DownloadPamphlet: Health Professionals can help!
March 10, 2008
P,O. Box 552 Inverness, CA 94937
Senator Dianne Feinstein One Post Street, Suite 2450 San Francisco, CA 94104
Dear Senator Feinstein:
My name is Patricia Rattray and I currently live in Inverness, California. From 1995 to 2003, I lived in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where I had the good fortune to meet and become good friends with Jose Cebrian. When I once had some difficultly with Social Security, Jose suggested that I write to you and mention his name as he was acquainted with you. I resolved the problem at the time without writing to you. Jose passed away five years ago and I very much miss the grace and color that his friendship lent to my days. I am fifty-three years old and disabled with Chemical Sensitivity. In the United States it is legal to discriminate against me and to damage me; I hope you can help to change this.
Today, I am listening to the song Everything That Touches You by The Association. Next to me an ozone machine is running; it clears the air enough so I remember '60’s air quality and I remember the feeling that everything was all right. I remember thinking the future was bright and if anything happened to darken it I was strong enough to stop it. Not only was I not weak but I could protect the weak.
For the seventh day in a row I am crying because I am hungry. I sleep on a blanket on the floor. I have no pillow. My only clothes are pants and a shirt, worn every day, and a pair of ragged pajamas - my retired clothes from last year. Periodically, I cough in a hacking painful way. I have a college education. I am sane, industrious, and a good person. I have never done anything to hurt anyone.
If my country were being attacked, there might be a chance of escape to neutral territory. But this war is undeclared. It has no physical battle lines. It is taking place in the mind of the public. It makes use of the same propaganda that wars always use and takes advantage of the same human weaknesses - fear, greed, suspicion. The occupied territory is public awareness. The domination is complete. There is nowhere to run to.
The condition of chemical sensitivity receives only discrediting and biased coverage in popular media and television. Through newspapers and television, the American people are given the impression that chemical sensitivity is a psychological illness or at least to be viewed with deep suspicion. An individual with chemical sensitivity is portrayed, by organizations with huge budgets and virtually unlimited access to the media, as someone trying to victimize society with a bizarre psychological need.
Via web pages and other media, couched in beneficent terms, friends, family and concerned individuals are encouraged to treat people with chemical sensitivity like psychiatric patients, to address them in a condescending manner, and to patiently do nothing. Uneducated physicians are instructed to ignore the Hippocratic Oath and to deny the patient appropriate treatment for this illness.
This campaign of disinformation also serves to deter people who are educating themselves on holistic health, or anyone suffering from unexplained or chronic health problems, from believing that they may need to avoid toxic chemicals, lest they burden themselves further with massive disapproval and rejection from their social network.
People who become afflicted with chemical sensitivity find themselves completely unprepared and immediately discriminated against in every possible way.
Because of conventional society's heavy dependence on chemicals, all at once the afflicted person is ill, perhaps gravely, without employment, without a place to live and sometimes even without money for food - all at the same time. There is no public assistance or any charitable organization in place. Specialized food and housing are necessary so existing organizations cannot usually be employed for assistance.
Dr. Pamela Reed Gibson, researcher on chemical sensitivity at James Madison University,writes, "As people disappear from a visible lifestyle and adopt coping mechanisms such as living on porches and in RVs, they approach the divide between those with and without homes. When they slide over that divide there is no record of it and they disappear."
Once in a while there is a little light on the subject in the news. During the presidential election, Theresa Heinz Kerry on a presentation carried on CSPAN, spoke of her sensitivity to perfume and other chemicals. I am affected much more severely. When I left the Environmental Health Center in Dallas, Texas, Dr. Rea advised me that if I did not find an environmentally safe place to live I would die.
Dr. William Rea is a cardiovascular surgeon and a Fellow in Environmental Medicine who founded the Environmental Health Center in Dallas, Texas in 1974. It is one of the best known clinics specializing in treatment of chemical sensitivity, with an international reputation for successful treatment of severe cases. Patients are referred to the clinic from all over the world including Germany and Japan.
