyer in Texas, I was calling: “Hey, I'm another lawyer. I am at the US Attorney's Office,” which means I'm legit, right? “Hey, do you think you could just spend 15 minutes with me?” 

Kristina Baehr  10:28

There's a guy here who has [stated] on his website that he does mold cases—he only does wrongful death cases—and he wouldn't even return my email. He didn't return my phone call or my emails. He couldn't even take 15 minutes of his time to talk to me. I thought: “You know what? He can have the dead people. I'm going to start a practice and I'm going to help the people who are alive because they need help. People out there need help.” 

Kristina Baehr  10:57

To be fair, I was also sick, so I thought: “Maybe I'll just start a practice. I'll just help a couple of families and do a few cases at a time.” I hired one paralegal. CNBC did a story on our family around them, linked to my website. My website was maybe two weeks old. It had been created by my 13-year-old the week before.

Dr. Jill  11:21

I love this! 

Kristina Baehr  11:21

I got a thousand calls in two weeks. There was this tremendous need because there was nobody else or very few people out there doing it.

Dr. Jill  11:33
That's how I found you. I saw an article. I don't think it was that one, but there've been many different podcasts and articles. When I saw that, I thought, “I need to talk to you,” because every day it's this conversation with patients. I always say: “I'm not a remediator, but I can get you started and point you in the right direction to people who are experts.” The same with legal, except that there was no one that I could give those calls and those questions to. And I have so often sat in front of a patient and said: “You know what? It's not even worth pursuing it. I don't know of anyone who will take these cases.” So, why is that? You and I know the climate and the culture. But tell us, from an attorney's perspective, what you've seen and why this is such a tragedy.

Kristina Baehr  12:15
First of all, we will take the call because those lawyers wouldn't return my call. I now have an incredible intake director; her name is Casey McCurry. She's a survivor herself. She will take your call. Whether you have a case or not, we take calls from around the country. We share resources, which you're on, Dr. Jill. I share what I wish I had known. And if I do nothing else in the world, if my firm makes no money, I will be so thankful that I got to share with probably a thousand people so far what I wish I had known, because I didn't know anything. I didn't know anyone who had been there before. Evan and I have five Ivy League degrees. Neither of us had ever heard the word Stachybotrys. That's because there is a massive cover-up in this country, and it's intentional. 

Kristina Baehr  13:12

The reason that these cases failed is because the bad guys won for a long time. They convinced the legal world that this was “junk science.” By the way, they convinced the plaintiffs' lawyers too. The plaintiffs' lawyers have been trained to think that this is junk science and that anyone who calls for the mold problem is a little bit “cray-cray.” So the gaslighting is from the defense bar, but it's equally from the plaintiffs' bar. You have patients, I'm sure, who've called 5 or 6 different lawyers—maybe 10 lawyers, maybe 20 lawyers—and all of them either don't get a call back or get kind of a: “Yeah, sorry. Good luck.” You know, “We don't do those cases.”

Dr. Jill  13:55
I've actually been the medical expert. I've had several patients where I've testified to their medical case in detail, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that their medical illness was related to the mold, and none of them have won so far. Again, until I met you.

Kristina Baehr  14:10
Oh, that's terrible! These cases can be won. They absolutely can be won. We've won the last six motions for summary judgment in Texas, a state where they used to say, “You could never win a mold case.” We've dominated the last six attempts to shut us down. The reason is that this is now universally accepted. The World Health Organization has a diagnostic code—Z whatever. I'm sure you put it on every single one of your patients' forms. But this is universally accepted. It's not junk science. It's not even controversial. It's controversial amongst the experts, but it's not controversial when you look at the medical literature.

