Tag Archives: MCS

Still Have Doubts About Industry and Governance?

How Can We Lay Them to Rest?

WHY?

WHY?

Why aren’t we being protected from pollution, radiation and junk or GMO foods?

Why is there still a “controversy” mentioned in any mainstream media article about MCS/ES?

Why are corporations getting their way so often despite causing harm?

Here are more articles that add to what I shared in Are There Any Doubts?

Many thanks to Colin Woodard and The Portland Press Herald for this enlightening series:

By Colin Woodard

THE SERIES DAY TO DAY

SUNDAY: For two years, public servant Patricia Aho has overseen Maine’s environmental protection. But whom does she really serve? Our seven-month investigation points to her former corporate clients.

MONDAY: Led by a former chemical industry lobbyist, the Maine DEP has stalled efforts to regulate substances that are potentially harmful to children and to the development of unborn fetuses.

TUESDAY: So-called “product stewardship” regulations – even recycling efforts with industry and bipartisan support – find staunch resistance at the Maine DEP, where a former corporate lobbyist has taken the helm.

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Canadian Human Rights Documents Archived

The Government here has been re-organizing and changing all of their web pages lately and some types of information seem to be disappearing.

The_Canadian_Flag

The policy on accommodating people with MCS/ES is no longer available on the website. This is what used to be there (2007-2013):

Policy on Environmental Sensitivities

This policy is issued to encourage employers and service providers to proactively address issues of accommodation for persons with environmental sensitivities.

Policy on Environmental Sensitivities

Individuals with environmental sensitivities experience a variety of adverse reactions to environmental agents at concentrations well below those that might affect the “average person”. This medical condition is a disability and those living with environmental sensitivities  are entitled to the protection of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. The Canadian Human Rights Commission will receive any inquiry and process any complaint from any person who believes that he or she has been discriminated against because of an environmental sensitivity. Like others with a disability, those with environmental sensitivities are required by law to be accommodated.

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RoundUp: You, the Kids, Pets, Neighbors, Food, Air and Water too

In my post about GMO labeling, I saw the need for a post dedicated to RoundUp aka Glyphosate, but it’s hard to separate the two (GMOs and glyphosate) since most GMOs are designed to be grown with the use of RoundUp aka Glyphosate.

As I was writing, this post kept growing and growing (unlike anything sprayed with glyphosate) and contains something like 42 external links, just in case anyone wants to go nuts exploring the research… There’s probably enough info here without following any of the links (but please do sign the petitions at least) and you can bookmark the post in case you ever need to go deeper.

I’ve tried to break up some of the links with a few photos and a video, so hopefully it doesn’t look too busy, but it got to the point I really don’t know how to edit it without just saying something like

“GMOs and RoundUp aka glyphosate = REALLY REALLY BAD for everyone
and everything except company profits”

and deleting the rest, but after all the work I did, I just can’t do that. Someone else might be capable of turning this into several posts, but I’m not that someone else. Yet… Who knows who I will be when I regain all my brain functions? Anyway, consider this fair warning!

There is so much evidence of harm (REALLY BIG LONG TERM HARM) caused by eating foods that have RoundUp aka Glyphosate used on them (which would be most  processed and packaged foods that are not certified organic), but we are also breathing it in, drinking it, and tracking it into our homes from lawns that it gets sprayed on, pissing it out of our bodies, and making people, pets and farm animals sick (or dead) as well as killing unintended plants with pesticide drift drift drift and more drift, since it easily blows off the property it is applied to, and then affects the plants, critters and people next door too (toxic trespass).

This stuff is designed to KILL, and it isn’t selective. It will kill some things quickly, and some things slowly (and we are composed of some things it can kill slowly).

“Each year in the United States more than 1 billion pounds of synthetic pesticides – insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides and fungicides – are applied in agriculture, homes, schools, parks, playgrounds and daycare centers. The National Toxicology Program has found in animal bioassays that a number of widely used pesticides are carcinogenic. Case-control epidemiologic studies have found consistent, modest associations between pesticide exposures in utero and in early childhood and acute lymphocytic leukemia, childhood brain cancer and childhood non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Rates of childhood leukemia are consistently elevated among children who grow up on farms, among children whose parents used pesticides in the home or garden, and among children of pesticide applicators.” ~ Philip J. Landrigan, MD, chairman of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine and professor of pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City

This may be one of the most insidious everyday poisons we are exposed to.