Contrary to statements often placed in the media, a person affected with chemical sensitivity can always recover with appropriate treatment. The earlier the condition is diagnosed and treated, the better the chances are for recovery.
Dr. Rea writes, "at their onset, symptoms of chemical sensitivity are almost always reversible."
Among many patients attending the clinic in Dallas when I was there, I remember two women in particular, even more gravely ill than I was, both of whom fully recovered with appropriate treatment and returned to work full time within two years.
The fact that early recognition and treatment of chemical sensitivity leads to a better prognosis for recovery makes the propaganda placed in the media mortally irresponsible. Delaying the right treatment for anyone increases the chances of permanent disability or worse.
Dr Rea explains that although the symptoms of chemical sensitivity involve multiple systems and organs, "only one end-organ may ultimately be damaged as a result of repeated insults, and this can result in end-organ failure." The death certificate for such a person would list the end-organ failure as cause of death rather than chemical sensitivity.
Confinement of language on official documents hides the mortality rate from chemical sensitivity and keeps the real problem undocumented and unacknowledged.
I improved dramatically during treatment at the EHC-Dallas. In a month, I regained the ability to walk and talk correctly and to eat a range of foods without a strong allergic reaction [Clinic Overview]. When I no longer had funding to continue treatment, it was necessary for me to leave. That was approximately twelve years ago. Since then I have moved over 20 times and during some periods have had no home at all.
Typically, affordable housing is not environmentally safe housing. Paul Hunter, head of Healthy Homes for the Massachusetts’ Department of Public Health, noted, "in today's housing market, people usually have a choice of either affordable housing or environmentally safe housing, but not both." Without money for environmental supports, many times I have moved to avoid what were just temporary crises in my environment.
Those opposed to recognition of chemical sensitivity keep doubts alive in the media by focusing on obscure speculation and opinion. Mainstream media overlooks obvious authorities on the subject and goes to great lengths to bring in individuals who will aver chemical sensitivity "may be" psychological.
As reported in the American Chronicle on February 08, 2008, evidence-based, peer-reviewed studies are omitted from the media that have shown cardiac abnormalities, reactive upper-airway disease, thyroid and adrenal abnormalities, respiratory inflammation, vasculitis, thrombophlebitis, T-cell activation/impaired NK cell function/auto-immune disorders, sleep disturbance, impaired balance, reduced blood flow to the brain, gastrointestinal disturbance, somato-sensory abnormality, peripheral neuropathy, impaired Phase 1 and Phase II detoxification clearance, glutathione depletion, tinnitus, vitamin and mineral deficiencies1, neurocognitive decline, rhinnitis, sinusitis, abnormal metacholine challenge, and elevated levels of xenobiotics in patients with chemical sensitivity.
The campaign against recognition of chemical sensitivity is spearheaded by pharmaceutical companies, motivated to protect profits from yearly U.S. drug sales of 93 billion dollars, and chemical companies motivated to protect profits from toxic chemicals including pesticides, herbicides and fungicides for which yearly world sales totaled 7 trillion dollars in 1989.
Drug companies and chemical companies are frequently the same business entity. The pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly which manufactures Prozac, used to be part of DowElanco, the primary manufacturer of chlorpyrifos, a pesticide. The manufacturer of the allergy medicine Allegra also makes the insecticide Sevin. Monsanto, who manufactures Roundup and other herbicides, is a wholly owned subsidiary of a pharmaceutical company called Pharmacia. Zeneca manufactures pesticides and drugs, including drugs used to treat the conditions linked to pesticides. Pfizer and Abbott Laboratories make both pharmaceuticals and pesticides. BASF makes pharmaceutical ingredients and pesticides. Bayer manufactures aspirin and the pyrethroid insecticide Tempo.
Many pharmaceutical companies are members of the American Chemical Council (formerly the Chemical Manufacturers Association). The American Chemical Council functions to protect the industry by constantly monitoring public perception and responding to any increased concerns of toxicity with well-organized public relations campaigns, including insertion of pro-chemical messages in fictional entertainment programs and the introduction of pro-industry teaching materials in public schools.
