There is a film that seldom fails to put a lump in my throat, causing my voice to shake and my eyes to go misty.
Not Doctor Zhivago . . .
No -- the film that really gets me is Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A Short Introduction*, featured on the website of The Chemical Sensitivity Foundation (features the chemically injured, including World Trade Center first-responders and war survivors):
No sooner do I see the face of HUD's Bennie Howard and hear the concrete words of support he is speaking than the syndrome starts all over again -- I just want to cry.
Why?
Because Howard's face and voice tell me that there are people out there who actually acknowledge the grueling reality of MCS. So many people persist in withholding full belief in the MCS sufferer's credibility. This withholding of belief enables them to hang back from the issue, to be content with knowing the bare minimum about it, to tell themselves that it's only "so-and-so" who has this strange MCS problem. By remaining detached in this way, they easily miss the reality of the rapidly growing population of MCS sufferers. Moreover, they miss learning about the smoldering dangers to the health of all humans, humans who are exposed to the very same toxins that MCS sufferers just happen to react to earlier.
What is behind this detachment?
When people develop allergies to ordinarily harmless, natural substances, no one is incredulous about this. Never, for example, have I heard anyone insinuate that a pollen-allergy sufferer has brought on his own allergic reaction by a wrong, fixed idea in his head, by a morbid "fear" of nature, or by a neurotic belief that he is simply doomed to get sick often and from everything.
When, however, a person's body consistently reacts to toxic substances, actual poisonous elements, in common products, he is often treated with incredulity or frank disbelief. He is frequently subjected to comments which suggest, time and again, that he must make yet a better case for his symptoms and "prove" his malady. He is then treated, predictably, as the type of person who readily takes on hypochondriacal ideas and who thereby encourages himself to fall ill.
This type of treatment takes a careless swipe not only at the grim reality of MCS, but also at the overall credibility of the person who suffers from it. It is common, therefore, for the MCS sufferer to find himself gasping out, as quickly as possible and over many successive visits, essential MCS information to unconvinced medical practitioners whose persons and/or offices continue to exude many non-medical synthetic scents that will incapacitate him for the next couple of days. This is akin to someone with goldenrod in hand asking a person whose eyes are streaming with pollen-caused tears (or who is wheezing with an asthmatic reaction to pollen) to prove that goldenrod caused the allergic reaction, to prove that he didn't somehow bring on the reaction by latent hysteria . . . essentially making him beg for thorough accommodation of his medical problem.
Yes, many people like, for example, the synthetic fragrances of scented paraffin candles in medical offices. If many people liked abundant grasses and pollen-bearing plants, would the medical practitioners include these, as well, in their offices -- even though they caused other people to wheeze and sneeze? Probably not.
But perhaps a given practitioner has only one (known) MCS sufferer as a patient. So why take away the synthetically scented candles? Well, for the same reason that a medical office has accommodations for even one single person in a wheelchair: Because MCS is a true disability. Ask Bennie Howard.
And also because the synthetically scented candles are not only "the MCS sufferer's problem." The synthetically scented candles can become anybody's health crisis of tomorrow. Perhaps the next person won't develop MCS. Perhaps he or she won't have that chance. Perhaps it will be a sudden neurological affliction. Perhaps it will be cancer. The staff would be at risk, first, being more frequently exposed to whatever toxic scents are present in the office.
The incredulity and disbelief surrounding MCS leads to inconsistent, illogical, prejudicial, and unjust treatment of the MCS sufferer, who happens to be dealing with a true medical problem. Is it not, after all, more scientifically and medically unusual when a person reacts adversely to a natural and ordinarily harmless substance than when he reacts adversely to a known chemical toxin?
Why, then, such unwillingness to accept the reality that actual toxins can cause many people's bodies to recoil in severe and prolonged distress, setting the stage for early onset of permanent degenerative disorders or cancer? Why this bias that makes cheerful allowance for allergic reactions to natural substances but perpetually tests, doubts, and frequently disregards as neurotic those who suffer systemic reactions to always-harmful toxins? Finally, why is there not much, much more medical concern over the dangers posed to all by the neurotoxic and carcinogenic elements present in synthetically scented products?
I do not know.
"Cheers!" in defiance of this gloomy and irrational state of affairs, and in the hopes that more people will begin to care deeply about the growing reality of chemically caused damage to humans.