Kristina Baehr  15:07

I started reading PubMed myself when this happened to me. We talk about SIRS, or complex inflammation, and I'm thinking: “Well, is that real? The people online say it's not real.” If you go to the medical literature, it's there. It's systemic inflammation caused by mycotoxins. It's Stachybotrys. It's Chaetomium. It is in peer-reviewed literature, and it's real. And it's not on someone's website. It's PubMed—peer-reviewed publications—and it's real. I had to prove to myself that it was real for my own psyche. And of course, now I go out into the world and I say: “This is obvious.” 

Kristina Baehr  15:55

There was a conservative judge recently… It was actually my associate, who's wonderful. His name is Mason. He went and argued the summary judgment motion. Summary judgment, by the way, means when the defense is trying to shut down the case and says you don't have the requisite evidence. They usually say: “Mold is junk science. You can't prove dose and duration. You lose.” So this conservative judge looks at the defense counsel and says: “Well, this plaintiff has a mold expert who says that there was mold in the house”—a mold inspector—”and a doctor who says that she got sick because there's mold in the house. What else could you possibly need?” Wow! In 2024, we have gotten to a place with even a conservative judge where you need a mold inspector and a doctor, and that's it. 

Kristina Baehr  16:56

This is not rocket science, people. This is World Health Organization stuff. This is basic. This is Wikipedia at this point. And juries know. If you do a mock jury, every single juror will tell you: “Yes, mold causes harm.” You don't have to convince them. So if we could just get past the lawyers and the judges to the jury, the jury believes. The jury believes. 

Dr. Jill  (pre-recording)  17:25
Hey, everybody. I just stopped by to let you know that my new book, Unexpected: Finding Resilience through Functional Medicine, Science, and Faith, is now available for order wherever you purchase books. In this book, I share my own journey of overcoming a life-threatening illness and the tools, tips, tricks, hope, and resilience I found along the way. This book includes practical advice for things like cancer and Crohn's disease and other autoimmune conditions, infections like Lyme or Epstein-Barr, and mold- and biotoxin-related illnesses. What I really hope is that as you read this book, you find transformational wisdom for health and healing. If you want to get your own copy, stop by ReadUnexpected.com. There, you can also collect your free bonuses. So grab your copy today and begin your own transformational journey through functional medicine and finding resilience.

Dr. Jill  18:21

So how did you get your case won first? This is fascinating to me because I've seen in my cases—I've been in several—years ago where there was a lot of gaslighting, and it was horrible. I want to help my patients but I try to avoid the system. To me, it's mind-blowing because I know the science, like you. I know the clear, clear pathway. I can describe it very eloquently, and yet I still get this disbelief or gaslighting. And that's what you're up against as well.

Kristina Baehr  18:56
That's what I'm up against. In my own case, I'll be honest with you, it's the only case in Texas that we have lost on the science. In all my other cases, we're winning, and we're proving injury. But in my own case, the judge said: “You don't have dose and duration. How can you prove an exact level of dose that you're exposed to and for exactly how long?” You can't. You just can't. It's not possible. And it's not required. It's not required. And it hasn't been required in any of my other cases except for my own. But that's why we present these cases as deceptive trade practices cases.

Kristina Baehr  19:45

I have to show you this. In the middle of my trial, the jury sent back a question. It says: “The jury asks the following question: ‘Can incompetence be considered a false, misleading, or deceptive act?'” The answer was yes. Incompetence can be a deceptive act. But in all my other cases, I have incompetence. I have incompetence. I have a landlord who will come in and gaslight you and say: “You know what? That vent just looks a little bit dirty. I'm going to take it down for you and I'm just going to clean it.” They clean it, and then you put it back up and they leave. And they're like: “It's all clean for you.” That is a deceptive act. 

Dr. Jill  20:39
Yes. Or, “We're going to paint over it,” right? “Oh, let me just paint over that” nasty mold. “Let me paint over it.” 

