Canary’s Cry for Saturday, January 3

A patron at Sheraton’s Four Point hotel in San Francisco discovers a disturbing environmental hazard inside the building.

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Low levels of cigarette smoke residue highly toxic

“Similar to low-level lead exposure, low levels of tobacco particulates have been associated with cognitive deficits among children, and the higher the exposure level, the lower the reading score.”

So basically, once again, people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity are way ahead of the curve on knowing that even extremely low levels of toxic chemicals can be neurotoxic.

Need another reason to add “Quit Smoking” to your New Year’s resolutions list? How about the fact that even if you choose to smoke outside of your home or only smoke in your home when your children are not there – thinking that you’re keeping them away from second-hand smoke – you’re still exposing them to toxins? In the January issue of Pediatrics, researchers at MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) and colleagues across the country describe how tobacco smoke contamination lingers even after a cigarette is extinguished – a phenomenon they define as “third-hand” smoke. Their study is the first to examine adult attitudes about the health risks to children of third-hand smoke and how those beliefs may relate to rules about smoking in their homes.

“When you smoke – anyplace – toxic particulate matter from tobacco smoke gets into your hair and clothing,” says lead study author, Jonathan Winickoff, MD, MPH, assistant director of the MGHfC Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy. “When you come into contact with your baby, even if you’re not smoking at the time, she comes in contact with those toxins. And if you breastfeed, the toxins will transfer to your baby in your breastmilk.” Winickoff notes that nursing a baby if you’re a smoker is still preferable to bottle-feeding, however.

Particulate matter from tobacco smoke has been proven toxic. According to the National Toxicology Program, these 250 poisonous gases, chemicals, and metals include hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, butane, ammonia, toluene (found in paint thinners), arsenic, lead, chromium (used to make steel), cadmium (used to make batteries), and polonium-210 (highly radioactive carcinogen). Eleven of the compounds are classified as Group 1 carcinogens, the most dangerous.

Small children are especially susceptible to third-hand smoke exposure because they can inhale near, crawl and play on, or touch and mouth contaminated surfaces. Third-hand smoke can remain indoors even long after the smoking has stopped. Similar to low-level lead exposure, low levels of tobacco particulates have been associated with cognitive deficits among children, and the higher the exposure level, the lower the reading score. These findings underscore the possibility that even extremely low levels of these compounds may be neurotoxic and, according to the researchers, justify restricting all smoking in indoor areas inhabited by children.

Link

Photo by lanier67

Thanks, Linda!

Who’s chirping about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity?

The Pilot reports on a ruling favoring former county employees who claim they suffer myriad environmental illnesses caused by a sick building :

Seven former Moore County employees can continue pursuing their worker compensation claims that a county building made them sick in the early 1990s, the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. The seven employees filed worker compensation claims against Moore County and its insurance company, Sedgwick of the Carolinas, in 1995 and 1996. The county and the insurance carrier have disputed the claims, arguing that there was no proof that the building made them sick. [...]

The appeals court also said that since the workers first filed their claims, medical science may have made advancements to understand the situation better, so the commission could consider reopening the case.

“We also note that expert testimony in this case reflects the uncertainty about fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivity that existed when the depositions were taken,” the ruling said. “However, plaintiffs originally filed their workers’ compensation claims more than 10 years ago, and in the intervening years the medical community may have gained a greater understanding of these conditions. Accordingly, the commission may, in its discretion, reopen the case for new evidence.”

Philstar.com reports that firecrackers are harmful to people, animals, the environment and create toxic waste :

[Ecowaste President Manny] Calonzo said firecrackers contain harmful substances that could trigger chemical sensitivities, asthma and other respirator ailments.

“The bursting of firecrackers (violates) the fundamental right of the people to breathe clean air and goes against the effort of the health and environmental authorities and the citizenry to improve air quality,” he added.

Exploding firecrackers, according to Calonzo, also results in “toxic litter” that adds to the heaps of holiday trash.

And the “loud bangs” of exploding firecrackers also torture and traumatize animals that are “most sensitive” to sound than humans, “hurting their ears, terrifying them and making them flee to safety.”

Ecowaste is promoting the use of “emission-free, zero waste” noisemakers from recycled materials such as tambourines made from bottle caps, maracas from tin cans, cymbals using pot lids, and shakers from plastic bottles, among others.

