Chemical Sensitivities: A Global Problem
by Cynthia Wilson

In rural South Africa, a pastor operating a makeshift clinic sees several cases of chemical sensitivity every week. A highly regarded French botanist asks if insecticides could be causing his health problems. A safety engineer at a petroleum refinery in Brazil needs answers to his health problems, but he no longer trusts the company doctor.

In Croatia, a chemical engineer complains she can no longer physically tolerate working in her laboratory. She is diagnosed with liver damage from exposure to ethylene oxide but the fact that she became chemically sensitive during her work in the lab is totally ignored

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) is a growing global problem. MCS support groups around the world report their memberships are increasing at an average 132 percent per year. Yet MCS does not officially exist anywhere in the world.

Governments won't fund MCS research and, since no government tracks MCS as a health problem, hard data on the global scope of MCS is hard to come by.

However, a 1995 survey by the Chemical Injury Information Network [CIIN, PO Box 301, White Sulpher Springs, MT 59646, (406) 547-2255, fax: -2455] found that MCS had been reported as a health problem in 36 countries. In nearly every country, the CIIN survey found, chemically sensitive individuals shared a sense of alienation, isolation and frustration due to the lack of a positive response by their governments and the medical profession.

Physicians, more often than not, diagnose MCS patients with a more medically acceptable condition - e.g., chronic fatigue, bronchial hypersensitivity, neurologic disorder or occupational asthma - while their chemical sensitivities were ignored. This is especially true in countries with national health insurance such Germany and England.

In a 1994 Archives of Internal Medicine article, two researchers reported finding that up to 67 percent of patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia also suffered from MCS, but these patients were never diagnosed with that problem. MCS is also a frequent problem for patients with silicone implants or joint replacements.

England's Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Association acknowledges that it has members with MCS, but the association provides no information tailored to the needs of its MCS members.

Denmark's Astma-Allergi Forbundet (AAF) admitted that many of its members suffer from MCS, but AFF is extremely uncomfortable with the term, insisting that MCS is "not widely approved of in the Danish medical world or in a government context."

Attacks on doctors who support diagnoses of MCS are common. Support groups from Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Australia and the US report instances where doctors' medical licenses have come under attack because of their efforts on behalf of their MCS patients. Despite this constant scrutiny, few doctors have lost their licenses.

Physicians and researchers estimate the MCS population of their respective countries at 0.5 to l percent of the total population, while MCS support groups put the figure at 10 to 15 percent. Support groups in Australia and New Zealand estimate that 15 percent of their respective populations suffer from MCS.

Pesticide exposures were the most commonly cited reason for developing MCS, but this may be due in part to the fact that most of the support groups contacted for the report focus exclusively on pesticide hazards. While pesticides are certainly a large part of the problem, formaldehyde and solvent exposures were often cited ahead of pesticides as causes of MCS.

Support groups in Denmark regard poor indoor air quality as the primary cause of MCS, while chemically sensitive people in Russia turn to support groups that focus on industrial pollution and radiation exposure.

In 1994, the European Union (EU) commissioned Nicholas A. Ashford, Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to investigate the prevalence of MCS in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece and the UK. While Ashford had no problem documenting MCS in all of the countries under investigation, his report and its findings have been embargoed by EU.

Cynthia Wilson is the executive director of the Chemical Injury Information Network