Kristina Baehr  20:48

They know that the bad stuff is behind the vent. That's a whole system full of black crap. But the gaslighting and the deception are real, and it makes juries very upset. I go into these mediations and the defendant wants to make it about my client: Can my client prove dose and duration and the science and all that stuff? My answer is like: I don't care. I don't care because what is a jury going to do with the fact that you knew that that place was toxic and you let them move into it? What's a jury going to do with that if my own case found $700,000 in exemplary damages for an HVAC company that didn't connect a wire? At the end of my trial, I just ended up going for the HVAC company because I settled out with the other parties. The HVAC company didn't have anything clearly intentional, but it didn't connect a wire, and the jury found $700,000 in exemplary damages. If that's $700,000, what's a jury going to do with the landlord who painted over the toxic substance? 

Kristina Baehr  22:07

So I make it about [how] these cases are about the defendants. Yes, my client got injured, but I'm telling the jury: You have to stand up for safety because that's what the system is designed for. If my client doesn't take a stand and if, jury, you don't enforce the law, then we're going to have more landlords that allow more families to move into more toxic apartments. It has to stop and we have a way to stop it. When you present it like that, case closed.

Dr. Jill  22:45
I'm getting goosebumps. I love this. The problem is that the most common places that are affected by mold now are new construction, which means there is an epidemic of poor quality, poor communication, poor craftsmanship, and errors. And just like your chimney that wasn't flashed, that is the norm rather than the exception. And I just want to say, I know you see this as well: This doesn't matter if it's a fixer-upper or a multimillion-dollar structure. In fact, I see some of the most expensive, beautiful homes, and they are absolutely wrecked with mold. 

Dr. Jill  23:23

The other thing that you said that I think is so important is your daughter's beautiful pink and white wall. People look at their house, so often they're like: “Everything's fine. It looks good.” Cosmetically, contractors can make things look beautiful. But it's inside, and the people who buy that house don't know where there's either toxic mold or construction that wasn't done correctly.

Kristina Baehr  23:48
That gives me goosebumps because my house was so pretty—I loved my house—and it's going to take a lot of therapy over a long time to ever come back to the concept of home. Families have the right to expect safe air in their homes. And especially in the post-COVID world. In our jury selection, Bob McKee was my lawyer. He's amazing. He's from Florida. He asked these potential jurors, “What do you think about when you think about home?” “Oasis,” “cocoon,” “safety,” “family,” “food.” Then he said: “I'm going to take you back to COVID. What did you think about home during COVID?” It was “health” and “safety” again. The one place we could feel safe. He said, “How would you feel if your home was taken away during COVID?” Jill, some of those jurors were so upset by that very question that they couldn't serve on the jury. It almost went too far because they were like, “I can't be objective here.” 

Kristina Baehr  25:33

Home is everything. Home is where our family is. And for our family, it was so pretty. I'm from the Northeast, and it was this home in Texas that looked like it was right out of Connecticut. It had this banister going upstairs. And look, I never mentioned my builder's name out loud because he didn't want to poison my family. He didn't set out to poison my family. He built this beautiful house. But he built it with spray foam—that was in the beginning of spray foam—with an HVAC system that was supposed to be designed to dehumidify. The HVAC company didn't set it up right, so it wasn't dehumidifying. That's the wire I just mentioned. And then he had a designer, not an architect. The designer only had flashing in two places. Those two places were flashed incorrectly, and the rest of the house wasn't flashed at all. So you have a well-meaning person who builds a beautiful house, [but] who happens to build a very toxic house.

Dr. Jill  26:48
This is really important because we can go with most kinds of cases that I've dealt with, too, with my patients. Most of the time, there is not a deliberately malicious intent. And again, you would know the legal terms for this stuff. But the truth is that negligence is just as bad and it's just as devastating. I love that you're saying that, because I don't want to say that all contractors have evil intent. Most of them don't. They want to build beautiful things. But I do believe there are more shortcuts, and I think our workforce is less trained.