Germany strikes psychosomatic cause from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity guidelines

Germany’s Ministerium für Arbeit und Soziales removes the statement from the government’s disability guidelines that said Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is a somatoform (psychological) disorder.

This is great news for people with MCS throughout the world! The German government has struck out the statement from its MCS guidelines stating the illness is psychosomatic. This is inspiring for everyone throughout the world with MCS as a very important step toward universal recognition of MCS as a physical illness caused by chemical injury.

Here is a translation of the news received through email via Canada’s branch of the Global Recognition Campaign:

Merry Christmas for MCS patients

Silvia Mueller writes on Christmas Eve:

Here is the best message. The German Government Department for Social is the main department for disability, The Ministerium für Arbeit und Soziales. There are guidelines which are used by doctors, courts, authorities,… when it comes to a disability. In our disability guidelines MCS is a physical disease. It is registered in the part for movement disorders, because we can’t go everywhere, etc. There was one sentence in this guideline which was disturbing and used by opposition to refuse our cases and say we are psychosomatic cases. It said MCS is a somatoform disorder.

One of my people at CSN wrote to the department and asked that this nasty sentence is removed from the guidelines. Now MCS is a physical disease nothing else.  We have also the ICD-10 which says MCS is a physical disease. With these two tools nobody can discriminate us anymore.

It’s a victory - It’s Christmas for chemically sensitive people over here. We gave this information and the government letter as a present to the CS people today. After we started an online party. The motto of the party is that we think also about those who have nobody and we write poems, place links to you tube videos, write fun, greetings,… If you like to send something I can place it in for you, the people will love it.

Link to CSN Blog.

Dr. Rea and nobody else should worry. They can’t stop chemical sensitivity or declare us nuts anymore. We call it “the train is gone”.

It happened too much, and the bonds between people all over the world are too strong. Doctors find out more and more. And we all will not stop talking about it.  They can’t quiet us anymore.

Bonita Poulin

Canadian Coordinator
GLOBAL RECOGNITION CAMPAIGN
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
and other Chemically Induced Illnesses, Diseases and Injury affecting civilians and military personnel

MCS Global

Feel free to leave some comment love on the CSN Blog based in Germany. What a beautiful and supportive community they have! I feel so very happy for them. Let’s achieve this same good news in America and throughout the world!

Thanks, Linda!

Green hospitals are better for everyone

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity in a Hospital Setting, here’s a report in Time on Making Hospitals Greener and Patients Healthier. It would be so smart if all hospitals adopted these practices, not just so those of us with MCS don’t have to weigh out the consequences of exposure before seeking medical treatment for any ailment, but for everyone especially hospital staff.

In the typical hospital, “while we are trying to treat or cure illness and disease…we expose our staff and patients to irritants and carcinogens, and our treatments often contribute to the development of other diseases,” says Dr. Kristin Bradford, a family physician in Willits, Calif.

Enter “green medicine” — the effort to detoxify the healing environment and enhance patients’ and employees’ health, while reducing costs all around. The international advocacy group Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) — whose 2006 study of 1,200 nurses suggested a link between the hospital environmental and health problems among the staff — has been a pioneer in the movement, recently initiating collaborative research among major U.S. health systems to document how removing toxins from the environment impacts worker safety and lost time due to employee illness.

[Link to full article here]

We have a hospital here on our island, the North Hawaii Community Hospital, that integrates native Hawaiian cultural practices and other healing traditions such as Feng Shui into the environment. Note the difference in the corridor at left to a more common hospital corridor above. North Hawaii Community Hospital uses HEPA air filters, water filters, low VOC paints, and other nontoxic measures. Here’s a description of The Healing Environment in Blended Medicine at North Hawaii Community Hospital. And here’s a description of the Holistic Care they offer in addition to the traditional allopathic medical care and surgery.

I haven’t been to North Hawaii hospital for awhile for care, but when I was there some years ago for some tests, I did not have a bad reaction to the air quality. Unlike the hospital in California I visited this past summer when I was with my dad for his nutrition consultation– whoa, that was bad from the first breath I took once inside the front doors. But I’d have no hesitation going to North Hawaii hospital again for care if I needed it.