In 1990, the Chemical Manufacturers Association vowed to work to prevent the recognition of chemical sensitivity out of concern for potential lost profits and increased liability if chemical sensitivity were to become widely acknowledged. It specifically committed to work through physicians and medical associations to accomplish this, stating that it was critical to keep physicians from legitimizing chemical sensitivity.
Legislation was proposed in 1996 that would have provided funding for a prevalence study on chemical sensitivity, an information and assistance program, an "800" telephone number, hospital accommodation guidelines, and an investigation of housing needs of people with chemical sensitivity, that are now conservatively estimated to number 45 million in the U.S. This was opposed by a Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis) lobbyist, a pharmaceutical company which also manufactures atrazine, an herbicide, and diazinon, an organophosphate pesticide, not to mention Ritalin, a stimulant prescribed for children diagnosed with "ADHD".
Drug company lobbyists now outnumber our members of Congress two to one.
Chemical sensitivity highlights the damage that toxic chemicals, like pesticides, herbicides and fungicides do to human health. Additionally, there is no pharmaceutical drug for chemical sensitivity. Recovery depends on the body's innate capacity to heal given pure air, food and water and a decreased body burden of toxic chemicals. Recognition of chemical sensitivity would re-educate the public about their own power to be healthy in a cost-effective way. Wide recognition of chemical sensitivity would motivate the public to fight for more protective legislation for themselves. Profits from drug and chemical sales would be adversely affected in a major way.
The chemical/pharmaceutical industry has completely interwoven itself with medical academics and medical research and in this way exerts a powerful control over health care in the U.S. Invention of drugs and costly health technology have become the focus of medical academics instead of public health.
In 1980 legislation was passed that allowed researchers and faculty members at federally funded universities and the university itself to enter into ventures and partnerships with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. These partnerships are very lucrative for the university staff and add substantially to their income. Now researchers whose findings collide with corporate interests, are finding out that academic freedom is no longer operational.
Drug companies also maintain influence over public agencies like the National Institute of Health. In a Pulitzer Prize winning story, David Willman of the Los Angeles Times, uncovered drug company payments to government scientists at the U.S. National Institute of Health. These payments included consulting fees and awards of stock and stock options. A ban on these payments was only instituted in 2005 in response to outcry after the story.
Approximately 30% of medical school training is funded by pharmaceutical companies. When there are no boundaries between industry and academic medicine, the business goals of industry influence the mission of the medical schools. In terms of education, medical students learn to rely on drugs and devices.
Industry influence continues after a physician has graduated and is in practice. As reported in the American Chronicle (March 2008), the biggest ten pharmaceutical companies spent $1.9 billion on promotional events alone in the year 2000. The average family doctor receives 28 visits each week from drug representatives who provide free samples and explain new findings from their company-sponsored drug trials. They spend $8,290 per doctor to improve their relationship between their sales representatives and the doctor.
Free events are held for doctors at posh resorts and expensive hotels to educate doctors about so-called new disease states, such as restless leg syndrome - which a doctor in Environmental Medicine would recognize as a symptom of chemical sensitivity induced allergies.[Watch Video]
Restless leg syndrome is one of many newly emerging health problems suffered by the American public that can be traced to chemical sensitivity and concomitant allergies.
"ADHD", now in epidemic proportion in children in the U.S., has been proven to be due to sensitivities to chemicals, dusts, molds, and pollen. This is of especially grave concern because of the number of children being treated with strong suppressive medications that have dangerous side effects.
Dr. Doris Rapp, a board certified pediatric allergist and author of numerous books, including "Is This Your Child?", a New York Times best seller, and "Our Toxic World: A Wake-up Call", has been writing and speaking publicly for over twenty years about how chemical sensitivity and allergies in children - and adults - can manifest as behavioral changes.
