DweezelJazz Art Blog » multiple chemical sensitivity

Chemical Sensitivity and the New EU Chemical Law

DweezelJazz — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 07:00:00 +0000

The Chicago Tribune published an interesting article yesterday, called “Exposed!”, about chemical sensitivity to common chemicals. This complements a previous post written in DweezelJazz: “What Is Multiple Chemical Sensitivity?”.The article points out that the disorder known as multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) has been described since the 1940s and that today it affects an estimated 12% of the population. It isn’t officially recognized by the U.S. medical establishment, but it is recognized by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the Americans With Disabilities Act includes MCS as a disability.The article also gives short accounts of people’s experiences with chemical sensitivity. It illustrates how difficult it is to comprehend the nature of the situation even when you know or live with someone who experiences it. Marny Turvil, a mother of two, discovered five years ago that she has MCS. Her mother suffers from it also. Turvil is quoted as saying: ‘In typical mainstream fashion I thought she was nuts. Then I started having clear symptoms.’ Turvil is further quoted: ‘People will discredit things that threaten their well-being. To be told products you use every day are full of dangerous chemicals is a very threatening thing.’Mainstream doctors don’t recognize MCS. This is because the disorder has not been understood in medical terms; a scientific mechanism of explanation for the cause and effect has not yet been defined. Almost every aspect of modern life includes the use of innumerable chemicals in all manner of products from foods to cleaning agents to building materials…the list goes on. Our economy is based on the sale of all these items and we have grown highly dependent on the products available. It isn’t convenient to find that we may need to change these things. As a result, there has been little mainstream funding dedicated to research into the disorder.It is noticeable though that there are more frequent news items in the Press either directly addressing or skirting around the issue as is demonstrated for example in an earlier post “Toxic Fumes on Airline Flights: What’s It All About?”Public places, including hospitals, can pose grave difficulties, and can even be life-threatening, for people with MCS depending on the severity of their sensitivity. A nurse named Keith, who has MCS and has experienced difficulties when being treated at hospital, wrote an article called “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A Hidden Disability” on the NurseLinkup blog to alert the nursing community.On June 1st of this year a new EU chemicals law known as REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) was passed, requiring the registration and safety testing of tens of thousands of chemicals. For the first time, chemical companies will have to provide basic health and environmental safety data on the chemicals they produce. An article entitled “Beginners Guide to REACH” published by Greenpeace some years ago states that previously only chemicals that started production after 1981 required this data, which is a small fraction of chemicals on the market.According to a BBC article, “Analysis: New EU chemicals law”, manufacturers will have to register safety data for around 30,000 chemicals already in use.There are around 100,000 chemicals for which data is not available. The 30,000 chemicals included in this system of legislation were chosen because they’re produced in the highest volumes and/or are already known to have dangerous properties. The BBC article says that “these include thousands of everyday products – for example, flame retardants on sofa coverings, musks used in shampoos, and paints of all kinds – as well as specialised chemicals used only by industry.”The first deadline for registration is in 2010. This is for chemicals of the highest concern, (the European Commission estimates there are 1,500 chemicals in this category) which include carcinogens, mutagens and substances toxic to reproductive health. This deadline also applies to chemicals produced in quantities of over 1,000 tonnes per year.The second deadline is 2013 for chemicals produced in quantities of 100 to 1,000 tonnes per year. And there is a third deadline of 2018 for substances produced in 1 to 100 tonnes per year.The description of this law demonstrates how little legislation and scientific knowledge is available for the many products and chemicals used in our society today. The effects they are having is not accounted for, either on us as human beings or on our world and its wildlife.While the new law is a big step in the right direction, we as consumers can have a huge impact as a result of how we spend our money. There are products available on the market through health food stores and catalog companies that do already account for their ingredients. We can help to safeguard ourselves, our loved ones and our environment right away by taking consumer action.Some links that may be helpful in finding some of these products are Janice’s and The HEALTHY HOUSE Ltd. While I can’t vouch for all of the products these companies sell, I have bought some very good items from each. As with every purchase, it pays to investigate the product as thoroughly as possible.There are also ways to clean very effectively using simple, and coincidentally economical, substances such as vinegar and baking soda, which I’ll discuss in another article.

What Is Multiple Chemical Sensitivity?