Photo at top by Julie

Thanks, Linda, for sending the Time article my way!

More on Gulf War Illness

Boston.com has a story today on Gulf War Illness.

I think the findings of the study recently released showing exposure to pesticides and other toxic chemicals as the cause of Gulf War Illness are going to help our cause in having Multiple Chemical Sensitivity fully recognized by the government. Note that the Gulf War vet here in the excerpt says that the smell of perfume or a new car causes her serious physical distress. Yes, people with severe chemical injury can then develop adverse health problems from exposure to low level toxic chemicals like fragrance and off-gassing plastics. We know that, and vets with Gulf War Illness know that. The more studies that are done, the closer we are to having MCS fully recognized by government, which will affect policy in health care, housing, employment and other basic rights.

Now if they’d just start to connect the dots between the vets and the rest of us. I wish they’d hurry up for ALL of us. We’ve all waited long enough.

Tara Batista says she cannot ever recall her phone number. But she can remember clearly what she was like before she drove an ambulance through the deserts and combat zones of Saudi Arabia in the winter of 1991.

“I was 19; I was healthy,” she said in a recent phone interview. As a combat medic during the Gulf War, Batista, who now lives in Fitchburg, stood in clouds of pesticides and, under orders, took a little white pill twice a day as a precaution against a chemical attack.

Today, she says, the smell of perfume or a new car makes her lose the ability to speak, and triggers dry heaves, weakness, and pain that rises through her body like a shiver. She has recurring sinus infections and night sweats.

Last year, she contemplated killing herself.

[...]

The drug, pyridostigmine bromide, and certain pesticides used during the war to keep fleas and sand flies at bay affect the central nervous system, the report found, and are associated with memory and focus problems, persistent headaches, respiratory and digestion problems, and “widespread pain.” The report concludes that there are no effective treatments, and that the conditions of afflicted veterans have remained static or worsened in the nearly 18 years since the Gulf War ended.

“The physical symptoms are real and not in people’s heads,” said Roberta White, the scientific director for the committee, which began its evaluation of Gulf War research and programs in 2002.

Read the full story at Boston.com.

Read the full report on Gulf War Illness here.

Who’s chirping about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity today?

Peggy Munson, that’s who.

Peggy Munson at Peggy’s Blog writes about surviving the recent ice storm in New England, and how her Multiple Chemical Sensitivity limited her options at finding safety.

I know this ice storm in New England was potentially lethal for everyone, but the past few days were harrowing for me. I turned 40 on Wednesday, and on Thursday night the power went out – and stayed out for almost 48 hours. The temperature was around 15 degrees Fahrenheit or less at night and for much of the day, and my life turned into a Jon Krakauer novel very quickly. With multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS) everything is inaccessible (so if you’re an EMT, firefighter, hospital worker, M.D., nurse, or shelter worker, think about this). Calling 911 is generally out of the question, emergency rooms are full of toxic cleaning chemicals and scented people, and the carbon monoxide from generators or the toxins from wood smoke can be particularly dangerous or lethal (and hotels: forget about it). Because I was weak and sick going into the outage, I was suddenly like that guy in Into the Wild – picture the end of the movie version of the book – who has eaten the poisonous seeds by accident and thus orbiting around this tiny space, trying to stay warm, totally screwed. Fortunately, the power is back on, and I made it out alive.

Munson is a writer by profession, a writer of erotica to be precise, but only posts on her blog once every couple of months. I wish she was posting more often because her writing on MCS is incredible, full of insight and loaded with smart, emotional prose. She’s blogged about Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes, the woman who was ordered to dismantle her safe house because it violated building codes, which Munson uses to then segue into a fantastic riff on housing for people with MCS. She’s also explored disability in a larger context as well as her experience with contracting Lyme disease on top of her chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS) and MCS.

Munson also has edited Stricken: Voices from the Hidden Epidemic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, about which reviewers have this to say:

“The single best book I’ve read that honestly and fully describes the CFIDS experience.”- Massachusetts CFIDS Update

“This is a book that leaves you changed after you’ve read it, it’s so powerful and compelling.” - A Hummingbird’s Guide to ME

“One of the very best books on the topic and a must-read for people with CFS, their friends and family, and the public. ” - National Fibromyalgia Association

And a bit more info:

Peggy Munson is the author of the poetry collection Pathogenesis and the novel Origami Striptease, and the editor of Stricken: Voices from the Hidden Epidemic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. More information can be found at www.peggymunson.com. Peggy also blogs about MCS issues at www.myspace.com/peggymunson.

