Tag Archives: multiple chemical sensitivities

Ontario Centre of Excellence in Environmental Health Project

Ontario Centre of Excellence in Environmental Health

Business Case Proposal Project

I’ve received the following email and attachments (copied below) which we are being asked to share:

Dear Friends of the ES/MCS Community:

 We have some very important and exciting news to share with you regarding the creation of a number of key health and social supports within the health care system for people who suffer from environmental sensitivities and multiple chemical sensitivities (ES/MCS).

 We are attaching the following:

1.     Letter which is self-explanatory with the latest news

2.     Questions and Answers Background Briefing document which describes Steering Committee of the Ontario Centre of Excellence in Environmental Health Business Case Proposal project.

Please read this very important information.

Best wishes,

Denise Magi, V-P MEAO
http://www.meao.ca

AU 2011

What follows is copied from the PDFs for those who do not have easy access to downloading
(The PDF is also available for those who prefer to download files)

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“Homesick” Update … MCS/ES Safe Housing

Here’s the new trailer for the film Homesick!

I am really looking forward to seeing this important film. So many of us are in need of safe, non-toxic housing in areas with clean, non-toxic outdoor air. When we are unable to function “as designed” in “normal” or moldy housing or when neighbors do things like use pesticides, conventional laundry products, smoke and burn things, or when there are wireless devices nearby, because of the disabling effects these harmful and toxic pollutants have on us, then safe housing can make such a great difference, allowing us to be more fully human again…

From Dual Power Productions: “Homesick was originally filmed in 1995. Director Susan Abod was so sick that she couldn’t finish the film. In 2011, we came on board to help. We’re excited to bring Homesick to you on September 15, a film that is even more relevant now than when it started in ’95.”

“Homesick”

“Imagine your house is making you dangerously sick. Common products like paint, carpeting, new building materials and insecticides are now your worst enemies. Your bones ache, you’re feverish, you suffer from extreme headaches, disabling fatigue, mental confusion, asthma and nausea. The longer you stay in your house, the sicker you get but you can’t imagine how or where you’re going to find a safe home. You are one of the millions suffering from the silent epidemic of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS).

In Homesick, Susan Abod hits the road to learn whether other people with MCS are finding safe housing. On her journey to the Southwestern United States, Susan meets people from all walks of life. Their living quarters range from a house on stilts to tents and a teepee.

Join Susan as she explores a little known world and discovers how people are coping with this growing epidemic.”

More MCS Housing Resources:

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Human Rights, Property Rights and the Environment

Toxic Chemical Trespass

Human Rights and the Environment No More Toxic Chemical Trespass

Human Rights and the Environment
No More Toxic Chemical Trespass

Forgive us our (chemical) trespasses
By Carolyn Raffensperger
This is not a trespass in the property sense. It is a violation of our shared rights to a clean and healthy environment. Forgive us for destroying the Earth, our bodies, our communities, each other.
http://www.sehn.org/blog/?p=176

and

and this

What is done to the planet, is done to us…

Do We Not Have the Right to a Healthy Environment?

In Brazil, they now have the right to a healthy environment!

Learn more about Human Rights and the Environment here:

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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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Public Health Warning: Fragrance

Public Health Warning

Fragrance chemicals are linked to so many health problems now that they should be banned from indoor environments just like smoking.

Chemical Fragrance Public Health Warning

Resources

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Need Protection?

To Breathe, That Is…

I was looking up masks and found these ads…
I am a bit (but not entirely) speechless…

Find a Mask to Filter Fragrance From Work HVAC Systems

“Companies across the globe are including fragrances in their heating and ventilation systems. It’s part of what emotional branding companies such as DMX call a multi-sensory experience. Retail stores may use scent in combination with audio and visual systems to enhance brand awareness. Smell associations, say DMX, are so strong they can even increase worker productivity. Whatever the reason, these scent systems can make it difficult for employees working in the affected areas who have fragrance sensitivities.”

While it won’t be possible for all workers in controlled scent environments to wear respirators, for those who can, we have a few suggestions:

http://blog.pksafety.com/a-respirator-mask-to-filter-out-fragrance-from-the-hvac/

I do know people who have to wear a mask just to go to work. It’s a horrible way to have to live when toxic chemicals are used everywhere everyday by almost everyone, and so much worse when pumped into the air deliberately. In fact, I don’t think anyone with MCS/ES or respiratory symptoms could work (or visit or shop) in an environment with deliberately pumped in fragrance chemicals, even wearing a mask.

That’s why we have human rights legislation to provide fragrance or scent free policies for working environments (see the sidebar or resources page at the top). These policies actually end up benefitting everyone’s health, not just those of us who are “sensitive”. Soon (but not soon enough) that will change to basic public health legislation, as it has for smoking.

Some multi-unit housing complexes have introduced smoke free rules, but so far there are very few housing options with fragrance free rules. We need them. Wearing a mask all day and night just isn’t feasible or possible, even if we tolerate the (mostly synthetic) materials they are made of, which many of us don’t.

Did you know there are masks for kids? These just make me really sad…

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Event: MCS/EI/EHS, Housing & Human Rights: Press Conference

Derek Shanks is a 38 year old Toronto based black & white street and documentary photographer.

He recently photographed Olga, a woman who has commented here on my blog at times. The photos and some of her story can be seen on his blog:

All That I Am, All That I Have

Olga also let me know about an event she is organizing for the morning of Tuesday April 16th, 11am, if any of you are in Toronto and can attend to lend support.

Event details are on facebook:

MCS/EI/EHS, Housing & Human Rights: Press Conference

You might be “SENSITIVE” to pollution!

Do you breathe?

sensitive to pollution 4

Are YOU “sensitive” to pollution?

Are YOU
“sensitive”
to pollution?

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