Casualties of Progress

Personal Histories from the Chemically Sensitive

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The enormous increase in the use of new chemicals since World War II has led not only to the pollution of the outdoor environment but also to a sharp decrease in the quality of indoor air in the home and workplace. As a result, more and more people are developing a condition known as multiple chemical sensitivity, or MCS. These people are made ill by exposure to even low levels of the chemicals found in perfume, air fresheners, cleaning products, fabric softener, diesel and auto exhaust, new carpet, paint, and other products.

This collection of stories from dozens of chemically sensitive people illustrates the devastating effects that MCS has had on their lives as, with varying degrees of desperation, they seek to regain their lost health. Beauticians, housekeepers, house painters, college professors, factory workers, physicians, Gulf War vets, nurses, secretaries "whatever their occupation may have been" their lives have never been the same since MCS hit them.

The stakes are huge in the controversy over Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. Corporations are extremely concerned, and understandably so, about the potential for increased liability and decreased profits. The cosmetic, carpet, pesticide, tobacco, paint, and construction industries, to name only a few, appear to be using their tremendous financial resources to convince the public that MCS is merely "chem-phobia."

Thus those whose lives have been destroyed by MCS are caught in a nightmarish limbo: no one wants to believe that there is a biological basis for MCS until more medical studies have been done, and no funding is available to carry out such studies because so many elements of society believe it is "all in their heads."