Dr. Jill  27:19

I remember that not too long ago, a friend of mine went into her house that was being built. The guy who was doing the shower pan was watching a YouTube video while she was walking by about how to install it. He had never done it before. Shower pans, as you know, and showers themselves are such big mold things. She was horrified! He looked like he was in his early 20s. Who knows? I don't want to judge here, but it was like: “Okay, the quality of craftsmanship and knowing what you're doing really matters.” And that's the contractor's job. So it's negligence, I guess. Is that the legal term here? 

Kristina Baehr  27:53
It's negligence, but it's choices. There are choices being made. Whether it's negligence or intentional, we have to say something. It's like: If I'm driving too fast, not looking at the road, and I hit somebody, I'm liable for that. I didn't mean to. I didn't do it intentionally. But we have to live in a society where you're responsible for the harm that you cause. That's the society that we have to live in. And that's not greedy. That's the way that our world works. 

Kristina Baehr  28:45

Here we have a human element like air. Or, in Hawaii—we can talk about that too—I'm working on a water case. But this element of air is not something that you can mess with. And if we don't hold the negligent builders or the negligent landlords responsible, then there's not going to be any change, right? I can guarantee that my builder is never going to build another house with spray foam without an HVAC [system] properly calibrated because he poisoned a family. He didn't mean to, but somebody has to pay for that. 

Kristina Baehr  29:32

You want to live in that society. That's a society that you want to live in. We want to be able to expect that a landlord will provide safe air. We need to be able to expect that if a landlord finds that the air isn't safe, they will fix it right away. We need to live in a world where a builder knows how to provide safe air. And if the builder doesn't know how to provide safe air, the builder should not be building houses. 

Kristina Baehr  30:03

I have a great case—I mean, it's a terrible case, but it's a strong case—where a water mitigation company came in and did a job. They said: “Listen, there wasn't enough insurance money to do a good job, so we didn't. We just weren't able to dry it out all the way.” Okay! If you're not able to do it the right way… It's like correcting the brakes of a car. Don't mess with the brakes if you don't have the right parts. The answer is not to do it at all because you can't do it halfway. In this case, doing a water mitigation job halfway—because they just had to cut some corners because they didn't have the right kind of money—built an entire house with extreme levels of Stachybotrys in every single wall because the walls were left wet. I have a picture of a baby with welts all over it. So, we have to live in a world with clean air, clean water, and safe air.

Dr. Jill  31:23
I love this. This is my spiel: Clean air, clean water, clean food. It starts with that. And I loved that you started with COVID and the house because I always feel that way. People who have mold-related illness are so traumatized because, when it's your home, it is a violation of your most sacred place of safety. It's invisible and it's horrendously toxic. It can harm not only yourself [and] your brain [but also] your whole family. Yet it's this invisible thing. On every level, it's so evil. It's just awful!

Kristina Baehr  31:59
In my own case, even though I wasn't able to talk about injury, I was able to talk about the mental injury of losing the house. And that's a fine line: What is injury and what is mental injury? But I have a wonderful doctor, Dr. Storage, from the Amen Clinic in California. Residency from Stanford. Really great. The best kind of expert you want in any given case is one with all those great degrees. He showed the jury the SPECT scans of our brains, and he was able to say: “This is the trauma.” There is a double brain injury that happens when you're poisoned at home. There's the brain injury from the exposure, from the poison—whether it's the air, the water, or whatever it is—but then there's the injury of the trauma of being displaced, of losing your safe place, and particularly in the middle of COVID. So you have this double brain injury. We want to be able to educate juries more about that too. This is not just like you get the sniffles. 

Kristina Baehr  33:12

The Women's Health article that just came out recently—maybe one of the ones you read—I was so proud of that because that journalist was able to get into the brain impact of toxic exposure. I remember when that CNBC article was coming out on our family three years ago. It was a stretch for that editor to include all the brain health. And she did, but only when I provided the peer-reviewed literature and connected her to Dr. Jamie Lichtenstein. I was able to say: “No, really, this affects the brain.” Otherwise, they were looking at the CDC website and they were like, “This causes asthma.” Asthma is very real and very important, but this causes brain injury.

