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Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

© Kenneth Friedman

According to an article in the September/October issue of E Magazine, an estimated 30 percent of Americans are affected by Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), an "allergy to modern life." MCs is, writer and MCS sufferer Rhonda Zwillinger says, "a physical reaction to the common chemicals, ranging from detergents, pesticides, solvents and perfurmes to foods and pharmaceuticals, that permeate our everyday existence."

The majority of her article consist of interviews with people suffering from MCS. People who have had to give up jobs, homes, clothing, posessions, friends, families to move to an environment free of chemicals. MCS sufferers, she says, suffer "profound physical pain" and may commit suicide.

The stories related by Zwillinger are all basically the same. Most of the people she describes, from all walks of life, have come in contact with chemicals at home or at work - not necessarily from home or work - get progressively more and more ill. Eventually they conclude that to feel some degree of better they must move to a chemical-free environment, which usually means virtual isolation from almost everyone, living in cars and trailers with the barest of necessities that modern life has made most of us take for granted. Zwillinger says that 80 percent of the MCS suffers who have moved to the Southwest where it is reportedly easier to live with MCS, are homeless. Even five acres wasn't enough space for Zwillinger to escape the "laundry smells, wood-burning stoves, barbecues, pesticides and automobile fumes" that drifted to her specially built "environmentally 'safe' house."

The very brief summaries of how MCS has affected these people are touching. "There but for the grace of God. . ." you say to yourself. Then you think, "do I know someone who suffers from MCS?" "Do I know someone who might be predisposed to MCS?"

If 30 percent of Americans suffer from mild to severe MCS, and only the severe cases become recognizable, how many of our family, friends and acquaintances with allergies are actually suffering from MCS? Could what the allergist says is an unspecified allergy be MCS? When someone walks into a shopping mall and almost immediately gets red in the face and starts to wheeze, could that person be suffering from MCS? Who knows!

More Information

MCS source information

American Council on Science and Health Special Report: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, by Thomas Orne, Ph.D. and Paul Benedetti, 1991.

One Description of MCS

MCS Resources, for people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity/Environmental Illness. Overview of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and its relationship to housing, MCS Housing - Connecting the Real Estate Community and people with MCS, The Safer Travel Directory, Other Resources.

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