Tag Archives: fibromyalgia

Open Letter to the Ontario Minister of Health and the MOHLTC

Posted on March 28, 2018 | 11 comments

Dear Minister of Health, we’re ready for action!

According to official statistics:

250,000 Ontarians had been diagnosed with MCS in 2014
and the discrimination is still systemic in 2018

SUBJECT: Accommodation for People with Disabilities

Honourable Helena Jaczek, Minister of Health (at hjaczek.mpp@liberal.ola.org )


On September 29, 2017, Ontario  quietly released the report “Time for Leadership: Recognizing and Improving Care”  for those with myalgic encephalomyelitis /chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and environmental sensitivities /multiple chemical sensitivity  (ME/CFS, FM and ES/MCS). This report  was produced by the Task Force on Environmental Health for the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.

The report found that throughout the Ontario health care system and in society at large, there is:

• a lack of recognition of the seriousness and severity of these conditions
• a profound shortage of knowledgeable care providers
• a dearth of clinical tools to support and guide care
• a discouraging shortage of services and supports for people living with these conditions
• an absence of support for family caregivers

The lack of knowledge and appropriate accessible care has devastating effects on Ontarians struggling with ME/CFS, FM and ES/MCS.

Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Action, Environmental Health, Health Care, Human Rights, Policy

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Corporate Gaslighting and Conflicts of Interest at the Women’s College Hospital

Posted on November 5, 2017 | 8 comments

I saw something that shocked me, and I don’t know how anyone involved with this could have thought it was a good idea.

This is what I saw

If you are a Canadian, you will probably understand.

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It’s pretty much the same thing as this (slightly revised) image:

(pretend it’s done all the way)

What would you think if you saw that?

Shoppers Drug Mart is the antithesis of scent or fragrance free!

 

Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Disability, Environmental Health, Fragrance, Health Care, Human Rights

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Province of Ontario Interim Report on ME/CFS, FM, and MCS/ES

Posted on October 2, 2017 | 14 comments

The Province of Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long Term Care’s long awaited Environmental Health Task Force Interim Report has finally been released!

“We found that, throughout the health care system and in society at large, there is:

•a lack of recognition of the seriousness and severity of these conditions
•a profound shortage of knowledgeable care providers
•a dearth of clinical tools to support and guide care
•a discouraging shortage of services and supports for people living with these conditions
•an absence of support for family caregivers.

The lack of knowledge and appropriate accessible care has devastating effects on Ontarians struggling with ME/CFS, FM and ES/MCS.

…

For those living with ME/CFS, FM and ES/MCS, the lack of recognition of these serious and debilitating conditions is as harmful as the lack of treatments. …

We urge the Minister to act now to raise awareness of these conditions and address the barriers that keep people with ME/CFS, FM and ES/MCS from getting the care and services they need.”

…

From the press release:

Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Action, Environmental Health, Health Care, Human Rights, Policy

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Published: “Invisible Barriers, Invisible Disabilities, Invisible People”

Posted on June 29, 2017 | 7 comments

My article “Invisible Barriers, Invisible Disabilities, Invisible People”   is now available to read in the

Special Issue on Ecopsychology and Environmental Sensitivities:
Chemical, Electrical, and Beyond

All the articles in the entire special issue will be available for free until Sept. 5  2017, which is unprecedented access!

Please check them out and share as widely as possible!

 

Table of Contents:

Continue reading →

7 Comments

Posted in Disability, Environmental Health, Environmental Sensitivities, Human Rights, Public Health

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Dr Molot Urges Everyone to Support the Canaries

Posted on May 13, 2017 | 11 comments
Please take a minute and eleven seconds  to watch this video from Dr.  John Molot where he talks about MCS (multiple chemical sensitivities) and how we (the people who developed MCS) have been stigmatized and that we really are canaries. He speaks about some of the other serious health problems the chemicals that disable us are causing in those who do not have MCS.
 .

