Tag Archives: Human Rights

Chemical injury can happen to anyone.

(Note: Don’t miss the resources list at the end of the post.)

By Linda Sepp

It’s really hard to allow myself to think about the implications of my current situation. I’m forced to beg for un-petro-chemically-polluted air, water, food, clothing and housing.

Seems most people would rather not change their habits, both belief and practical, that they’d rather stubbornly maintain the belief that the government is protecting them, that this could never happen to them, that there must have been something bad I did to be in this position, that otherwise the safety net would be providing the help I need.

Chemical injury can happen to anyone. Some of us get cancer, or asthma, or alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or MS, autism, ADD, or ADHD. Others develop Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (sensitivities is a misnomer–multiple chemical hells would be more apt) or Environmental Sensitivities, as it is more commonly called in Canada (MCS/ES).

What this means is that our bodies are negatively affected by minute quantities of chemicals. Sometimes it’s more of an annoyance on par with seasonal allergies, but often, when the body cannot escape exposures, the symptoms become completely debilitating and life threatening. Think being drugged and unable to think or function, in pain for weeks, and the only things that help are clean air, food and water. Things that are in short supply now, things we have no control over unless we are wealthy enough to buy 100 acres in the middle of no-where, so that someone’s dryer vent or pesticides don’t blow toxic chemicals our way, a place to have our own safe home with air and water filtration systems… things most people don’t notice because they are themselves covered in so many chemicals, living and working in neuro-toxic environments, finding it harder and harder to get by themselves, even begrudging our need for those things as frivolous.

So we become the hidden and often homeless. Invisibly disabled, abandoned, ignored and ridiculed. How is it possible that inhaling anyone’s laundry product or body spray could disable someone for over a week? That there are no clothes that are chemical free? That all housing has been allowed to be completely contaminated by useless chemical residues allowed into fragranced personal care or cleaning products, or worse yet, those so called air-fresheners? How could a few inches of some simple caulk render someone semi-comatose for 4 months? How are neuro-toxic, carcinogenic, endocrine disrupting chemicals allowed into things we slather onto our bodies, wash our clothes with, rinse into our water supplies, in our foods, and in building materials? Synthetic petro-chemicals that will injure people’s brains and central nervous systems? How indeed.

Protecting Industry is more important than protecting public health. It is that simple. The same chemical industry that creates all the toxins that cause so many chronic or otherwise debilitating illnesses, also supplies the pharmaceutical companies with synthetic petro-chemical ingredients to make drugs that will hopefully alleviate some of the symptoms of our damaged bodies without killing us completely in the process. This is called making a killing financially and keeping the economy growing.

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