Dr. Jill  34:07
Yes. People have heard me enough, but I want to clarify that point because, [for] anyone listening who's new, this is so critical. So, a couple of things. First of all, you mentioned this earlier, and we both understand: Typically, in medical school, as a medical doctor, we're taught that mold is an allergen. It causes asthma, allergies, congestion, rashes, and those kinds of things. That's true. However, what you and I are talking about—what we see in your clients and my patients—is this innate immune response. The immune system senses this massive threat and starts to activate. It's the same reason why people died from COVID: Their immune system got activated; it caused attack of self and went runaway. All these cytokines and inflammatory things can cause damage to the brain, to the kidneys, and to the neurological system. I have seen people present with ALS, MS, autoimmune diseases of any type you could name, severe immune deficiency, and cancer. And I could go on and on and on [speaking] of the kinds of things that mold can actually cause. And like you said, this is in the literature, so this is not controversial. 

Dr. Jill  35:06

The other thing that I want to mention is that when I was writing my book, I did the research on the brain-mold connection. One thing I came across that was what you're saying, but it's actually in the literature, is that there is a chemical limbic effect. Basically, when we inhale mold toxins through our nose, they go directly through the cribriform plate to the brain and activate the limbic system, the fight or flight system, the fear response. We're saying that this is traumatic. But if we're somehow like, “Okay, it's okay, I'm going to have to leave my house,” even if you were emotionally sound and felt like you were okay, there's still a chemical limbic threat response that you cannot control, which means I believe that 100% of my patients who have ever dealt with mold have PTSD. What are your thoughts on that?

Kristina Baehr  35:56
Yes, to everything you just said. You said it so eloquently. The PTSD is real. The way you framed it is so important because, yes, the trauma of it causes damage. But don't get me wrong; it's the toxic exposure that also causes brain damage. So don't let someone gaslight you, audience, into thinking that you just have some sort of psychosomatic disease. This is not a psychosomatic disease. This is real exposure that causes real injury. And it just so happens that that also causes a psychological response in addition. Every defendant in a toxic exposure case—and we can talk about Hawaii too—says this: “There wasn't enough to cause real harm. But clearly, you're having some sort of reaction so that must be a psychosomatic response.”

Dr. Jill  37:13
Ugh! That makes me so angry!

Kristina Baehr  37:17
In my own case—Doctor; I forgot his name; Gonzalez, I think—this guy in San Antonio did a neuropsych exam with me and found that I have a somatic disorder, [which] is what he diagnosed. This is the defendant in my case, by the way, who ordered this exam. And I had a neuropsych exam with an expert on my side. I got so upset, Jill, because it's really upsetting to have someone call you psychosomatic. I don't know; I have two Ivy League degrees. Does that matter? I'm not a crazy person, I don't think. And I think I thought that I was immune from being called crazy because of my academic background and maybe if I were really smarty pants and came forth and charged into the mold world, nobody could call me crazy. And then here is this expert saying that I have a somatic disorder. It was really upsetting. 

Kristina Baehr  38:27

I had to go back to my doctors and say: “Is there any part of this that could be true? Could this be in my head?” How upsetting is that? But my own lawyer took the neuropsych results—I had two tests on my side because I did one with the Amen Clinic, and then I did one with my expert—and then he took the other guy's tests. It turned out that they all matched perfectly. My processing speed was low. My short-term memory recall was low. So even though he called it a somatic disorder, every symptom that I was describing was borne out by the independent test that he did.

Dr. Jill  39:10
And documented, which is exactly what happened. 

Kristina Baehr  39:12
And documented. There it is in black and white. And of course, he couldn't call me malingering because I passed the validity test. I was really trying hard in the test. But that's what they do. That's what they do. So it was very upsetting to me when the freaking government in my Hawaii case… So, back up. In Hawaii, the government contaminated the water. 