Photo and last blurb from Planet Thrive.

Canary manners: Wedding invitations

Kerry from Lemon-Aide, who has Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and a host of other chronic health issues, wrote me and asked if The Canary Report flock has any ideas to help solve this problem:

My son’s getting married this summer and I’m starting to think about how we communicate via the invitations for guests to refrain from perfumes, clothes with dryer sheets etc. Would it be possible to put a question out there on your blog to get your MCS readers input?

Kerry is a wonderfully sweet woman with a blog to match. I know she wants to make this a very special day for her son and new daughter-in-law, but also wants to stay safe so she can enjoy the day, too. Any ideas for her?

Photo by Cherry

Who’s chirping about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity today?

Jeanne, who writes about her endometriosis at Jeanne’s Endo Blog, was inspired by The Canary Report to write a post about her Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. She gave me and my blog so many compliments in the post that now my head is too big to get out the door (thanks, Jeanne!), but I am very pleased to know that The Canary Report has motivated her to write about her MCS. She writes: “While you haven’t heard me talk about MCS very much, this does not mean it doesn’t severely impair me. In fact, it may well be the most challenging illness I have! It affects me every day. Every time I leave my house, I have to be on the defense against chemical reactions that can make me nauseous, dizzy, lightheaded, and even make me feel faint (or really faint)!”

Mokihana at VARDOFORTWO discovered a blog and a website each written by canaries building safe homes on trailer beds (as Mokihana is doing in Washington state). I am fascinated with this whole concept! One blog is called MCS Trailer Build, written by Tom Riddle who lives in Ontario, Canada. Tom’s blog is brand new, so go on over there and give him some encouragement. The other is a website called Leslie’s Website! written by Leslie Lawrence in Oregon. Leslie has lots of photos of the construction of her new home on wheels– you are going to love it!

The North Kitsap Herald has a story on “Chemical sensitivity: It’s a bizarre existance,” about Joan Walz, a woman in Washington state with a severe case of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. Walz has an interesting survival “tool kit” that includes a bright purple gas mask and flaming red hair.

Walz suffers from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), sometimes referred to as Environmental Illness, which renders those in its grasp susceptible to the most basic of household and societal chemicals. Darting through parking lots to avoid car exhaust, eschewing cigarette smoke and skirting past the aromas of perfumes, dryer sheets and building materials, to name a few, is a part of what Walz describes as a “bizarre existence” for those with MCS.

“I hear diesel,” she says during her interview for this article — and sure enough, a large, gritty truck rumbles near the bench in Poulsbo’s Waterfront Park where she sits, and for a few moments she covers her face with the mask.

Walz, who bears a catching smile, moved to North Kitsap four years ago after abandoning the insurmountable challenges of living in Seattle with MCS, which for her causes brain swelling and seizures if too exposed. Her case is an extreme one, she said, and the ways and degree to which some suffer MCS varies. According to the MCS Referral and Resources Web site, 15-30 percent of people in the United States complain of chemical sensitivity sufficient to induce illness, though only a small percentage of sufferers are severely disabled by their symptoms. Walz also wears filters in her ears to cut down her vulnerability.

Since moving here, Walz has started the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Support Group, a gathering of about seven who each face MCS and can brainstorm with and support one another through an illness that is, Walz said, quite isolating.

Walz’s truck, for example, boasts not one but a handful of blue handicapped parking signs. She’s posted them on the vehicle’s side windows so those who see her driving masked don’t panic and act on terror-fueled assumptions.

“It was either that or be stopped every two to three blocks by the police,” Walz said.

Another example: Walz’s bright red hair, which she cuts and dyes herself because she can’t enter a salon. The dye, one of four colors available, is made of vegetable products. Walz also chooses her clothes carefully, airs them out after returning home and uses fragrance-free makeup, shampoo and soaps.