GMO Baby

Baby Formula Manufacturers Seek To Avoid GMO Labeling With Last-Minute Amendment (Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners)

“The herbicide sprayed on most of the world’s genetically engineered crops—and gets soaked into the food portion—is now linked to “autism … gastrointestinal issues such as inflammatory bowel disease, chronic diarrhea, colitis and Crohn’s disease, obesity, cardiovascular disease, depression, cancer, cachexia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and ALS, among others.”

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Is This Civilization? Is This A Dream?

What is civilized about having toxic chemicals in so many everyday products and materials?

What is civilized about extracting and using fossil fuels from the earth in ways that cause harm to all living beings?

What is civilized about denying health care and safe housing to people who need it?

When I saw this image, it spoke to me…

my dream NOT

Original
(artist unknown)

But it needed a slight revision… It wasn’t my “dream” to cut ties with civilization, it was my prescription!

So here is what I did and why:

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Tax Time: Medical and Disability-Related Expenses

Tax time is approaching yet again, and there are some disability related tax credits available in Canada, even for people with MCS/ES (some of which I will post below).

There are also tax credits offered to people who need to retrofit their homes for medical reasons:

Renovation or construction expenses – the amounts paid to make changes to give a person access to (or greater mobility or functioning within) their dwelling, when that person has a severe and prolonged mobility impairment or lacks normal physical development.

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Toxic Trespass and Other Images

Simple images with catchy phrases are popular these days. I recently discovered that the photo program on my computer has more features to play with, and my brain is finally capable of a little bit of exploring. Computer graphics is something very different from the manual art I’ve learned and practiced in my life, so my attempts will surely improve over time as I learn more about the technology, as well as recover my visual brain functions and co-ordination.

I thought I’d share some of my early  attempts here. Feel free to download and use in a not for profit way if you find them useful. However, if you want to use them in any money making ways, please discuss it with me first.

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Friendship and Fragrance

There are reasons people choose and enjoy isolation, but developing disabling adverse effects from the toxic chemicals in everyday products and materials is seldom one of them.

Do you know someone who says fragrances bother or disable them? Chances are pretty good that you do, now that 34.7% of the population experience adverse effects, ranging from mild to severe and disabling, from fragrance exposures.

When your friend, family member, or colleague informs you that something you use has an adverse effect on them, how would you respond?

Do you choose the friendship? Or the product?

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HRV and MCS… an update

The HRV (heat recovery ventilator) broke down in March.

September 25th was the 1st time they came to install the new one. At that time it was discovered that neither the people ordering the HRV, the people selling HRVs, or the people installing them thought to ask if the intake and exhaust vents would be in the same location on the new machine as on the old machine.

They were not.

After a lot of humming and hawing it was decided to keep the new unit and build out more ducts to make it fit. The duct material had to be ordered in. Apparently it was special and not in stock.

They finally came back, Friday the 16th of November. Now that it is too cold out to open windows without the heating system coming on (or freezing, I still don’t have adequate safe warm clothing, but that’s another story) they came back.

And wouldn’t you know it, there is something in the new system that isn’t good for me, and, it gets sucked through the ducts whenever the heat goes on, even if the HRV is turned off.

It might be because

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Chemical Industry Blocks Attempts to Create Healthier Buildings and Materials

Hot on the heels of several eye-popping reports about how toxic chemicals and industry bought politics are  impacting our health, including the Chicago Tribune’s expose of  how the chemical industry has succeeded in getting toxic flame retardants added to home furnishings in amounts that harm us but do nothing to prevent fires,  indeed making fires more toxic too, from Bill Walsh at the Healthy Building Network comes news of how the chemical industry is blocking efforts to create healthier buildings.

No wonder healthy housing is so hard to find!

Chemical Giants Target the USGBC: Part 1

Bill Walsh
Bill Walsh

By Bill Walsh, Executive Director
Healthy Building Network

May 22, 2012

The credibility of the US chemical industry has taken a beating in the press this month. But instead of apologizing, pledging to reform its ways, or disciplining a “few bad apples,” for being caught lying red handed, the industry has doubled down and launched an all out attack on the US Green Building Council.[1] The focus of the attack – modest amendments to the LEED Rating System, two voluntary credits that address the presence of endocrine-disrupting chemicals and other toxins in LEED-rated buildings.

continue reading at : Healthy Building Network