NEW ORLEANS -- A recent report by Scripps News found that 10people with toxic Chinese drywall in their homes died.
However, researchers have found no direct linkage from the toxic drywall to the deaths, and the deaths were among elderly people and children with long-standing medical problems.
The cases, which you can see on a case-by-case basis here, were all in either Louisiana or Florida.
Now, Sen. David Vitter is asking the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Centers for Disease Control to conduct an investigation into the deaths.
"This just came to my attention in the past week, so I immediately wrote to the appropriate government agency," Vitter said. "Clearly, I think, on the face of it, those cases demand a really careful and thorough examination. We don't know as we speak, whether Chinese drywall caused those deaths or not, and I'm not saying they did, and I don't wanna alarm people, but we sure as heck need to look at those very serious cases."
The report includes deaths in New Orleans, Kenner, Slidell, Greenwell Springs and St. Rose.
State Sen. Julie Quinn, who has worked on legislation to help homeowners with Chinese drywall, supports the push for an investigation.
"It's always better to be safe than sorry," Quinn said. "I have not heard of any deaths, or any suggestion that deaths are related to Chinese drywall. Certainly we know that people are having serious physical ailments, and especially those who have compromised immune system, infants, the elderly, people who are sick -- it affects even worse."
Vitter said he hopes the Consumer Product Safety Commission moves quickly on an investigation.
"There are plenty of these cases in Louisiana, plenty in Florida too. Because of the timing of this, some people were rebuilding from the hurricanes, and unfortunately, that's when this really defective material was on the market," Vitter said. "I would certainly hope that the Consumer Product Safety Commission, very quickly says, 'Yes, of course, we'll look at these ten cases,' and then they'll start looking at them immediately."
By late January, the Consumer Product Safety Commission had received nearly 3,000 incident reports related to toxic drywall, from 37 states across the country.
59 percent came from Florida, while Louisiana accounted for 21 percent of the complains.
