Air testing in FEMA trailers begins next week

Hundreds of families displaced by Hurricane Katrina will get some unexpected holiday guests starting next week as the federal government begins testing the air quality in trailers it issued in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Numerous trailer residents have complained of health problems linked to high levels of formaldehyde, a common preservative and suspected carcinogen released by many construction materials.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will test 500 randomly selected travel trailers and mobile homes for the toxin starting Dec. 21, the agency announced Thursday in a news conference with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Testing had been postponed until this month because "we wanted to make sure we had a test that was scientifically based, that we had a credible agency that really understood formaldehyde to come in and do this," said FEMA Administrator David Paulison.

About 46,700 families who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina live in government-issued trailers throughout the Gulf Coast region. Roughly 33,000 of those families are in Louisiana and about 13,000 are in Mississippi.

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