Chemical toxicity and its affect on YOU.

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Sense and SensitivitiesMultiple Chemical Sensitivities can drive sufferers into poverty as well asill healthBy Todd Hymas17 Mar 2006Consider the trappings of modern life: Calvin Klein Eternity, gasoline,Gore-Tex, Aveda hairspray, paint, particle board, polyurethane iPod cases.Now imagine that you're allergic to virtually all of them.Environmentalists usually think about chemical toxicity as either a dramaticlocal crisis (Bhopal, Love Canal) or the simmering concern of those far away(breast-feeding mothers in the Arctic) or far in the future (our oft-evokedgrandchildren). But for people suffering from Multiple ChemicalSensitivities,the chemical crisis is already here. Indeed, thanks to industrialization, itisalready everywhere. And, like so many environment-related health issues, itdisproportionately affects the poor -- and, moreover, drives many oncefinancially stable people into poverty.As a

disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities doesn't have an official casedefinition yet (more on this soon), but rather refers to a broad range ofadverse symptoms brought on by an even more broad array of everydaychemicals.These symptoms are often provoked at exposure levels far below those thatseem to affect the rest of the population -- levels virtually always present inour homes, workplaces, and social venues. They commonly include severeheadaches, food intolerances, difficulty breathing, nausea, irritation of theeyes,ears,nose, throat, and skin, and disorientation or confusion, but there are manymore.The best information currently available suggests that MCS is a chroniccondition with no cure. Although some treatments (such as acupuncture) seemto help some patients, recent surveys by the Chemical Injury InformationNetwork, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization for people withchemicalsensitivities,

found that avoidance of problem chemicals was the onlyconsistently effective treatment.If only avoidance were as simple as it sounds. Just as modern life almostinevitably involves contributing greenhouse gases to the heating atmosphere,it is all but impossible to navigate the industrialized world without beingimmersed in tens of thousands of potentially troublesome human-madechemicals.And just as an honest fight against global warming would pose a huge threatto powerful energy companies, a real effort to take MCS seriously could throw awench into the operations of a huge range of industries that producechemicals and chemical-laden products.Research and You May Not FindMainstream medicine has been slow to recognize the role environment can playin disease. With many doctors either unaware of MCS or doubtful it's a realcondition, simply getting diagnosed is a battle. Even those who recognize thedisease are

often unfamiliar with treatment options. As a result, MCSpatientsfrequently must visit multiple health-care practitioners -- a process that isboth emotionally and financially costly -- before they can put a name totheirillness and make the necessary (and often radical and pricey) lifestyleadaptations it requires."Prior to 1988, I was a healthy, athletic physician who played drums in arockband. A year later, I was severely disabled with Multiple ChemicalSensitivities," wrote Ann McCampbell, a member of the board of the MultipleChemical Sensitivities Foundation and chair of the MCS Task Force of NewMexico, in Focus magazine. "The onset was subtle, with slowly worsening foodintolerances, progressing to the point I could only eat three greenvegetables.By then I was also having severe reactions to inhaled substances and haddeveloped headaches, fatigue, heart palpitations, abdominal pains, andnausea.Like so

many others with MCS, I could no longer tolerate where I lived andwas forced to live outside in my yard, the car, or a makeshift shelter."Despite some improvements since then, "I go to few places outside my home,"she wrote, "in order to avoid exposures to cigarette smoke, pesticides,perfume, vehicle exhaust, cleaning products, and other toxic fumes which make mesicker."McCampbell hasn't discovered what triggered her sensitivities, and herbafflingexperience is typical of many others with MCS. The few scientists studyingthe disease are baffled as well, struggling to understand its etiology. Currenttheories range from a genetic predisposition to chemical injury, toneurological damage, to abnormalities in detoxifying enzymes, to a so-called"toxicant-induced loss of tolerance" to environmental stressors, in which oneparticular exposure to a toxic substance overwhelms a person's system andleaves them unable to cope with

