My M.C.S. Story
by Don Richard Paladin
During the summer of 1982 after living in a formaldehyde laden mobile home for six years, my lungs began to continuously ache. I went to a family doctor who told me I was formaldehyde sensitive and to move out of my mobile home. I did not realize at the time I was mildly chemically sensitive. I slept outside that summer until I moved and relocated to a safer home environment. For the most part, I could function in my teaching job as a resource room special education teacher as long as I kept things like marking pens out of my classroom environment.
That ability to function was to change when I was exposed to pesticides which had been sprayed in my classroom. In the fall of 1989 I discovered wasps in the classroom in which I taught. My school district maintenance came the next day to spray. I was told by the school district maintenance staff that the Ortho Wasp & Bee Killer was SAFE. It was sprayed into the fresh air vent intake for my classroom where the wasps had created their nest. After returning to my classroom I learned it was NOT SAFE for me.
The experience I had from the exposure to that pesticide is the worst in my life. My
lungs began to ache, I had blurred vision, I had seizures (small electrical spikes I could
feel in my head) and spasms, my level of environmental intolerance sky rocketed, and
I experienced the worst anxiety attacks. These were the only anxiety attacks I have ever
had in my life. This hell on earth lasted for about a week. Eventually I returned to
school but never at the level of tolerance I had before the spraying. Life for me after
that exposure was down hill as my sensitivities broadened and deepened even more. I
continued to try to teach but eventually had to take an early retirement
(disability) from teaching. During the last five or six years after the spraying I had to
reduce my contract or take a full leave of absence from teaching. The continual spraying
of the school system in which I
taught made the schools and eventually the world around me an incompatible
environment for me.
As a result of my exposure to the pesticides in that “SAFE” spray, I have
become extremely intolerant of any pesticide. My springs and summer are the worst time of
the year for me. I become extremely fatigued and have difficulty thinking clearly. As a
result of my forced elimination out of our toxic environment I have become a reluctant
activist committed to finding
and living in harmony with our Mother Earth.
We are living out of harmony with the natural order of things. Only safe alternatives should ever be used on this planet. As teachers we teach our students to acknowledge and learn from our mistakes. Humanity is receiving continuous "error messages" about the poison protocol. It is time for us all to recognize the errors of our ways and make this planet safe for all.
When UT Southwestern announced the results of their research in early April 1996 http://www.swmed.edu/news/gws496.htlm), I knew that we were getting closer to understanding the toxic effect and injury caused by toxic chemical cocktails that we have created without realizing the full implications. On June 17, 1999 when I saw the news release about Serum Paraoxonase research (http://irweb.swmed.edu/newspub/newsdetl.asp?story_id=144) by Dr. Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern, I knew that we were almost home. I am one of millions of people on this planet who is suffering the consequences of a toxic approach to living. It has been difficult to help others understand because of the present conventional level of understanding about the effects of chemicals upon human beings. It seems that to be considered ill from toxic chemicals by the conventional definition of illness, one must be in an acute reaction or a terminal end organ stage of disease.
If one does not have cancer, allergies, or infectious disease, the assumption is that one must have a psychological problem. The belief for so many years has been that those soldiers who came back with war related problem in which there was no known organic cause "officially" suffered from a "war related" delayed stress syndrome. No one had found a cause. The official diagnosis from the Pentagon related to "Gulf War Syndrome" was that it was a "stress related mental disorder." Does the pattern sound familiar? Now when I see STRESS as part of any medical diagnosis, I immediately think this is an indicator that the medical professional does not know what is causing the symptoms. I understand the frustration of having an illness that can not be explained because it is not understood.
I have Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome(MCS)/with a Type II, Non acute, Disorder of Porphyrin Metabolism. I hope that we can help bring more light and further understanding to this phenomena and help prevent further injury to any man, woman, or child. I hope that an investigation of all the issues of a toxic world will bring light to the issues of chemical injury. I would like to tell my story from my perspective.
I had been a special education teacher for over twenty-two years . For the past nineteen years I have had a chronic illness called MCS. For most of that thirteen years while teaching with MCS, I had been able to continue to teach by maintaining control of my environment (eliminating toxic environmental triggers). It was when pesticides had been applied to my work station (classroom or building pod) , that I became too ill to teach. . I never realized how toxic chemicals would forever change my life.
When I was first exposed to pesticide in September 1989 by a direct application of Ortho Bee and Wasp Spray into the fresh air intake vent of my classroom, I became extremely ill. There has never been any other as traumatic experience in my life. For last six years in which I taught, I had to request leaves of absences and partial teaching assignments The fall of 1995 I was assigned to a building in which pesticides had been applied to my pod in June after school was out. The assumption was that it would not bother me. It did. I am now retired on medical disability from my teaching job.
My personal story by itself may not be significant. I wish I could say I was the only person in our school system (or our society at large) being impacted by toxic chemicals. This is not the case. It is true that the number who have reactions at my level are relatively few (I am hypersensitive to very many synthetic and toxic chemicals).
Since I have not been teaching, I have spent much time networking with others. It has been an eye opening and humbling experience. For example, I spoke with a former school employee in Seattle who had a Masters in Social Work. She had become ill from some chemicals in her school where she was an instructional assistant. She lost her job because she could not work. When I spoke with her, she was living in a room on First and Pine (our Skid Road) in Seattle because that was all she could afford on her welfare payments.