Warning: Avoid ozone generating air machines

While manufacturers of ozone-generating machines will tell you that the ozone is harmless and will clean the air you breathe (example of the spin here), the fact is that ozone generating machines are not only ineffective at cleaning the air, but they can be extremely harmful to your health. From the EPA website:

Manufacturers and vendors of ozone devices often use misleading terms to describe ozone. Terms such as ‘energized oxygen’ or ‘pure air’ suggest that ozone is a healthy kind of oxygen. Ozone is a toxic gas with vastly different chemical and toxicological properties from oxygen. Several federal agencies have established health standards or recommendations to limit human exposure to ozone.

Further, I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard about exposure to ozone from these types of machines triggering full blown Multiple Chemical Sensitivity in unsuspecting consumers. We’ve discussed ozone machines previously on The Canary Report when one of our flock was exposed in her home.

Please note that while ozone machine manufacturers will tell you that the “unused ozone always reverts back to oxygen in about an hour,” the EPA, using “sound science, only peer reviewed, scientifically supported findings and conclusions,” says, “Some of the potential by-products produced by ozone’s reactions with other chemicals are themselves very reactive and capable of producing irritating and corrosive by-products (Weschler and Shields, 1996, 1997a, 1997b).” So in reality, ozone in the home creates chemical reactions with other chemicals already in the home, and no one has ever studied the impact of that lingering toxic brew.

Here’s the astonishing thing about the regulation of these machines: The EPA has a whole page on their website dedicated to informing the public about the dangers of ozone generators that are sold as air cleaners, and yet the government still allows these machines to be manufactured, sold and used inside homes. I can’t for the life of me understand what’s going on with this. These dangerous machines should be pulled off the market NOW.

Environment News Service reports today:

The California Air Resources Board has issued a consumer alert, advising holiday shoppers not to purchase air purifiers or air cleaning devices that intentionally generate ozone.Some devices that are advertised as “air purifiers,” air cleaners, or ozone generators purposely emit large amounts of ozone, the main component of smog.

“Not only are such ozone generators ineffective at cleaning indoor air, but breathing ozone poses serious health risks,” warns the Air Resources Board, recommending that these ozone generators not be used.

“Consumers should take care when considering purchase of an air cleaning device,” said ARB Chairman Mary Nichols, “Beware of misleading advertisements offering air purifiers that are simply indoor smog-making machines.”

Consumers may unknowingly purchase these “ozone generators” from advertisers touting the so-called benefits of “activated oxygen” that can make the air inside your home “as fresh as the outdoors after a thunderstorm,” the board said, quoting the ads.

In fact, the board says, “Ozone generators are capable of emitting enough ozone indoors to far exceed outdoor health standards and can intentionally create the equivalent of a Stage 1 smog alert inside your home.”

These devices pump a well-known air pollutant into people’s homes putting everyone at risk, especially the most vulnerable - the young, elderly and infirm.

The devices can produce levels of ozone that can worsen asthma, cause serious lung inflammation, decrease lung function, and lead to hospitalization for respiratory conditions, emergency room visits for asthma, and increased school absences.

Link to more of the story at Environment News Service

Photo by M. Stephens

Writer finds illness as path to the sacred

A writer with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is looking to publish her manuscript Writing the Prayer of Your Life, and says it’s her illness that’s made her realize the sacredness of life and our planet.

For [Debora] Seidman, the sacred is discovering the essence of why we are here, which can be different for every person, she said. Following her struggles with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she said she felt personally tuned into the devastation of the planet. Our lives, she said, have become so consumed by technology that many people forget that life is not about cell phones and emails, but that everything is sacred and valuable.

“Our world is in crisis in many ways, and like many people, I feel the way out of the crisis is the spiritual,” Seidman said. “Part of my mission is to reclaim prayer as our birthright. It’s not about religion, it’s about the basic human impulse to make a connection with the divine. It’s about being able to hear the truth that your own heart and your own soul wants to say to you.”

Listening to one’s soul is a matter of life and death, she said, adding that writing can be the first step in making changes. “People have gold mines of wisdom [inside],” she said. Combining her specialties in spirituality and teaching writing, her book presents a process of writing that can lead to accessing that wisdom.

Still, “My journey through writing was difficult,” she said.

