Chris.Brown@f113.n163.z1.fidonet.org (Chris Brown) (02/09/91)
Index Number: 13627
You should also be aware of an article in the Journal of American Medical
Association (26 December 1990) which was written by some apparent
neophytes to environmental sensitivities. Three professionals found that
65 per cent of persons diganosed as having "environmental illness" by
"clinical ecologists" were found to have psychiatric problems. From this
article a number of newspapers have etrapolated that "environmental
illness" is not real, and that peorsons claiming to have it are mentally
ill. Your nuro is likely to come across this article if he/she takes
your inquiry seriously enough to do a bit of research.
The study conducted did not assess whether the psychiatric illness was a
cause or the result of chemical sensitivities, and the article in JAMA
neglects to point out that in many parts of the world chemical
sensitivities are seen as a cause of central nervous system dysfunction.
The logic of the article is parallel to saying that brain tumours are
caused by mental illness, simply because a large percentage of persons
with brain tumours exhibit psychiatric symptoms.
.
Honest to God, I shudder to think what is happening to persons with
sensitivities in the United States as a result of the arbitrary
statements in the article, which poses as a sensible look at a subject,
but is based on assumptions with no evidentiary basis.
.
I'm not saying that trauma doesn't affect the immune system, but simply
that the article itself arbitrarily calls into question the legitimate
and (in other places) recognized experience of human beings. It is a
perfect eample of the kind of article that was published in Canada five
or ten years ago, eamples of which have been directly implicated in
several suicides of persons with these problems who used to be told they
were imagining experiences which are as obvious as someone standing on
your foot. The emperor's clothes are white.
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