Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!usc!apple!olivea!oliveb!bunker!hcap!hnews!163!223!Chris.Brown
From: Chris.Brown@f223.n163.z1.fidonet.org (Chris Brown)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: RE: M.S.
Message-ID: <15477@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 6 Nov 90 04:16:08 GMT
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Index Number: 11573

It was very interesting to read your physicians advice about
refraining from certain foods to possibly ameliorate MS problems.
We have a couple of members in the Ottawa Chapter of the Allergy
and Enviornmental Health Associaiton of Canada who were diagnosed
as having MS, who occasionally go back into their symptoms when
exposed to certain chemicals or foods.  There is one woman who
looses the use of her legs whenever she comes into town.  She and
her doctor have tracked down petrochemical fumes as triggering her
symptoms, among some other substances she is sensitive too.  That
isn't to say her problem is caused by petrochemicals...It would be
more accurate to say she is sensitive to some chemicals, and that
in ther case her symptoms are the same as those of some MS
patients.

After a couple of decades of being told such problems are "all in
the mind", canadians with sensitivities now find we have a health
Minister who has turned his department around, and who has stated,
categorically, that in ambiguous cases, chemical sensitivities
should be ruled out before a psychiatric work-up is done.  The best
report on the subject in the U.S. was done by Nicholas Ashford
(M.I.T.) and Claudia Miller (UofTexas) for the New Jersey State
Department of Health, Dec. 1989.

SSensitivities were found to affect pretty well any system of the
body by reports in Ontario, Nova Scotia, Britain, New Zealand, and
the World health ORganization.  Unfortunately, in some parts of the
world (ibcluding some States of the land where poeple are free and
happy) doctors and health officials seem more interested in
covering up the fact that previous statements, which caused milions
of doallars damages, were not only wrong, but irresponsible,
unethical, illogical, unscientific, etc etc etc.

Although chemical sensitivities can affect any system of the body,
one point that critics have bee very right on has been to
ciriticise those who see sensitivities as the cause, and avoidance
of chemicals involved as the cure, for every instance of every
unexplained disease,  (Surprise, surprise, those who made these
over-stated health claims were mostly from california!!!)  But when
there is an unexplained chrinic health problem, certainly CERTIANLY
there is reason to check out whether a sensitivitity to either
natural or synthetic chemicals is causing the problem.  (We also
have several members who had previously been diagnosed as
epileptic, although again, I am NOT saying that epilepsy, in
general, is caused by sensitivities.)

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