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This is my opinion based on my experience and research.
Many of the products we use on a daily basis contain harmful chemicals. We accept this fact and circumstance.
Scientists determine a level of each chemical that, they say, is safe for the average person under normal conditions of use. This is generally done with 50L tests on white rats and the results extrapolated to the human being. Testing is seldom done on humans.
These tests are generally financed and completed by the manufacturer of the said products.
It is the people suffering from Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) or Environmental Illness (EI) who react negatively to the small levels of toxins in products, usually a confusing array of different things from soaps to carpets to insecticides. The varied reactions are those reactions that anyone would get at a higher dosage because, remember, the chemicals in question are toxic or poisonous ones. This doesn't mean all chemicals. EI is also called (MCS) Multiple Chemical Sensitivities because the reactions occur to more than one chemical. It is as if each person has a personal limit to their "toxic load" before illnesses such as EI or even cancer strike.And here's the scary part: no one has ever studied the effects of how all these toxic chemicals interact in the "Environment" or in our bodies, our own little environment.
Do we really know the cause of cancer? Take lung cancer, for example. Based on my personal experience with chemical sensitivities, I doubt that it is ONLY caused by cigarette smoke. For me, cigarette smoke rates about a 2 (on a scale of 10) in severity of reaction compared to some colognes that rate a 7 and one particular body deodorant used by young people (not mentioning brand names) that rates a 20!
The sensitive individuals who are affected and made very ill by low levels of toxic chemicals are like the proverbial canary in the mines. Coalminers used to take a caged canary down into the mines. They knew they were in danger when the canary stopped singing and that their own demise was imminent when the canary keeled over and died. There was no particular odor to detect but the quality of air was deadly. My friends, I am your canary. I also feel like a caged bird because this illness confines me to my house a lot of the time. Shopping is a nightmare because of fumes like formaldehyde "gassing off" new things. I don't dare go to concerts or clubs for fear the toxic chemically-based perfumes, deodorants, soaps and shampoos will knock me out or give me an instantaneous blinding migraine. I am not able to go out to work because of workplace chemicals, anything from inks and glues to paints to chlorine bleach used in restaurants, etc. It is important to note here that this is not about odors per se but about toxic chemical odors.Efforts to ban fragrances in public places miss the point. We must all stop using so many poisons on our bodies. Manufacturers must stop adding so many poisons to their products.
There is another story about frogs. Throw a frog into a pot of boiling water and he will try to leap out. Put a frog into a pot of cool water and he will stay there as you heat it up and cook him just the same. I fear we are like that frog sitting unaware as the atmosphere "heats" up with deadly pollution and we take no notice until it is too late.
Twenty years ago, people such as myself were dismissed as psychiatric cases. Today, the weight of evidence is growing and this view is disproven.Unfortunately, many people still do not want to believe any of what I am saying here. Sometimes their stubborn denial is insurmountable, even dangerous, yet the problem of toxic chemicals, ie pollution, is growing. If you are interested in learning more about this illness, try a search on the internet. Next time, given the opportunity, I will discuss the day to day struggles of a person living with MCS/EI.
This next letter was published a few months earlier.
If I were sitting in a wheelchair, my disability would be obvious and severe. However, my disability is an invisible one that is not well known or understood.
I have multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS) or environmental illness or sensitivities which is afflicting a growing number of people in our society. This diagnosis for me has been confirmed by a physician, a leading specialist in environmental medicine AND formally acknowledged by the government of Ontario.
Because this illness so drastically affects my ability to function around other people, I feel compelled to educate my community about it. I need your help and cooperation and I am hereby asking for it. I must hasten to add a thank you to those who continue to accommodate my needs.
MCS is a complex of symptoms that are distressing and confusing, especially to the person suffering from them. The causes are toxic chemicals in the "environment", in the air and water and food and everything around us. A reaction is triggered by exposure at lower levels than those that would affect the "average" person. The treatment is basically one of avoidance as there is nothing else to be done to avoid a reaction or to treat it when it happens. The reactions vary and I will return to this later. The important point here is that avoiding the toxins is the only treatment.
Now, I am not saying all this off the top of my greying head. The information comes to me from the specialist in environmental medicine and from the common literature on the subject.
If this publication will give me the space, I will discuss in more detail the substances that cause reactions and what the reactions are, the differences between allergies and chemical sensitivities and my own personal experience of this illness later.
For now, I would like to leave you with some words from the Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. In a letter to another woman even more devastated by this condition than I am, Commissioner Norton writes explicitly, "It is the Commission's policy position, as outlined in its 'Policy and Guidelines on Disability and the Duty to Accommodate', that environmental sensitivity is a disability and is thus protected under the Code.
"The Commission encourages individuals and organizations to be aware of their human rights obligations and to consider the needs of persons with chemical sensitivity including the duty to provide appropriate accommodation short of undue hardship. Failure to do so may contravene the Code."
Next time, I will go into just exactly what all this means for my situation and your role in it. Meanwhile, please think of me when you splash on some cologne or put fabric softener in your laundry because, though you may consider it none of my business, yet when we meet at the community centre, library or grocery store, it affects me in a most detrimental way.
This page updated May 19, 2007.