I recently received a ChipDrop of local arborist wood chips in Beaverton Oregon. After spreading some of them as mulch in my garden, I became sick with flu-like symptoms within 12 hours. After 36 hours I started feeling slightly better and went and spread more of the wood chips as mulch. The next morning my symptoms return much more intensely and lasted for about 3-4 days. Two Covid test during this time were negative. After researching, I suspect I had developed ODTS, organic dust toxic syndrome. Online, I've read of many other people experiencing similar symptoms from spreading wood chips. Although decomposing wood chips with the fungi/molds/bacteria are incredibly beneficial for a garden, the endotoxins that aerosolized during spreading are super toxic for humans to breaths in. My questions are: What is the preferred mask to use when spreading? A dust mask, N95, or a P100 respirator. Does wetting the pile before spreading help reduce the amount of endotoxin aerosolized or does it encourage even faster growth and thus more endotoxin levels? I am not normally what I would consider a susceptible person, having no underlying conditions and no known allergies. Furthermore, spreading wood chips and home compost as mulch is incredibly common and I've never heard of ODTS before. Are most people not susceptible to this or is everybody susceptible but it depends on the type of fungi/molds in each particular pile and the toxin load exposure? Are more people getting sick from these but it's going undetected and misdiagnosed as the flu or a cold? After spreading from a big pile to a 4-6" layer of mulch, how long does it take before these molds/fungi/endotoxins are neutralized and thereby save to walk on and dig around and weed your plants? After mulching, does spraying water on the mulch help 'rinse' these toxins to the soil surface, thereby reducing the puffing of these in the air? What can we do to educate the community about the dangers associate with such a benign activity.