Dr. Jill  39:34

Yes, let's talk about that. This is important. Go ahead.

Kristina Baehr  39:37

The United States contaminated the water. The Navy contaminated the water with jet fuel. There was a huge spill. It happened right next to the water source. They called it “contained.” They said the water remained safe. They didn't test the water. They said [to] carry on. Eight days later, people start smelling fuel in the water. The government goes out and smells at people's houses. The water director says: “Yes, it must be related to this event that happened last week.” I mean, this is not rocket science. People are smelling the fuel. “We've got to let everybody know.” Well, instead of warning everyone to stop using the water, they did the opposite. They told people: “There's no indication the water is not safe.” Then for two weeks, they held town halls where people came forth and said, “But we smell fuel in the water.” They said: “No, no, no. There's no indication it's not safe. As long as you don't smell it, you can still shower. You should be fine. We're investigating.” And they waited until the test results came back. 

Kristina Baehr  40:57

If you know anything about public health 101, you're not allowed to wait for test results. You have to advise of the risk. And you have to advise of a health risk within 24 hours of a major contamination event. This is not hard. Google “EPA water notice,” “water advisory.” It's very clear. The requirements are very clear—within 24 hours to all users of any waterline. 

Kristina Baehr  41:28

The problem in this case, too, is that not only did they not issue a warning, but once they started to issue the warnings, they only issued them to certain neighborhoods. They waited for people to get sick in those neighborhoods and call in because they could say: “Well, it's not the whole line. It's only neighborhoods.” So they waited for the other neighborhoods to get sick. Now here we are, two and a half years later: 7,000 people had medical encounters that the government documented in real-time with acute symptoms that the government itself tracked to the water contamination. The CDC came in. ATSDR came in. They all did studies. They found that thousands of people were sick. They were still sick a year later. Symptoms are ongoing. The VA is now taking claims. 

Kristina Baehr  42:14

And DOJ has the audacity to come into federal court and say, “Hire an expert.” Her name is Dr. Pruitt. She testified that there was not enough fuel to make anyone sick, there was not enough fuel to have a toxicological effect, and therefore, anyone who had symptoms must have been somatic—S-O-M-A-T-I-C. It's the same stuff, right? It's the same stuff! Like: You can't have dose and duration; therefore, must be psychosomatic. They took that position even though they had 7,000 people. So I can't help but be offended. I'm offended. I'm offended for my clients. Why? Because maybe I'm a little bit triggered by that “PTSD” response, right? Like, don't call my clients crazy!

Dr. Jill  43:10
From a doctor's perspective, I've not been in the courtroom as much as you, but in my clinic, we see the same thing where other doctors tell the patient: “Oh, it's all in your head.” So I see the same thing. I literally see these patients walk in, and I say: “Tell me your story.” And I validate them. And almost to a T, they're in tears because someone is finally saying, “I believe you.” How awful is it that we have to go to 20 doctors to find someone or 1,000 attorneys? The same way for both of us. We're on the same side of this as far as seeing these patients who have been belittled and gaslit and told that it's all in their heads or that it's psychosomatic. And it is a tragedy, Kristina. That's why I love the work that you're doing and I so want to support you because it is so needed. Only when you start winning these cases are the contractors, the people building, the landlords, and the U.S. government going to start changing behavior.

Kristina Baehr  44:05
Right. I just came back from trial. I had a 10-day trial in Hawaii. I got to present 17 stories of our clients—each one affected a little bit differently. But every single one of them had acute symptoms in real-time: Vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, rashes. And I put up a picture of the little puppy who had seizures. I said: “Were his seizures psychosomatic? Are the rashes psychosomatic?” How can you ignore an event that happened to thousands of people? How can you have the audacity to come in here and say it's all in their head? I mean, really? And that's not what's upsetting, I think; it's that that's not the position they had to take. That's not the position I would have taken if I were them. 