Growing up in a family where much was left unspoken, Seidman said she felt the need to write what was not being said. After receiving praise for her writing as a teenager, she said she stopped writing after second-guessing her interest in it. She started again after losing a close friend to cancer and becoming ill herself. She said that through her personal tragedies she was able to come to terms with what she wanted by recognizing the sacred in her life, in the eyes of her loved ones and in the beauty of nature.

Link to full story at the Amherst Bulletin

Thanks, Linda!

Guardsmen sue over chemical exposure in Iraq

Sixteen Indiana National Guard soldiers have sued the Houston-based defense contractor KBR, saying the company knowingly allowed them to be exposed to a toxic chemical in Iraq in 2003.

From Democracy Now!:

The soldiers were providing security for KBR during repairs of a water treatment plant in southern Iraq shortly after the US invasion. The suit claims the site was contaminated for six months by hexavalent chromium, “one of the most potent carcinogens” known to man. It alleges that KBR knew the plant was contaminated but concealed the danger from civilian workers and soldiers. We speak with one of the soldiers and with the lead attorney in the case.

Link here to full story, which includes a rush transcript of interview with Michael Doyle, lead counsel for the Guardsmen in the litigation, and Jody Aistrop, former member of the Indiana National Guard and one of the sixteen soldiers suing KBR.

Excerpt:

JODY AISTROP: Good morning. Well, my time in Iraq, we just spent at different sites every day, just basically getting KBR in, getting them out and guarding them while they were doing their job, just protecting them. Specifically, the water plant, we would go there, you know, every third day. And if the contractors really liked you, liked the job you were doing, you could go for a week for two weeks straight.

And, I mean, I believe that we were contaminated, because I, myself, seen the stuff on the ground. I was in the pump room, where the Iraqis were down working on the pumps. And the whole place was just covered, the pump room was. [cough] Excuse me.

I really don’t know what else to say. We basically just went in, did our job. And I feel that they knew. A report had came out that KBR knew that the ground was contaminated. And we were just told it was a mild irritant, don’t worry about it. The bloody noses are from the dry air, the sand. And we just continued to do our job, like it was nothing.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Jody, what were some of the symptoms that you and the others, beside the bloody noses that you mentioned, that you started to experience? And did you—what kind of complaints did you lodge to them, to the company officially?

JODY AISTROP: The main one was the bloody nose. Your eyes would burn. You would get a rash, like on your arms or your legs. And actually, my rash just cleared up like three months ago. And it turned into lesions once I got home.

Link to full story at Democracy Now!

Real Video Stream

Real Audio Stream

Read the lawsuit against KBR

Iraq veteran develops Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

A woman who served in current Iraq conflict has developed an array of disturbing illnesses similar to those suffered by Gulf War veterans, including Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. How many others from the Iraq conflict are suffering the same problems?

This is an interview by Mark Anderson at American Free Press with a veteran of the current Iraq conflict who suffers Gulf War Illness type symptoms including Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. The interview was done on the day after the congressionally mandated report on Gulf War Illness was released. The interviewer has an obvious agenda of including Depleted Uranium in the discussion, so he sort of skips over anything else the women have to say, but you’ll be very interested in hearing what the two women have to say: a young woman who served in the current conflict, and an Air Force nurse who served in the Gulf War in the early 1990s.

Link

Judge says woman can sue over co-worker’s perfume

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Mike Adams at Natural News has an excellent critique of a recent court case where an employee is suing the City of Detroit over a perfume drenched co-worker whom the employee says caused her serious respiratory problems.

Adams has a theory that the chemicals in perfume do much more than damage lungs. He says synthetic perfume “literally affects brain function, causing the brain to recede from sensory reality by decoupling neurons, thus making those people cognitively impaired.” Sound familiar?

I’m not sure if I go along with his assertion that the “dumbest people” wear perfume; I guess you have to define your terms. But his feeling about “dumbed-down” consumers getting poisoned in their homes makes a lot of sense to me.

A Judge has ruled that a lawsuit over workplace perfume filed by a Detroit city planner can proceed. The lawsuit alleges that perfume from a co-worker made Susan McBride unable to properly breathe, creating a hazardous work environment and making it difficult for her to complete her work.

The city of Detroit sought to have the lawsuit dismissed in court, but the Judge agreed with McBride that her difficulty in breathing with the excessive perfume did, indeed, qualify for protection under federal laws that protect the disabled from workplace discrimination.