Dr. Rapp appeared on the Phil Donahue Show in 1989 [View Here], and on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1996 [View Here] where dramatic footage is shown of behavioral disorders triggered in children by exposure to substances to which they were allergic. This alone was striking; but more significantly, the children were then immediately returned to a normal well-behaved state with administration of homeopathic allergy extract. I witnessed the same phenomenon many times myself in the testing room at the EHC-Dallas.
Dr. Rapp, retired from practice now, lectures throughout the world. She recently spoke in Santa Cruz, California, stating,
"When I was trained in allergy, I knew about asthma, I knew about hay fever and I knew about exzema, itchy skin, and eyes; but I never dreamed that you could take a drop of a chemical or dust or mold or pollen and you could totally change someone's affect - they'd start to cry, they'd start to laugh, they'd get angry, they'd get vulgar, they'd bite, they'd hit, they'd spit - I produced that in my office - with one drop of allergy extract and they didn't know what they were being tested for.
I would create a hyperactive child that would bite its mother's arm right there in the office. I'd say, 'Well, we figured it out, Mom.' And then we would stop the reaction. The mothers would come in later and cry (in gratitude) because they no longer had bite marks up and down their arm. These problems are not rare, they are all over."
Dr. Rapp continues, "I am extremely upset about the fact that we are treating hyperactive children with these drugs that are so-called off-label and they have not been tested for safety. We have three- and five-year-old children who are dying of heart attacks and strokes because they have been put on one of these off-label drugs. They are committing suicide, the older children, on these drugs...I say get them on a diet that excludes highly allergic foods, get them an air purifier that will exclude the dust, molds, pollens and chemicals. Many people will be well in less than two weeks if they do that."
A mother on the Phil Donahue Show in 1996 testified regarding her eight-year-old son, "All we did was put an air purifier in the room and his IQ went up 19 percentile points."
Other epidemic illnesses probably attributable to chemical sensitivity include alcoholism and eating disorders. Dr. Rapp writes on her website, www.drrapp.com, "In my experience, eating disorders and even alcoholism can be related to allergies.... When you have food sensitivity, there can be a period when a food is inordinately craved. ...Men who are addicted to corn may drink a lot of beer and become alcoholics."
A good illustration of illnesses due to chemical sensitivity can be surmised from what people living in homes over Love Canal suffered which included depression, arthritis, intestinal problems, psychoses, asthma, allergies, and cancer. And if you look at the health problems complained of in "Delayed Stress Syndrome" by Viet Nam veterans, and those complaints called "Gulf War Syndrome", and the chronic health problems people involved in the 911 clean-up are suffering, - they all suffer the same complaints. And what they all have in common is exposure to toxic chemicals.
Aside from doctors trained in Environmental Medicine, who recognize and treat chemical sensitivity [not industry-controlled Occupational Health and Environmental Medicine], these groups of people have nowhere to go for medical help. Conventional doctors are trained in specifics, not generalities, so every organ of the body is assigned to a different specialist.
Authors such as John Taylor Gatto have begun to do ground-breaking work on how our system of public education is debilitating to citizens of our country. He points out that the focus in public schools on specifics keeps students dependent on others for the big picture. This throws a light on how otherwise intelligent physicians can be kept from recognizing new general disease states. This is eerily reminiscent of the futuristic picture of distopia described in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World where the Director tells new incoming medical students,
"'Just to give you a general idea,'...For of course some sort of general idea they must have, if they were to do their work intelligently–though as little of one... as possible."
A study done at University of Rochester School of Medicine in 2000 showed that medical students were taught to focus on defined disease states rather than total patient health and also instilled with an unquestioning regard for a system of hierarchical authority. Since extreme sleep deprivation is a part of a medical students training, rote repetition of messages taught in school become almost a matter of survival for the students.
I think medical students are also taught to hold the general public in low regard and to blame them for any puzzling phenomena. I offer as an example of this that in the 1980's when many women began to experience recurrent yeast infections (a symptom of chemical sensitivity), an intern explained to me what he had been taught about this, that "women are not wiping themselves correctly." When you can convince intelligent people that a large part of the public is deficient in this regard, it becomes the basis on which other skewed thinking can be built.