Kristina Baehr  45:05

When they came to trial, they tiptoed around that. They were like: “Well, maybe we won't use the word psychosomatic this time. Maybe we'll use stress-induced.” Well, what causes stress, Jill? Okay, let's call it all stress-induced. So 7,000 people had acute poisoning symptoms, and we're going to call it all stress-induced. Okay. What caused the stress? Was it that you poisoned them in the homes they lived in? Do you think that caused the stress response? Because it certainly did. 

Kristina Baehr  45:40

And that gets back to that conversation we were having earlier, which makes me a little bit nervous because there is a trauma response, and trauma does have a physiological dynamic. But that doesn't negate the very real toxic exposure response or immune response to a toxin—the cytokine storm that happens. So it's very important to believe these clients. The reason I have this case and other lawyers don't is because I believed them. I showed up on that island and I was sick myself. I talked about those thousand calls that came in. One was from Hawaii.

Dr. Jill  46:21
I wondered how you got involved, but to me, it's all the same because I'm the same thing: Clean air, clean water, clean food. And environmental toxicity is all about our physical health. And for you, you're doing the same thing. Even though someone may be like, “Hawaii and mold?” it's the same kind of client, isn't it?

Kristina Baehr  46:35
It's the same. 

I had just been to Congress with military families advocating for military housing—for safe housing. What I was saying in Congress is that we can't be mission-ready if our people are sick. By definition, if our military families are sick, they can't be mission-ready. We can't send someone off into battle. He or she is not going to be their whole self if they're thinking about at home. And heaven forbid they have that same kind of neurotoxicity stuff that I had when I wanted to drive into traffic. You don't want that person flying a plane. You don't want that person in the Air Force with that kind of brain fog and neuro stuff going on. 

Kristina Baehr  47:21

When I was up there, the Red Hill fuel spill happened, so I knew a little bit about it. When I got that call from Hawaii, I thought: “That's probably what this is.” I flew over there and I started seeing a whole bunch of people who looked just like me. And I started hearing the Navy saying: “Oh, no, it's jet fuel; it's in and out of your body. The half-life of JP-5 is 48 hours and therefore, it's not going to affect you long-term.” And I'm looking at PubMed because now I know how to do it myself. I go to PubMed and read the literature myself. I was holding up Wikipedia and these PubMed articles and saying: “This is not rocket science. This is real. Jet fuel has a real effect.” 

Kristina Baehr  48:10

What's really sad is: There are two pieces of literature that I cited at the time—one was vestibular dysfunction and one was the effect on children and the cognitive development of children, and both of them two and a half years later proved to be true. I've got many, many clients with vestibular dysfunction now and many, many children who are developmentally delayed. Are they delayed because of the trauma? Are they delayed because of the exposure? Does it matter?

Dr. Jill  48:50
I love that you just said, “Does it matter?” First of all, I want to reiterate what you and I have both said for those listening: There is a real chemical toxic effect on the brain. You can even take the work of Dale Bredesen, who's one of the brilliant researchers in the field of Alzheimer's. I teach with him. I have spoken with him. He used to say that one in three people who are young and develop Alzheimer's is related to mold. He's now recently quoted as [saying] maybe one in two, like 50%. So we know that mold has a massive effect on cognition. But what you and I are saying is that there's literally a chemical trauma response. But then back to: Which came first? Does it really matter? If there is a real stress response with these chemical things, and the chemical itself might be causing a cortisol or an HP axis dysfunction or a limbic response—as I quoted in that article—then it's all connected, and it doesn't matter if the brain responds with stress; it's still a chemical causation, right?

Kristina Baehr  49:50
From my perspective, it's caused from the fact that you dumped jet fuel into their water! It's not hard! In front of a judge, I have to be very direct. But this is not rocket science, people! When you're talking to a fact finder or to a jury, they get it. They get it.

