Tag Archives: discrimination.

MCS/ES: Societal Neglect = No More Fun and Games for Life on the Planet

 

Please take a moment to feel your heart beating.
Not everyone can do this anymore.

While some progress has been made, it’s still too little,
too late for far too many people.

This will not change until more people who have MCS/ES come forward with their stories, and more  healthy people start advocating and helping us in daily life, as well as pushing governments and medical institutions to pull their heads out of the sand (and industry pockets) and get into (at least) the 20th century as far as the very serious environmental and related health issues are concerned.

 

“Business as usual is a disaster”
Robert Watson

 

“Unfortunately, many physicians, employers, family, and friends
are in effect assisting in suicide through their disbelief.”
(and neglect)

“The Consequences of Disbelief”

“Twelve years as an advocate for the chemically sensitive has led me to the sad realization that a large number of chemically sensitive people have taken their own lives and many others are inching ever closer to that decision because they find it such a daunting task to locate a safe place to live or work and are rapidly running out of money. And at the same time that they are engaged in this herculean struggle, far too many of them are facing a discouraging skepticism from those about them.”

 

From
“Amputated Lives: Coping with Chemical Sensitivity”
2008
By Alison Johnson
With a Foreword by L. Christine Oliver, M.D., Harvard Medical School

 

Links to several chapters of the book, where stories about people’s lives are featured are available here:

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Review Finds Ontario Far From Accessible but Report Includes People With Environmental Sensitivities

The Honourable David C. Onley, the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario (2007-2014) was appointed to lead the Third Review of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

The report has now been released.

LISTENING TO ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES
REPORT OF THE THIRD REVIEW OF THE ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT, 2005

For most disabled persons, Ontario is not a place of opportunity but one of countless, dispiriting, soul-crushing barriers

Thanks to everyone who wrote in, those of us with environmental sensitivities have been recognized, and thanks to David C. Onley, we’ve been included in the report and the final recommendations:


In the SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS (on pg 80):

7. Ensure that accessibility standards respond to the needs of people with environmental sensitivities.

 

Other mentions of environmental sensitivities and details:

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What’s it Like to Have MCS/ES? Part 2: Curbs

MCS/ES (multiple chemical sensitivities / environmental sensitivities)  is a disability recognized by the Canadian and Ontario Human Rights Codes. There are over a million people with doctor diagnosed MCS in Canada, and so many more all around the world.

In the US, the latest prevalence study found that “among the population, 12.8% report medically diagnosed MCS and 25.9% report chemical sensitivity.”

The term ‘sensitivities’ seems to trivialize the condition in many people’s minds.

You may wonder what’s it really like then, if it’s not trivial?

 

 

From Amy RW Marsh:

I just wrote this analogy for a person who needed one in order to understand EI/MCS:

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What’s it Like to Have MCS/ES? Part 1: Arms, Brains, and Legs

MCS/ES (multiple chemical sensitivities / environmental sensitivities)  is a disability recognized by the Canadian and Ontario Human Rights Codes. There are over a million people with doctor diagnosed MCS in Canada, and so many more all around the world.

The term ‘sensitivities’ seems to trivialize the condition in many people’s minds.

You may wonder what’s it really like then, if it’s not trivial?

‘have legs or brain some days but not others’

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Ontario’s Task Force Releases its Phase 1 Recommendations to help people suffering from chemical sensitivity but health ministry abdicates again. Here’s a new take on that report.

An important update on the situation in Ontario, from Varda Burstyn, one of the original members of the Task Force on Environmental Health.

Please read and share, and find a way to put pressure on the elected reps, and if possible, get much needed media attention on this travesty of justice!

Note too that it’s not just for us, it’s a public health issue when over 50% of children have chronic health problems (including preschool kids with disabling anxiety), and something like 2/3 of the population on at least one pharmaceutical drug. We know that removing the cause of the problem results in better health than ineffectively trying to manage some symptoms!

When the canaries are ignored, public health suffers!

Dispatches from The Chemical Edge

Hundreds of thousands are sick – and after 33 years, Ontario government again declines to implement basic measures of care

 Extracted pages from task_force_on_environmental_health_report

“These three environmental health conditions typically have a devastating impact on the individuals affected. Unfortunately, our health care system too often has not helped them to the extent they need. The report of the Task Force sets out a course that will begin to remedy this. I look forward to seeing the Minister’s response to our report, and urge him to respond quickly and decisively. There is a need for strong leadership.“ Neil Stuart, Vice-Chair of the Task Force.

