MCS/ES Awareness Month 2014

 It’s that time of year again. Welcome to MCS “Awareness” Month!

Barriers to access can be physical, attitudinal or systemic. Conveniences can also create barriers. If you are unable to remove a barrier to accessibility, consider what else can be done to provide services to people with disabilities. No-one should live without safe access to the necessities of life.

What is disability? (Ontario Human Rights Commission)

“Disability” covers a broad range and degree of conditions, some visible and some not visible. A disability may have been present from birth, caused by an accident, or developed over time. There are physical, mental and learning disabilities, mental disorders, hearing or vision disabilities, epilepsy, drug and alcohol dependencies, environmental sensitivities, and other conditions.”

Removing barriers and designing inclusively

Persons with disabilities face many kinds of barriers every day. These can be physical, attitudinal or systemic. …

Identifying and removing barriers also makes good business sense. As well as meeting the needs of customers or employees with disabilities, removing barriers can also help other people…

Employers, unions, landlords and service providers can start by doing an accessibility review of their facilities, services and procedures to see what barriers exist. You can then make an accessibility plan and begin to remove the barriers.

It is also helpful to create an accessibility policy and a complaints procedure. These steps will help you remove existing barriers and avoid making new ones. The best way to prevent barriers is to design inclusively…

Barriers aren’t just physical. Taking steps to prevent “ableism” – attitudes in society that devalue and limit the potential of persons with disabilities – will help promote respect and dignity, and help people with disabilities to fully take part in community life…

The duty to accommodate

Even when facilities and services are designed as inclusively as possible, you may still need to accommodate the individual needs of some people with disabilities. Under the Code, unions, landlords and service providers have a legal “duty to accommodate” persons with disabilities. The goal of accommodation is to allow people with disabilities to equally benefit from and take part in services, housing or the workplace.

Accommodation is a shared responsibility. Everyone involved, including the person asking for accommodation, should work together, exchange relevant information, and look for accommodation solutions together…

Some Resources:

MCS/ES Statistics

MCS/ES Symptoms and Environmental Incitants

The effects of invisible waves

Wireless Safety Standards… Safe For Who?

THE BIOINITIATIVE REPORT 2012 on Electromagnetic Fields (ELF and RF)

That fragrance? It’s not fresh!

Property Manager’s Guides to MCS

NCIL Environmental Health Barriers Toolkit

Accessibility, Human Rights and MCS/ES

Accessible Customer Service – What to do When A Store is Too Polluted to Enter

Report: RECOGNITION, INCLUSION AND EQUITY – THE TIME IS NOW

Big News for Ontario

Air Quality and Accessibility in Health Care; Why Aren’t All Health Care Providers Fragrance-Free?

Conveniences that disable people or cause chronic illness and disease are NOT convenient for those who are injured by them, or for their friends and families.

I don’t blame the people who buy and use the products, materials and devices that are causing health harms (unless they continue to use them after they’ve been asked not to), rather I blame the industries and the government reps who allow the harms to continue, long after enough evidence to show that significant harms to health exist.

Remember the tactics of the tobacco industry? Petrochemical, wireless and other  industries are using the same tactics to delay or eliminate regulations that would reduce easy profits, and bury their heads in the (legally constructed) sands regarding any damages to us that they may cause.

See MCS Under Siege for some history… It’s long past time to move on. Too many people have been injured. Let’s prioritize each others health and well being over industry profits and do what we can to ensure future generations have a chance at a healthy life.

Removing barriers to access means creating and enforcing policies to eliminate petrochemical fragrances and other unnecessary harmful chemicals and materials from indoor environments and products, as well as maintaining wired telecommunications networks instead of wireless, which now expose almost the entire population of the world to non-stop, electromagnetic fields and radiofrequency radiation exposures at levels with clearly established bioeffects, in a way never before experienced by society.

Once a person is injured and develops MCS/ES, there is a need to get away from these exposures, as the daily exposures become debilitating. A growing number of people (including children) are affected in ways that increase with durations and quantities of exposures, but can subside so that people can function fairly normally when the sources of exposures are removed and the damages to brain and body processes can be treated.

Creating and providing medically required healthy environments that are free of toxic and wireless trespass for people with MCS/ES, benefits everyone and harms no-one. These relatively simple steps  also prevent currently healthy people from developing MCS/ES or other chronic, environmentally linked health conditions.

Preventing exposures benefits everyone, not just those of us who detect the dangers before others do.

♥

Let’s not forget…