MICHIGAN—   Paper mill employees are believed infected with a fungus found in soil and decaying wood, with about a dozen requiring hospitalization. A blastomycosis outbreak affecting large numbers of people is highly unusual. It indicates that instead, scores of employees were infected from the same materials containing the blastomyces fungal spores, which exist in the environment in parts of Canada and the eastern U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people contract blastomycosis after breathing in microscopic fungal spores from the air. Once inside the lungs, the body's warmth and moisture can transform the spores into yeast that can stay in the lungs or be transferred through the bloodstream to other parts of the body, including the skin, bones, joints, organs, brain and spinal cord. After the pandemic and paper shortages this is not something the paper industry needs to hear.