Few people have any idea of the number of people in Ontario afflicted with the debilitating, painful, often co-occurring and even life-threatening conditions of Environmental Sensitivity/Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (about 310,000), Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (about 215,000) and Fibromyalgia (about 196,800). But it turns out that, in total, there are a…

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Even the Cats Say: Let Wendy Stay!

 

Now that I have your attention

Here’s an awesome short video you need to see:

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Guest Post: Euthanasia and Disability Rights

Monique and I both live in Ontario, Canada, where there are new discussions happening both provincially and federally regarding “assisted suicide”, “death with dignity”, the right to die, and euthanasia (I may have missed a few other terms used).

We both have MCS/ES, and are confronted with systemic discrimination and barriers to access with almost every breath we take. Breathing is not optional. And we are not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of us in Canada, and millions around the world.

Open letter in support of Euthanasia and Rights for those with diseases that defy accommodations

Guest Post by Monique

I Am Easy to Ignore

I am female
I am over 60
I am divorced and alone
I am a student
I have lower employability
I have invisible disability
I was abused
I have depression + ADD.
I do not feel strong

The biggest and most painful ordeal is people who lack the ability to reduce the perfumes they wear in public… who value their vanity above the good of others. I cannot exist without the kindness of strangers. I do not want to live without my Right to life-sustaining air. I do not want to explain why I cannot breathe your scents and subsist in the lifestyle you value and have grown attached to. I cannot live in your chemical soup.

I am a canary. I have MCS. Although canaries have saved many from disasters, their deaths are never celebrated. I feel like I will soon be sacrificed so that many will continue to breathe good quality air.

I would like to give a voice to those canaries. I’d like to call upon every canary on this planet to stand up and be counted. I want every canary not to die in vain. Continue reading

Ottawa environmental doctor disciplined for treating suicidal teen with vitamins

Bad news!

I wonder how many people commit suicide due to pharmaceutical drugs that are prescribed?

How many of the doctors whose patients commit suicide due to the pharmaceuticals they prescribed are disciplined?

Dr. Armstrong has helped a lot of people over the years, people that other doctors were unable to help, or worse, subjected to harm.

Finding doctors that don’t harm people with environmental and chemical “sensitivities” (from ignorance, disbelief, or even inadvertently, while others take their oath to do no harm as an excuse to do nothing) is nearly impossible. Too many of us are forced to go without health care as a result.

Although it seems that her approach was lacking in this case (we don’t have all the details), and my condolences go out to the family who lost a loved one, in addition to the hypocrisy of not disciplining other types of doctors after patient suicides, the closing statement in the article is propaganda that will inflict harm on people whose needs are not being served by the current system:

“Critics, including many doctors, say sometimes there’s no evidence that something is dangerous because it actually isn’t dangerous, and trying to find environmental sources for particular afflictions can mean ignoring real problems.”

The critics are usually from the petroleum/pharmaceutical industry and have a lot to lose if MCS/ES is officially understood.

All too often now, ignoring the man-made environmental sources of adverse health effects means ignoring the real problems, and countless people, including children, are suffering as a result.

(continued in the comments, I don’t have the reblogging format down yet)

MCS: A Life Altering Condition (Video)

 

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A Life Altering Condition

Produced and Directed by Alison Johnson
1:09:28 minutes

Note from Alison Johnson:

“Since 1998, I have made three long documentaries and three short ones. During this fifteen-year period, I have gained a much deeper understanding of multiple chemical sensitivity and its great impact upon so many lives. This new composite film contains the best and most effective sections of my six earlier films. I have chosen carefully which experts and patients to use from my earlier films so that this new film will be an effective way of helping people to understand multiple chemical sensitivity. The film contains footage of interviews with four members of Congress as well as with many important physicians.”

More info and a list of physicians appearing in the film:
http://www.alisonjohnsonmcs.com/multiple-chemical-sensitivity-a-life-altering-condition-dvd.html

Transcript:
http://chemicalsensitivityfoundation.org/multiple-chemical-sensitivities-life-altering-condition-transcript.html

mcs-a-life-altering-condition

Much gratitude to Alison Johnson for all of her work over the years.

A Story That Needs To Be Heard: Part 2

Noise Sensitivity and “Frequency Effects”

beachy 1

The following sound-video is 6 1/2 minutes long and adds some detail to one of the health challenges described in

A Story That Needs To Be Heard: Part 1

(please listen to Part 1 first, if you can)

Here is Part 2

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