Dr. Jill  50:13
Yes, exactly. Humans get it. And we've been so conditioned. Most insurance [companies] have the writers—you probably know more about this than I do—[where] it does not cover mold. It will sometimes cover water damage, which I've learned to really go for the water damage, the damage from the construction, and not the mold itself, because many, many insurances or places have something that just excludes that because they know this is a big deal.

Kristina Baehr  50:39
I was at a mediation. They had not taken it very seriously. Suddenly the insurance lawyer was like: “Well, I mean, mold cases are very explosive. I just haven't given the warning up the chain. We've got trial in two weeks.” And I'm kind of like: “Yep. Welcome to the party!” Like, “Where have you been?” because juries care. So I can't wait to have more jury trials. I can't wait to have more jury trials. They know. They know the danger of it. They can see: “If we continue to allow this to happen, that could be my kid.” And it's so invisible. And the invisibility of it is what makes it so dangerous.

Dr. Jill  51:45
Yes. And that's what makes it so traumatic. 

Kristina, I could talk to you forever. This is so fascinating! I want to say publicly and to you personally that I am so grateful. I'm so sorry that your family had to go through the suffering, yet I'm so grateful that you're doing what you're doing. That's my thought. I literally wanted to cry and give you a hug virtually when I found out what you were doing because we need you so badly! 

Dr. Jill  52:09

What can people do out there for supporting… Obviously, we're going to list your number and make sure that anyone who has questions calls your hotline. Can we get more attorneys on board? What else do you need in this field? What do we need to change the tide?

Kristina Baehr  52:25
I want more lawyers to take these cases. I don't have a monopoly. If you are a lawyer and you're interested in taking these cases in any state, I will help you. There's no competition. I will give you everything that I have. I will give you all the resources, the draft petitions, and the draft discovery. I will give all of that to you for free. I always make time to talk to lawyers. If you're a lawyer listening and you're interested in this, please reach out to me. 

Kristina Baehr  52:54

But the other thing I would say is: Continue to speak truth. That's what you're doing. And to your listeners: Don't be afraid because this is true. If this happened to you, it's real, and it really happened to you. And that's okay. We can move beyond it. You don't have to make this your life mission or anything. Jill and I happen to do that because of particular things in our lives. That doesn't mean you need to. But please know that you're not alone. And if you're in a toxic place, I know Dr. Jill has a lot of resources for this, but please start to make your way out because you can't get well until you get out. Let me say that again: You can't get well until you get out. I, unfortunately, have had four clients die in the homes I told them to leave. Please don't be one of them.

Dr. Jill  54:05
Kristina, this may be one of the most important podcasts we've ever done. And I love that you just spoke to those listeners out there with that. I say that all the time in clinical practice. Yet, I know the trauma of leaving your safe place of your home. I know the expense. I know the devastation. I know how hard this is. So, just like you, I want to speak to you [who are] listening out there if you know that there's mold in your home. 

Dr. Jill  54:26

It's so interesting because often in my clinical practice, I'll be talking to the patients and getting their history. I know that between the data, the intuition, and their story, I'm certain there's a mold exposure. And my staff jokes because, pretty much right now, I'm 100% accurate on that. I've just been through it, so I know it. But all that to say, I've had—just like you—clients who have passed away in the home, patients who deny it, or they're not able to grasp this for years and then finally they'll come back and say: “You were right.” So now is a better time than waiting. And yet we both acknowledge this is hard, hard stuff. So reach out; get a physician. There are groups like ISEAI out there. 

And then, Kristina, where can people find you? Where can they get a hold of you and your resources?

Kristina Baehr  55:11
Check me out on Instagram—@justwelllaw on Instagram. And then our website is Well.law.

Dr. Jill  55:18
Well.law. We will be sure to post that. We'll have to have part two for a follow-up for this.

Kristina Baehr  55:24
I hope so! I hope so. We can talk for hours. I can't wait to meet you in person sometime. And to be continued. Thank you.