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Good news that we are getting more coverage. All our work for years is paying off in terms of media paying attention. I have spent extensive time with 2 media people within the past couple months, plus a psychologist who contacted East Bay Pesticide Alert (www.eastbaypesticidealert.org if you want a lot of important info on pesticide dangers and alternatives) having begun to understand that kids being diagnosed up the wazoo with "behavioral problems" and then pumped up with pharmaceuticals are kids reacting to chemicals and then being dosed with more. She is a writer, and she says she'd like to do some writing for EBPA in her position as psychologist, to help debunk the very approaches now taken for granted.
Fourteen solid years I've been doing community organizing around pesticides (had been doing more general promotion of organics since '85) and over the many years trying to help people see how pesticide poisoning so often morphs into a general MCS, and in the past year I feel like I've been seeing lightbulbs going off all over the place. But what Jill says about friends and family not getting that essential oils can make many of us as sick, at least in acute symptoms, as petrochemically-derived scents, is so true and so discouraging.
Maybe in terms of quality of life for those of us in this world trying to exist as much as we can in the rest of the world in whatever manner, it is as important on the personal level that we try to help people in our circles understand. I've seen some change with a dear friend, but still she is using problem products stuck on the idea that if they are sold at the healthfood store they are okay. She means well but has trouble "hearing" me. It's the relationships with friends and loved ones that can be hardest, I've found.
Still, having finally been okay'd for a parking placard specifically by my new doctor because of MCS (based on limb-shaking that I can experience when exposed, as well as blurry vision at those times), while amazingly she understood that this was important, it still took her a very long time to actually do it once I'd brought in the DMV paperwork, after she'd okay'd it. I expect it to change my life, and my kids' lives, in a small, yet dramatic way. I also expect to be up against a lot of harassment when using it, so I'm trying to brace myself for that since when I'm not actually wearing my mask, I look perfectly healthy to most people.
I'm sure everyone on this list knows what that's like. There are the days some of us can get out and about and are just thankful not to be in bed shivering and shaking, ready to puke, and there are the days at home to make up for those excusions. But during them we can look healthy to others, even when the nausea is horrid and our temperatures are crashing.
One thing I've been tracking pretty carefully of late is something which I would encourage others to consider doing, just like some people are monitoring blood sugar going wacky related to hormone-disrupting herbicides, for instance (yeah, me for that one, too) or blood pressure, I have been taking my temperature often, especially when out and about. I have been using a safety 1st (kids' aisle at stores) simple digital thermometer I can tolerate (under $10 and it gives a reading within about 10 seconds... I've tried it against the ones at the clinic... it's accurate within a couple tenths of a degree). I have had low-thyroid problems since I was first pesticide-poisoned in Sonoma (wine grapes, oats and hay). After years of all sorts of help (naturopathy, herbs, supplements, constitutional homeopathy, acupuncture, chinese herbs), my baseline temperature is finally back up to 98.1. But when I am exposed to chemicals (which happens on a very regular basis as there is still so much I cannot control) it tanks, often back down to 96. Even if not exposed to anything significantly bad to me for another full day or more, it can take 1-1/2 days to get back up to around 98. And my blood sugar levels jump up. Basically, I see it as my hormonal system tanking when I get hit, and there is the acute affect on top of the chronic effects. It's like my thermal regulation system is shot.
I'm curious to hear whether anyone on this list has monitored any of this stuff.
Max Ventura
----- Original Message -----
From: Barbara Wilkie
To: wilworks@...
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 5:34 PM
Subject: April's Alternative Medicine, article on fragrances by Jill Sverdlove
Dear Friends --
In April's issue of Alternative Medicine, you'll find an article by Jill Sverdlove. Should you get the magazine and wish to thank the editors for printing it, you may also want to consider some of these points expressed by Jill. They are from a message she wrote to one of her groups . . . and to me. Jill wrote:
So I finally just saw my Scent article in Alternative Medicine. Whole Foods is now carrying the April issue.
Because I hadn't seen the final version with their edits, although I was overall pleased with how it came out and the fact that it came out at all (!), there are a few things that I thought should be addressed - and hopefully people who are sensitive will write in and point some of these things out.
1) They added a line that people who are sensitive to scents "can't go to supermarkets or department stores." I had written that some can't even leave their homes because scent use is so ubiquitous and harmful to some people. I mentioned the problem of neighbor's dryer vents and how that makes it difficult to even be in neighborhoods. I think it's important for people to realize just how much lives can be impacted by scent use - not merely "oh we can't go shopping anymore!"
2) They didn't include my line about how essential oils and incense are typically not tolerated by sensitive people and that it's a problem even with holistic doctors who often use both. I understand we have to take baby steps with educating the public, but I am already finding that friends can't figure out that all the essential oils in their "natural" products can make people sick, too.
3) This one isn't a big deal and I understand why they cut it - but they took out the description of what happens scientifically when we inhale scents. I talked about the limbic systems and how exposures can cause immediate mood changes, like a whiff of perfume can make someone depressed or irritable. I thought it was important in terms of understanding how most reactions are invisible and affect behavior.
4) They changed the title - not sure if what they put on the cover is even clear ("Is Your Scent-sitivity Making You Sick?") but still - hey - it's on the cover!!
5) I had originally put in the OxyBall as a detergent alternative but finally found out from the manufacturer that they do have icky stuff in it so I asked them to pull it from the article - but it's still in there as an option. Oops.
6) The chemicals in fragrances, and "What you can do" is no longer in the article but instead is online and they just have a note to go online to see that info. Again, I understand because of space, although there is so much artwork that I thought it still could have been in the side bars.
So - of course I'm too close to the piece that it's hard to be objective and I'd love to hear feedback. And if anyone does read it, it would be great to see letters to the editor both acknowledging the importance of this information to increase support for people who are suffering from others' scents, and also perhaps mentioning that it goes beyond the inability to go to the supermarket but literally drastically changes people's lives...and that essential oils can often be problematic, too...
Jill
I've yet to lay my hands on a copy . . . but soon it will come to my Naturals store. Congratulations, Jill, and thank you for writing the article.
hugs,
barb
--
GREEN products, according to the
US Dept. of the Interior, "MUST NOT contain
petrochemical-derived fragrances."
http://www.doi.gov/greening/sustain/trad.html
http://www.doi.gov/greening/sustain/trad.html
EHN's Fragrance FDA Citizens' Petition 99P-1340
Write to the FDA . . . tell them to protect your health
by regulating the flavors and fragrance industry.
Put Docket Number 99P-1340 on your subject line.
E-mail FDA Dockets at fdadockets@...
Connie Barker, President of EHN
Barb Wilkie, EHN president emerita
topic: fragrances including fabric softeners
archived on "Your Health Matters"
http://www.healthylife.net
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