That may seem like an odd law to invoke in this case (is McBride really “disabled” due to her difficulty in breathing?) but at least it is recognizing the reality of perfume toxicity.

Let’s get straight to the real story here, folks: Perfume-wearing people are toxic to the world, and they create a toxic workplace filled with poisonous, cancer-promoting chemicals that cause healthy people to gasp for breath.

[...]

Synthetic perfume chemicals cause cancer

These people also remain oblivious to the fact that perfumes contain cancer-causing chemicals that are absorbed right through the skin. These chemicals enter the blood where they poison the liver and other organs, causing cancer and cellular toxicity throughout the body.

I also have a theory that this onslaught of chemicals literally affects brain function, causing the brain to recede from sensory reality by decoupling neurons, thus making those people cognitively impaired. You can observe this in the real world, too: Have you ever noticed it’s the dumbest people who wear the most perfume or cologne? I do not believe that is by chance: It could very well be a cause-effect relationship between perfume chemicals and brain function.

Keep in mind, too, that dumbed-down mainstream consumers use a lot of perfume-laced products throughout their homes: Laundry detergent, dryer sheets, air fresheners, carpet cleaners, shampoo, shower soap and other products laced with the same toxic fragrance chemicals found in perfumes. This creates a toxic environment in which cancer is accelerated and brain development is retarded.

NaturalNews supports a nationwide ban on perfumes in the workplace.

Link

Canadian mechanic disabled from toxic paint fumes

A Canadian airplane mechanic develops Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and other environmental illnesses from exposure to paint fumes at his place of work, but when he becomes disabled from the toxic exposure, the government denies him benefits. This disabled worker claims that half his crew were affected, and that a total of 30 employees, who were disabled from toxic exposure in the hanger where they worked, have all been denied benefits.

Link

Love Canal, 30 years later

“It was like a Hitchcock movie.”

Here’s a report on Love Canal by ERIKA ENGELHAUPT, who explores “the toxic waste dump that became synonymous with environmental disaster 30 years ago.” You are not going to believe this, but they are moving people back into the area. Here’s a slide show (or click on photo at left), and here are the first few paragraphs of the report:

Niagara Falls, N.Y. In the middle of an abandoned suburban neighborhood, a long grassy mound pokes up a few feet higher than the cracked streets surrounding it. A green chain-link fence surrounds the small hill, which is covered with wildflowers in summer lavender chicory and small yellow daisies. The fence has no warning sign not anymore but this is Love Canal, the toxic waste dump that became synonymous with environmental disaster 30 years ago.

Adeline Levine, a sociologist who wrote a book about Love Canal, described to me the scene she had witnessed exactly 30 years earlier, on August 11, 1978. “It was like a Hitchcock movie,” she said, “where everything looks peaceful and pleasant, but something is slumbering under the ground.”

That “something” was more than 21,000 tons of chemical waste. The mixed brew contained more than 200 different chemicals, many of them toxic. They were dumped into the canal, which was really more of a half-mile-long pond, in the 1940s and 1950s by Hooker Electrochemical Co. In 1953, the canal was covered with soil and sold to the local school board, and an elementary school and playground were built on the site. A working-class neighborhood sprang up around them.

“The neighborhood looked very pleasant,” says Levine, who was a sociology professor at the State University of New York Buffalo in 1978. “There were very nice little homes, nicely kept, with gardens and flowers and fences and kids’ toys, and then there were young people who were rushing out of their homes with bundles and packing up their cars and moving vans.”

Link to full report

Link to slideshow

Thanks, Linda!

Opportunity to participate in Multiple Chemical Sensitivity research

The Multiple Chemical Sensitivity research team at James Madison University is currently looking for people to participate in current studies.

Experiencing Environmental Sensitivities

We are interested in interviewing people who have had environmental sensitivities for 5 years or more. The interview will last approximately 30 minutes and will explore the phenomenology of what it is like to experience sensitivities and to interact with others in a chemical culture.

If you are interested in participating, please click here to open the consent form and to complete the short demographic questionnaire. If you do not have computer access or cannot use a computer, please contact our lab for a hard copy of the short demographic survey. You can call us at 540-568-6195.