For instance the skewed thinking the pharmaceutical/chemical industry promotes that it is delusional to believe synthetic chemicals in everyday use can make humans sick. The industry continues to promote this idea despite overwhelming epidemiological evidence showing toxic chemicals injure human health:
At the turn of the century in 1900, one in 50 people had cancer. Now it is one in two or one in three.
If you live in a polluted city your chances of cancer go up tenfold.
People working in or living close to pollution-producing factories become ill and the incidence of illness decreases the more removed from the factory you live. In the factory, for example, women will develop endometriosis and then as the area gets further and further away from the factory you will have less illness.
Altzheimers didn't exist fifty years ago.
Diabetes is now epidemic, asthma is now epidemic, thyroid disease is now epidemic. They are also epidemic in dogs and cats.
Parkinson's disease, which effects over 500.000 people nationwide, has been linked to two organophosphate pesticides used on millions of acres of crops such as potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, corn, soybeans, cotton and fruit.
Studies show that children's incidences of cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma go up seven fold if toxic pesticides are used in the garden or inside the house.
APGAR Scores, a measure of the physical and neurological health of newborn infants, have decreased in the U.S. from a norm of 9 to 10 in the 1970's (10 is the highest), in upper middle class families, to 7.5. which used to be the range usually occupied by infants born to the very poor in the U.S. The APGAR test is routinely performed on newborns in the delivery room and assesses health in the five areas of heart rate, breathing, skin color, muscle tone, and reflex response. At the time this evaluation was done around 1996, the only newborns consistently scoring in the 9 to 10 range were born to poor mothers who had just arrived from Mexico.
Autism is up 200 to 400 percent country-wide and up 2000 percent in California, where a quarter of all pesticides used in the US are applied.
The uterine fluid that babies float in before birth has been tested and found to contain DDT, PCB's and lindane.
A study conducted at Harvard School of Public Health and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in November 2006 showed that fetal and early childhood exposures to industrial chemicals in the environment can damage the developing brain and can lead to neuro-developmental disorders (NDDs)—autism, attention deficit disorder (ADHD), and mental retardation.
Researchers stated in the report,
"The combined evidence suggests that neuro-developmental disorders caused by industrial chemicals have created a silent pandemic in modern society."
"One in every six children has a developmental disability, such as autism, attention deficit disorder or cerebral palsy, the effects of which may be life-long."
"This led to the recognition that environmental pollutants exert a range of adverse effects—some are clinically evident, but others can be discerned only through special testing and are not evident on standard examination, ... A pandemic of subclinical neurotoxicity is therefore likely to be silent—ie, not apparent from standard health statistics."
Studies in the UK at the Institute of Occupational Medicine on farmers who regularly handle organophosphate pesticides but who complained of no symptoms of poisoning showed that they suffered from mild brain damage. Their ability to think clearly and problem solve was impaired. [view reference]
Gatto maintains in "History of American Education" that business entities protecting monopolistic control of key industries attempt to keep the general public in the U.S. backward mentally. The findings of the Harvard study and the Institute of Occupational Medicine in the UK would not then be out of line with this agenda.
Recognition of chemical sensitivity is essential for everyone today because knowledge about chemical sensitivity alerts people to simple ways they can protect their own health. It also alerts the public to what legislation they need to work for to to defend their own health and interests.
Opposed to such recognition, the drug industry works hard to maintain public focus on "how to treat illness" rather than the cause. Yearly U.S. health care expenditures of 1 trillion dollars in 2007 show means and motivation to keep the public from discovering ways to maintain their own health. It takes vigilance to keep the public from discovering the obvious necessity of avoiding toxic chemicals. As Dr. Rapp illustrates, "If you have a nail in your shoe and it is causing you a sore foot, the answer is not a bigger bandaid."