I have communicated with others chemically injured all over the U.S and the world. One cannot believe the damage to their lives that these chemicals have done. There are thousands of men, women and children all over the U.S. and the world becoming sick. There is no plan for prevention. This is mostly because there is NO RECOGNITION and little UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROBLEM.
Part of the problem has been "official denial" that MCS even exists. Many people who go to doctors tell them that they are having allergic reactions to chemicals. When the doctors tested them for antibodies for allergic reactions, most often they did not exist. Then these people with MCS (about 75% are women) are labeled as "neurotic females." I have heard that story several times. Right now, just saying that you have sensitivities to chemicals will move you right into a psychological case bin by many conventional doctors who don't understand the illness.
Another part of the problem has been from that vested interests who would lose economically from official recognition of the negative consequences of synthetic chemicals and products. Like those who have been injured by synthetic products, the pro industry MCS opponents have organized into lobbies, research institutes, and networks. They have organized to prevent official recognition of MCS. [See #464 (10/19/95): Cigarette Science [Multiple Chemical Sensitivity] at http://www.monitor.net/rachel/r464.html and #585 (02/12/98): A New Mechanism of Disease? at http://www.monitor.net/rachel/r585.html .] Still the realization of any truth is inevitable. No obstacle will prevent its recognition.
What some researchers are finding out is that many of us with MCS do not have allergic reactions--what is happening is that these chemicals are interfering with the natural metabolic processes.[See "Enzyme key to reaction, scientists say," Andrew Wineke, Everett Herald, Tuesday, August 4, 1998 at http://wsmcsn.s5.com/Enzyme.htm) ] I have a simple explanation for what is happening. We are being poisoned. Please read UNDERSTANDING CHEMICAL INTOLERANCE.
I am convinced that the phenomenon of MCS/GWS/Disorder of Porphyrin Metabolism, etc., is a "natural" metabolic reaction to toxic chemical triggers to which through the evolutionary process we were never intended to adapt. Quite simply, we don't adapt to poisons, we learn to avoid them! I am convinced that toxicological research [See Dr. Haley's research listed above.] will prove this common sense hypothesis correct.
Think about this one. Would you drink a glass of pesticide or a glass of formaldehyde? Then why would you think it any safer to breathe in these toxic chemicals? There is an incorrect assumption that chemicals that are registered with the EPA are safe. The EPA does not register for safety.
Only in the last 75 years have so many "unnatural chemicals" and chemicals at "unnatural levels" been such a great part of our lives. In the process of our evolution, toxic chemicals were not part of the process of evolution and adaptation. Quite simply: many people with MCS do NOT have allergies; and, pesticides and many other toxic chemicals are not allergens, they are POISONS. The most intelligent adaptation to poison is avoidance.
Researchers are just now becoming aware of the SYNERGISTIC EFFECTS of combining toxic
chemicals. A recent example is the research done on the Gulf War Syndrome (an illness in
which chemical hypersensitivity may be one of its symptoms). In the research from
University of Texas Southwestern, two pesticides (DEET and permethrin) in combination with
an anti-nerve gas agent (pyridostigmine bromine--PB) caused neurological deficits in the
test animals similar to those reported by some Gulf War veterans. The interesting part of
the research was that taking only one of these toxic chemicals by itself did not induce
the damage--it was the combinations of the chemicals. Where in the real world are we only
exposed to and ingesting only one synthetic chemical? Researchers may be able to expose
living organisms to a single toxic chemical at a time in vitro: but, this is not a real
world experience that even comes close to replicating what happens in life. [Dr. Warren
Porter's recent research on the effects of low levels of combinations of pesticides,
herbicides, and nitrates in ground water shed much light on this issue. I will send an
email copy of Dr. Porter's interview: " What's In the Mix? "
by Keith Hamm Santa Barbara Independent, April 15, 1999, It is very enlightening.]
In the real world, the level of chemical exposure is incredible. It is in our food, our water, and our air. Just about anything that one buys has some artificially high levels of chemicals. Is it any wonder that our bodies are refusing to detoxify all these poisons?
There is a need to educate about something that will NOT GO AWAY. As people like myself become injured, we can assume the problem is theirs. We can deny that the real issue is greater than the few (relatively) who must leave their jobs, or, in the case of children, be schooled in their homes. I would like to see prevention of chemical injury to all people. I believe that our scientist and industry can create truly safe and biocompatible alternatives to the ones that are harmful.
Most people with M.C.S. do not want to eliminate safe chemicals and technology. We want to find safe alternatives to those that may be harmful.
In classrooms we want our students to learn from and benefit from their errors. We teach our students to pay attention to their errors and correct them. There are no problems without solutions. The first step to any resolution of a problem is the recognition of the problem. In the case of toxic chemicals, we are getting an ERROR MESSAGE. We need to adjust and adapt. We need to do everything in our power to help protect children, workers, and soldiers from potential injury from chemical exposure. We need to educate ourselves about the need to create a safe environment for all people to live, learn, and work.
Chemical injury (Gulf War Syndrome and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) is an equal opportunity illness. It has injured Blacks, Whites, and Asians. It doesn't care if one is a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent. We need to do all we can do to achieve understanding of this issue and prevent further damage. Thank you for your time and consideration. If you have any questions, email me at Sunergos@juno.com. See MCS LINKS at the http://wsmcsn.s5.com/links.htm for much information on MCS.
Revised 11-30-00
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