Fw: People With Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Are Becoming the New Homeless

[Guest guest]

From: " ilena rose " <ilena@...>

Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 6:57 PM

Subject: People With Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Are Becoming the New

Homeless

> ~~~ Excellent find. Thanks much Jean.

>

> Unfortunately, the ACSH also hired Barrett to write their opinion on this

> matter [MCS] which, concluded with him recommending most of the doctors

who

> work with these patients, " should have their licenses revoked. "

>

> http://umm.drkoop.com/news/focus/december/mcs_2.html)

>

> It is my belief that the chemical companies and their funding of ACSH may

> have skewed their " bias. "

>

> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

>

>

> http://www.emagazine.com/september-october_1998/0998feat2.html

> No Safe Haven

>

> People With Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Are Becoming the New

> Homeless

>

> Photographs and Interviews by Rhonda Zwillinger

>

> Though it's only recently begun to make headlines, multiple chemical

> sensitivity (MCS) is not new: People have been reporting the symptoms

> of it on an increasing arc for the last 50 years, as our society has

> become more and more synthetic. Between 1940 and 1980, the production

> of synthetic organic chemicals increased from less than 10 billion

> pounds per year to more than 350 billion. In some ways, MCS is an

> allergy to modern life--a physical reaction to the common chemicals,

> ranging from detergents, pesticides, solvents and perfumes to foods

> and pharmaceuticals, that permeate our everyday existence. Less than

> one percent of the 1,000 new chemicals added each year have been

> tested for toxicity.

>

> No longer rare, MCS affects as much as 30 percent of Americans, with

> symptoms that range from the mild (headaches, fatigue) to the severe

> (chest pains, depression, shortness of breath). Despite its growing

> ubiquity, however, MCS is rarely taken seriously. As 's

> Environment and Health Weekly explains it, " Because MCS does not fit

> any of the three currently-accepted mechanisms of disease--infectious,

> immune system, or cancer--traditional medicine has not known how to

> explain MCS, and so has often labeled it 'psychogenic'--originating in

> the patient's mind. This has left MCS sufferers in limbo. Told they

> are crazy, or imagining their disease, or making it up, they find

> themselves passed from physician to physician without any satisfactory

> answers and often without relief from their very real distress. "

>

> This photo essay is part of a long-term project by Rhonda Zwillinger,

> an artist who is herself an MCS sufferer. The story she tells is her

> story, too. " In 1991, at the age of 41, I developed a crippling case

> of MCS that forced me to leave my son, my career and my home in New

> York City, " Zwillinger says.

>

> (see webpage for stories and pictures)

>

>

>