exposures to a wide range of other toxins.In fact, doctors have thus far failed to agree on a case definition for thedisease. That's created a catch-22: the lack of a definition makes it moredifficult to secure funding for MCS research, but more research is needed tobetter understand and define (not to mention treat and cure) the disease."Right now, one of the things MCS [researchers and patients] get hammered onis that there is no agreed-upon case definition, despite the fact that threeattempts have been made to get the [Centers for Disease Control andPrevention] to accept one," said Cynthia Wilson, executive director of theChemicalInjury Information Network.Other activists, like McCampbell, stress that there's a working definition ofMCS, and that the lack of a standardized case definition shouldn't be used asan excuse to halt research or deny patients crucial accommodations.What few surveys have been conducted on

the prevalence of the disease in theU.S. paint a patchy picture, but hint that it may be relatively widespread. A1995 survey by the California Department of Health Services found that 6percent of state residents reported doctor-diagnosed MCS, while a more recentsurvey of Atlanta, Ga., area residents published in the May 2004 issue of theAmerican Journal of Public Health found that 3 percent of respondentsreported receiving an MCS diagnosis.Home Is Where the Health IsIf those figures are at all representative of the nation as a whole, thenumberof MCS sufferers could range from 9 million to 17 million. Some of them areundoubtedly able to function with lifestyle adaptations: removing carpet fromtheir homes, filtering air and water, using ultra-eco-friendly cleansers andpersonal-care products, eating organic foods, and limiting contact with toxicsubstances like pesticides and solvents. Other patients, however, are

farmoredeeply compromised by the disease.For those in the latter group especially, the No. 1 issue is housing."Becauseof the nature of construction materials, it's very difficult for people [withMCS] to find safe housing," says CIIN's Wilson. And without safe refuge, itisall but impossible to live a relatively symptom-free life.Some people with severe MCS try to build or renovate from the ground up,using exclusively nontoxic materials, but even under the best financialcircumstances this is no small feat. Moreover, people can only exercise so muchcontrolover their surroundings -- there are neighbors and property owners to worryabout."Even if [people with MCS] find safe housing," says Wilson, "it doesn't meanitstays safe housing. If, for example, a bug shows up, a landlord typicallywantsto spray a pesticide, [rendering] the housing no good for someone with MCS."For many without a

significant financial safety net, the quest for a safespaceis maddening -- and the first step on the road to economic ruin. Susan Abodisa Santa Fe, N.M.-based vocal artist and filmmaker with MCS whose latest film,Homesick, documents how people with MCS are affected by their search forsafehousing. The ability to cope with the disease, she says, "has to do withaccess to finances and resources. ... If you do have money, you can always findanother home, and you can refurbish it with safe products. But those of us whodon't have access to a lot of money or who are renters or who have assistedhousing from the government [face] a lot more limits."CIIN's Wilson concurs. "For lower-income people who do not have thewherewithal to move or to find safe housing, it is a big problem," she says."Mostpeople with MCS end up living in their cars." Others wind up in a friend'sbackyard, a stripped-down RV, or a canvas tent on public land.

For that reason,thehousing problem gets worse in winter, says Wilson, "because people can't justgo camping, can't solve their problems by living outdoors."Nor can they take advantage of traditional safety nets for the homeless.People with MCS "have to stay away from most chemicals that are on people'sclothes, on people's bodies, and in buildings," says Rhonda Zwillinger, anartistand photographer who spent close to a decade interviewing and photographing some250 people with MCS for The Dispossessed Project, a powerful ongoing photoessay. (That project was compiled into a book called The Dispossessed: LivingWith Multiple Chemical Sensitivities.)"[The MCS homeless] are mostly not living in urban areas, they're mostlytryingto live in rural areas where the air is cleaner and the water is cleaner, andthat becomes a problem because the services [for the homeless] are lessavailable in rural areas," says Zwillinger. "And