Client’s Perceptions of Services from Mental Health Providers for Persons with Environmental Sensitivities

In this study we will examine people’s perceptions of any services they have received from psychological providers. People with sensitivities end up in the offices of mental health providers for a variety of reasons: for counseling, for evaluations in regard to disability applications or as requested by Vocational Rehabilitation, or when referred by a physician who perceives the problem to be psychological. There may be other reasons as well. We are interested in the treatment that people receive, whether they are accommodated by these providers, and their perceptions of how knowledgeable mental health providers are regarding sensitivities.

In addition, as part of this study we invite anyone who has received a psychological evaluation from a psychologist to submit it so we can examine how people with sensitivities are being construed by psychologists. There has been an ongoing movement to frame MCS/ES as a psychological illness. We believe it is physical and would like to attempt to begin discussion of the ways that persons with MCS are framed in evaluations.

Click here to take our survey of psychological services on Qualtrics: http://jmu.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_6DpHHiwHSysPFgE&SVID=Prod

If you are unable to take the survey online or know of someone who would like to participate without taking the survey online, we can be contacted for either an e-mail copy or a hard copy of the survey. Phone 540-568-6195 or e-mail gibsonpr@jmu.edu.

Link

Thanks, Linda!

Obama on green energy and affordable health care

Here’s President-Elect Obama’s first YouTube weekly address, just released. He includes as part of his agenda, “to build an American green energy economy… while freeing our country from the tyranny of foreign oil and saving our planet for our children.” He also includes, “making health care affordable for anyone who has it, [and] accessible for anyone who wants it.” This is music to the ears of anyone suffering from Environmental Illness: the hemorrhage of policy protecting the health, safety and welfare of the American people, the bad policy that perpetuated a filthy environment coupled with a broken health insurance system, will be stemmed.

Panel confirms Gulf War Illness caused by toxic chemicals

A congressionally mandated report on Gulf War Illness is released.

Findings of a study just released on Gulf War Illness directly correlate the chemical exposure experienced by soldiers, notably pesticide exposure, to memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue, widespread pain, chronic digestive problems, respiratory symptoms, and skin rashes.

How many of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity have stories of being similarly exposed to toxic chemicals resulting in the same chronic symptoms? Do you think anyone will ever mandate a study about us?

WASHINGTON - At least one in four U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffers from a multi-symptom illness caused by exposure to toxic chemicals during the conflict, a congressionally mandated report being released Monday found.

For much of the past 17 years, government officials have maintained that these veterans — more than 175,000 out of about 697,000 deployed — are merely suffering the effects of wartime stress, even as more have come forward recently with severe ailments.

“The extensive body of scientific research now available consistently indicates that ‘Gulf War illness’ is real, that it is the result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployment, and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved with time,” said the report, being released Monday by a panel of scientists and veterans. A copy was obtained by Cox Newspapers.

Gulf War illness is typically characterized by a combination of memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue and widespread pain. It may also include chronic digestive problems, respiratory symptoms and skin rashes.

Two things the military provided to troops in large quantities to protect them — pesticides and pyridostigmine bromide (PB), aimed at thwarting the effects of nerve gas — are the most likely culprits, the panel found.

[...]

It found that in terms of brain function, exposure to pesticides and the PB pills hurts people’s memory, attention and mood. Some people, it notes, are genetically more susceptible to exposures than others.

[...]

To ward off swarms of sand flies in Kuwait City and the eastern Saudi province of Dhahran, Hardie said trucks would come through at 3 a.m. and spray “clouds” of pesticides.

Fly strips that smelled toxic hung “everywhere,” especially near food. “The pesticide use was far and away (more) than what you’d see in daily life,” he said.

Several soldiers interviewed said they were ordered to dunk their uniforms in the pesticide DEET and to spray pesticide routinely on exposed skin and in their boots to ward off scorpions. Others wore pet flea collars around their ankles.

The federal panel added that it also could not rule out an association between Gulf War illness and the prolonged exposure to oil fires, as well as low-level exposures to nerve agents, injections of many vaccines and combinations of neurotoxic exposures.

Link to full story at Rome News-Tribune, well worth the read.

Photo by Lietmotiv: Oil well fires rage outside Kuwait City in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm. The wells were set on fire by Iraqi forces before they were ousted from the region by coalition force.

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