~ Carolyn
Not Doctor Zhivago . . .
No -- the film that really gets me is Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A Short Introduction*, featured on the website of The Chemical Sensitivity Foundation (features the chemically injured, including World Trade Center first-responders and war survivors):
No sooner do I see the face of HUD's Bennie Howard and hear the concrete words of support he is speaking than the syndrome starts all over again -- I just want to cry.
Why?
Because Howard's face and voice tell me that there are people out there who actually acknowledge the grueling reality of MCS. So many people persist in withholding full belief in the MCS sufferer's credibility. This withholding of belief enables them to hang back from the issue, to be content with knowing the bare minimum about it, to tell themselves that it's only "so-and-so" who has this strange MCS problem. By remaining detached in this way, they easily miss the reality of the rapidly growing population of MCS sufferers. Moreover, they miss learning about the smoldering dangers to the health of all humans, humans who are exposed to the very same toxins that MCS sufferers just happen to react to earlier.
What is behind this detachment?
When people develop allergies to ordinarily harmless, natural substances, no one is incredulous about this. Never, for example, have I heard anyone insinuate that a pollen-allergy sufferer has brought on his own allergic reaction by a wrong, fixed idea in his head, by a morbid "fear" of nature, or by a neurotic belief that he is simply doomed to get sick often and from everything.
When, however, a person's body consistently reacts to toxic substances, actual poisonous elements, in common products, he is often treated with incredulity or frank disbelief. He is frequently subjected to comments which suggest, time and again, that he must make yet a better case for his symptoms and "prove" his malady. He is then treated, predictably, as the type of person who readily takes on hypochondriacal ideas and who thereby encourages himself to fall ill.
This type of treatment takes a careless swipe not only at the grim reality of MCS, but also at the overall credibility of the person who suffers from it. It is common, therefore, for the MCS sufferer to find himself gasping out, as quickly as possible and over many successive visits, essential MCS information to unconvinced medical practitioners whose persons and/or offices continue to exude many non-medical synthetic scents that will incapacitate him for the next couple of days. This is akin to someone with goldenrod in hand asking a person whose eyes are streaming with pollen-caused tears (or who is wheezing with an asthmatic reaction to pollen) to prove that goldenrod caused the allergic reaction, to prove that he didn't somehow bring on the reaction by latent hysteria . . . essentially making him beg for thorough accommodation of his medical problem.
Yes, many people like, for example, the synthetic fragrances of scented paraffin candles in medical offices. If many people liked abundant grasses and pollen-bearing plants, would the medical practitioners include these, as well, in their offices -- even though they caused other people to wheeze and sneeze? Probably not.
But perhaps a given practitioner has only one (known) MCS sufferer as a patient. So why take away the synthetically scented candles? Well, for the same reason that a medical office has accommodations for even one single person in a wheelchair: Because MCS is a true disability. Ask Bennie Howard.
And also because the synthetically scented candles are not only "the MCS sufferer's problem." The synthetically scented candles can become anybody's health crisis of tomorrow. Perhaps the next person won't develop MCS. Perhaps he or she won't have that chance. Perhaps it will be a sudden neurological affliction. Perhaps it will be cancer. The staff would be at risk, first, being more frequently exposed to whatever toxic scents are present in the office.
The incredulity and disbelief surrounding MCS leads to inconsistent, illogical, prejudicial, and unjust treatment of the MCS sufferer, who happens to be dealing with a true medical problem. Is it not, after all, more scientifically and medically unusual when a person reacts adversely to a natural and ordinarily harmless substance than when he reacts adversely to a known chemical toxin?
Why, then, such unwillingness to accept the reality that actual toxins can cause many people's bodies to recoil in severe and prolonged distress, setting the stage for early onset of permanent degenerative disorders or cancer? Why this bias that makes cheerful allowance for allergic reactions to natural substances but perpetually tests, doubts, and frequently disregards as neurotic those who suffer systemic reactions to always-harmful toxins? Finally, why is there not much, much more medical concern over the dangers posed to all by the neurotoxic and carcinogenic elements present in synthetically scented products?
I do not know.
"Cheers!" in defiance of this gloomy and irrational state of affairs, and in the hopes that more people will begin to care deeply about the growing reality of chemically caused damage to humans.
~ Carolyn
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