DweezelJazz — Wed, 30 May 2007 07:00:00 +0000

An article in the BBC News today reports that exposure to pesticides increases the risk of contracting Parkinson’s Disease. Parkinson’s Disease is a progressive, degenerative neurological condition. Many pesticides are neurotoxic and there have been other studies that have found associations with exposure to pesticides and various chronic neurological diseases.Neurotoxic chemicals are prevalent in our society today. For example, we are exposed to solvents and pesticides almost every day, in our working environment or on our way to work, very often at home, and even in our food. Gasoline, diesel and the products of combustion are something we are regularly exposed to when we’re on the road, and also when traffic passes close to where we live or work. These frequent and common exposures put us at risk of developing chemical sensitivities. This is even more relevant for children.Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, MCS, has been defined in a number of ways. It is difficult to define precisely because the mechanism of injury is not known and the specific symptoms can be very varied from one individual to another, and also varied in the same individual over time.Multiple Chemical Sensitivity often begins with one high-dose exposure to a chemical which is toxic in large doses, but it may also develop with long-term exposure to low levels of a chemical, or chemicals. The significance of ‘low level’ used here refers to the fact that this level of such a chemical is generally held to be non-toxic to the human body at this concentration. However, for many of the chemicals that we are exposed to, conclusive tests, taking into account reactions inside the body with other chemicals we are exposed to, and/or the interaction of many ‘low level’ concentrations of chemicals forming further chemical products before they enter the body, have not been performed.A few examples of the ways in which people who develop MCS are commonly exposed are: working in industrial employment; living or working in a poorly ventilated building; living in conditions of high air or water pollution. Chemicals most often associated with MCS include: formaldehyde, pesticides, solvents, petrochemical fuels, waxes, detergents, cleaning products, latex, tobacco smoke, perfumes and fragrances, artificial colors, flavors and preservatives.Products that often precipitate symptoms of MCS are: air fresheners, aerosol deodorant, asphalt, after-shave lotion, colognes, perfumes, diesel, dry-cleaning fluid, furniture polish, gasoline products, hair spray, insect repellant, insecticide, many laundry detergents, marker pens, nail polish and remover, oil-based paint and associated products, many creams and cosmetics, many hair shampoos, gels, and dyes, public restroom deodorizers, many modern cleaning products, tar, varnish, creosote, paint products, chipboard, treated lumber, many treated leathers (depending on process used), soft plastics, mold, cotton and fabrics treated with pesticides and/or antibacterial agents, antibacterial soap, fabric softeners, rubber. This may seem like a phenomenal list, and there may be other items that can cause a problem that through oversight have not been mentioned here. But this gives a good idea of how difficult it is to avoid regular exposure to ‘low level’ harmful agents once chemical sensitivities have been triggered in an individual.MCS symptoms can manifest in any or all organ systems including respiratory, neurological, endocrine, urinary, cardiovascular, immune. Some of the symptoms experienced, in any combination and in differing strengths at any given time, by someone with chemical sensitivities can be: fatigue, difficulty concentrating, memory loss, depression, anxiety, slow response, weakness, dizziness, tingling in fingers and/or toes, headaches, heat intolerance, irritability, numbness, burning sensation on the skin, itching skin, itching scalp, noise sensitivity, congestion, sore throat, hoarseness, shortness of breath, chest pain, cough, difficulty thinking and making decisions, stomach pains and cramps, insomnia, clumsiness, inability to gauge distance, coordination problems, muscle cramps, joint pain, trembling, faintness, nausea, vomiting, rapid increase in heartbeat, increased frequency in urination, diarrhea, confusion, blurred vision, eye irritation, rashes.This may sound even more incredible than the number of products that can cause a problem, but people with chemical sensitivities experience many, if not all, of these symptoms at some time or another in varying intensities. However, more commonly, many people experience some level of these symptoms without necessarily understanding the cause.When such symptoms occur at low intensity they are easy to dismiss, without realizing their significance, because they become an expected part of our ordinary daily life. Eliminating the use of some of these products and items mentioned above that are not essential to our existence can provide a way to investigate whether we actually feel better without them. If an individual is genetically predisposed to succumbing to chemical sensitivity then with every greater load we place on the body’s toxic clearing mechanisms, the closer we get to triggering chemical sensitivities.There is controversy in the professional medical field about chemical sensitivities and related syndromes. It is not a topic of research readily financed by commercially successful businesses manufacturing these products. The organized removal or alteration of the multitude of products that permeate almost every aspect of our daily lives would require a huge change in economics. Ultimately, consumer choice dictates largely what products are available on the market, and that is where each individual can make a difference in what is in our daily environments. Many of the products available today not only cause damage in human beings, but they also harm our environment and the ecosystem around us.MCS is medically a poorly understood phenomenon; there is no known cure for it as yet. However, it is possible to make very significant improvements in a person’s health and daily functionality by reducing regular exposures. And it is possible to decrease an individual’s reaction to previously problematic products and chemical agents by reducing the overall load experienced by that individual. It is better, however, to reduce the load before really noticeable chemical sensitivities even occur.