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11 Comments

Posted in Education, Environmental Health, Health, Human Rights, Public Health

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MCS/ES Awareness Day Projects: Request for Submissions

Posted on April 15, 2017 | 7 comments

Marie Leblanc, an artist from Winnipeg who is living with MCS/ES herself, is compiling information and statements to put into an MCS awareness project. There are two  ideas  to contribute to.

The easier one is to share  shorter personal statements about your life with MCS/ES and related environmentally linked health conditions,  which will be projected onto walls in a way similar to the photo below.

 

The other project involves answering 6 questions:

Continue reading →

7 Comments

Posted in Action, Environmental Health, Environmental Sensitivities

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Understanding Environmental Health

Posted on March 20, 2017 | 3 comments

Dr Stephen Genuis is someone who has an excellent understanding about  environmental and public health.

He  now has a new website and has also started an easy to understand  video series on environmental health, where he  discusses causes, effects, and what can be done to help the growing numbers of us who experience environmentally linked chronic health challenges.

By “those of us” I (and he) mean many more people than conventional medicine considers to be environmentally affected, and he gives excellent examples of this  in the videos (as well as in his research papers).

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Education, Environmental Health, Health Promotion, Public Health

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Fragrance Chemicals: Weapons of Environmental and Human Destruction

Posted on December 29, 2016 | 5 comments

We are surrounded by and saturated with fragrance chemicals now.

but-1

Fragrance Chemicals:
Weapons of Destruction

(if you have been impacted, you know this is not hyperbole)

Most fragrances are now are made from oil and gas based chemicals.

They are in our personal care, laundry, and cleaning products. They are in garbage bags, candles, and shoes. They are in toys, fire-place logs, and diapers. They are in toilet paper, stationary, and stickers. They are in clothing, pillows, and jewellery. They are in foods, plastics, and medicines. They are in kitty litter, trash bags,  and vacuum cleaner bags. They are even in pesticides, where they are regulated by the EPA, but they are not regulated by anyone when they are added to all the other products we use and are exposed to!

There’s no escaping fragrance even when housebound, because so many  deliveries of even the basics like food, arrive fragrance contaminated!

We were not designed for 24/7 exposures to toxic chemicals

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How much more evidence is needed before something is done about the human and environmental health problems caused by fragranced productss?

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Here’s an info dump with some relevant links and videos:

Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Air Quality, Brain, Chemicals, Child Health, Disability, Environmental Health, Fragrance, Human Rights, Pollution, Public Health

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Why?

Posted on August 12, 2016 | 3 comments

Why do people who lose their health from being polluted and poisoned for profit end up being forced into isolation and invisibility in order to try to remain alive?

mcs prison visit crying-game 2

Why?

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3 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Disability, Environmental Health, Environmental Sensitivities, Pollution

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Are the Wrong People in Solitary Confinement?

Posted on August 9, 2016 | 15 comments

Who should be isolated?

The poisoned or the poisoners?

When we develop MCS/ES, we are told to avoid the triggers that disable us. Yet, far too often, fragrance chemicals are the biggest triggers of disabling effects, yet they are in everything, and everywhere now.

To follow doctors orders, and to have some quality of life (like the ability to look after ourselves), when others at work or elsewhere won’t stop using toxic products,  we have to stay isolated in our homes (if we’ve found a safe one).  It’s just like being in prison… but for crimes we did not commit.

WE who are immediately disabled by these harmful pollutants are being forced into prisons of isolation for crimes the chemical and fragrance industry are committing, like when they hide  oil and gas industry toxic waste chemicals into everyday products and materials, without listing them on labels, they are causing a public health crisis, a crisis that  most people are unaware of.

WE who become disabled are being imprisoned for their crimes of saturating people (and our air and water) with toxic chemicals, and so, if we are to be able to see our friends and loved ones, we need to be protected from them, in environments kind of like this:

 

Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Accessibility, Air Quality, Chemicals, Environmental Health, Toxic Trespass

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