Dr. William Rea speaks on Chemical Sensitivity

Exclusive interview for Medicine.Org with Dr. William J. Rea, MD, FACS, FAAEM, founder and director of the Environmental Health Center-Dallas.

Medicine.org reports on an interview with Dr. William Rea conducted in 2006. Dr. Rea discusses the controversy surrounding the name “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity,” the multi-system complexity of chemical sensitivity, his contributions to creating less toxic housing, and more.

Medicine.org: On your website you have an illustration called the Principles of Chemical Sensitivity. However, there appears to be no universally accepted medical definition of chemical sensitivity. Why is this and how would you define chemical sensitivity?

WJR: I would define Chemical Sensitivity as the adverse reaction to the ambient dose of toxic and non-toxic chemicals, and it can be manifested in any system in the body. The definition problem stems from the work of Cullen from Yale.1 We’re not sure whether he worked for the chemical companies or whether he just was ignorant. [In any case] …he didn’t come to any of us. He created something called “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity” and this was defined as an entity that has only clinical symptoms and no signs and no laboratory data. Of course he was very wrong about that. And that has fueled the controversy for the last twenty years. And that’s been part of the problem. But I think everybody working in the field agrees on the definition that I gave.

Medicine.Org: That’s particularly interesting because most of the people we know with chemical sensitivity refer to their problem as “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.”

WJR: Yes, I know, and that’s always been a problem because they don’t realize the legal implications. The legal implications are that it is psychosomatic because you have no physical findings and no laboratory data. Every chemically sensitive patient we see has physical signs and laboratory data.

Link to the full interview at Medicine.org

Link to Dr. Rea’s Environmental Health Center-Dallas

Link to Dr. Rea’s bio

Thanks, Christi!

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