they can't go into sheltersthe way the [non-MCS] homeless can," because in a busy building they wouldlikely encounter any number of chemicals their bodies can't handle.It can be even more difficult finding an MCS-safe job. Even if a workplaceitself is a tolerable environment (rare, given the ubiquity of toxic buildingmaterials), basic job-related interactions with the general public can beimpossible. "The way a typical story goes," says Zwillinger, "is that peoplelose the ability to make a living because they can't be out in the publicarena" without getting ill. Some MCS patients find a way to work from home(assuming they've found safe housing) -- but that option is seldom availableto poorer Americans forced to rely on low-wage, low-skill jobs."Almost all of us have to make severe accommodations to [MCS], and it doestake a lot of money to successfully do that with any kind of grace," saidWilson."Most people find

themselves one day employed and the next day unemployable.The financial upheaval that this illness causes is heartbreaking."I Know Why the Caged Bird Stopped SingingEven chemical companies no longer deny that chemicals accumulate in ourbodies simply by virtue of being alive today. But they insist that theconcentrations are too low to cause any harm. For MCS sufferers, at least, thatreassurance rings brutally hollow.A well-publicized 2003 study by the Environmental Working Group and MountSinai Hospital in New York found "an average of 91 industrial compounds,pollutants,and other chemicals in the blood and urine of nine volunteers." Outofthe210 substances tested for, 167 showed up in at least one of the volunteers.Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest NationalReport on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals contains a detailedbreakdown of 148 different chemicals and substances found

in a representativesample of the U.S. population -- from organochlorine pesticides to dioxins tometals like cadmium.Very little is known about how individual chemicalsaffect the human body, let alone the potential cumulative effects of dozens orhundreds of interactingchemicals. There are over 80,000 chemicals registered foruse in the United States, with up to 2,500 new ones reviewed by the U.S. EPAevery year, and government oversight is minimal when there's any at all.Manufacturers are responsible for safety-testing their own products,and theyhave noincentive to look for potential problems -- quite the contrary.The lack of chemical regulation in the U.S. is perhaps most glaring in thecaseof cosmetics and personal-care products, which, given their ubiquity, aresubject to shockingly lax oversight. The Food and Drug Administration hasnominal authority over them, but little actual regulatory power. Makers oflotions and

potions aren't required to file information on ingredients withthegovernment, or report cosmetic-related injuries. The FDA can't mandate safetystudies of cosmetics, and doesn't even have the power to order productrecalls."An average adult is exposed to over 100 unique chemicals in personal-careproducts every day," says Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at theEnvironmental Working Group. "These exposures add up." EWG has been soundingthe alarm on carcinogenic or otherwise worrisome cosmetic ingredients, and hasbuilt an interactive database that ranks shampoos, deodorants, and otherproducts on their potential harmfulness.The ubiquity of cosmetics is just one reason people with MCS remainsegregated from society, though there have been some advancements on this frontinrecent years. Some workplaces and schools (like The Evergreen State College inOlympia, Wash.) have instituted no-fragrance policies -- but in

general, thosewith MCS cannot count on much help or protection from employers, landlords, thegovernment, or the medical establishment.It's a bitter irony, since many with MCS see themselves as canaries in themodern-day coal mine. As recently as 1986, the exquisitely sensitive yellowbirds were used to detect the presence of dangerous gases in mine shafts, andwhen they showed signs of illness -- when they ceased to sing -- it was anunambiguous warning: evacuate.As growing numbers of MCS sufferers are driven from their homes and jobs,pushed to the fringes of medical science and the brink of financial ruin,madesick by industrialized civilization itself, we would do well to heed theirequally urgent warning. And fast, because this time around we can't evacuate.There's nowhere else to go.- - - - - - - - - -Todd Hymas is Grist's editorial assistant. He's had Multiple ChemicalSensitivities since

1998.Source: ------------ Send posts to CO-CURE Un at http://www.co-cure.org/unsub.htmToo much mail? Try a digest version. See http://www.co-cure.org/digest.htm "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." -

Aurobindo.

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