The very inefficacy of pharmaceutical-controlled medicine leads to higher profits. When the public raises concerns about deteriorating human health, despite the technology danced in front of their eyes, the chemical/pharmaceutical industry points the finger at everything besides toxic chemicals and the inefficacy of pharmaceutical drugs. For example, something given popular press these days as contributing to sky-rocketing health costs is that poor people do not know how to read the labels on their medication or how to understand what their doctor tells them. This seems weirdly similar to the belief that many women lack basic personal hygiene skills.
Two solutions are being promoted by the pharmaceutical health care industry right now, under the guise of improving American health, that will actually inexorably lock people out of any meaningful health - especially the poor. The first is single-payer health care providers touted as "affordable health care". Conglomerate health delivery systems only prescribe pharmaceutical solutions to any illness. Requests for referrals to holistic practitioners like Environmental Medicine physicians are routinely denied.
John Robbins, best-selling author who first alerted a concerned public to the link between agriculture, health and environment, and a humanist so movingly on his topic that he was given a standing ovation when he spoke at the United Nations, explains in his latest book, "Reclaiming Our Health",
"There are many conditions that can best be treated by standard medicine, including trauma, medical and surgical emergencies, bacterial infections, and certain mechanical difficulties. But there are many other conditions, including most forms of cancer, viral infections, allergic and auto-immune disorders, and most chronic degenerative diseases that are more effectively handled with alternative approaches."
With single-payer health coverage, the chemical/pharmaceutical industry would continue to reap huge profits from treatments that don't work for many conditions, robbing people of real relief.
The second dangerous proposal is computerized delivery of monopolized health information to physicians. The benefit of this is advertised as "saving the physician time" so they can see more patients and "making sure they have the right information". In actuality it will function to exclude any information from physicians likely to hurt pharmaceutical or chemical industry profits. As soon as this system is in place, moves will be made to make it necessary for physicians to follow these guidelines - and these guidelines only - to avoid legal suits or license revocation.
Hilary Clinton is one of the leading proponents of just such a system, which she describes as, "financial incentives for doctors to adopt health information technology". Clinton's campaign rhetoric promises relief for the health needs of Americans, but if you become educated on what she is proposing, most of it will serve to permanently lock Americans into the chemical/pharmaceutical health care system with no hope of alternative.
For instance, Clinton's "Prioritization of Prevention" does not mention decreased use of toxic chemicals at all, but relies on the usual victim blame of weight, nutrition, and exercise; and suggests procedures that offer more profit to the industry such as colorectal screening and tests for hypertension so that medication can be prescribed earlier.
In her proposals for the chronically ill, no mention is made of effective alternative therapies, she rather suggests something called "medical homes" which sound vaguely like detention.
While the public is beleaguered with ill health and lacks vital information, the chemical/pharmaceutical industry systematically moves to assure the public is locked into this system that allows them to become ill and affords them no way out.
Recently the pharmaceutical/chemical industry has launched a global movement called CODEX ALIMENTARIUS which will outlaw the sale of therapeutic levels of vitamins and outlaw the use of natural substances as medicine. These regulations are being created in agencies outside of our own country where we have no control over them. The American public has already spoken out against such regulations. In 1994 Americans flooded Congress with more letters, phone calls and personal visits ever before in history to pass the Dietary Supplement Health & Education Act [DSHEA] into law which protects the public's right of access to vitamins and nutritional supplements.
CODEX regulation would mean among other things that any benign naturally occurring substance will not be allowed as medical treatment - ever - unless a chemical/pharmaceutical company chooses to produce it and to sell it.
CODEX regulations are already enforced in the EU and many other countries. CODEX regulation in the U.S. can be accomplished through diffusion of U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico. Once this is accomplished, our own regulations would be "harmonized", a euphemistic term meant to cover the fact that the American public would not be able to vote on the issues in any way.[view reference]
As a first step, the FDA has initiated the "Trilateral Cooperation Charter" to collaborate with regulatory bodies in Canada and Mexico. The stated mission is, "To protect and promote public health through a trilateral forum that shares information and works collaboratively on issues of mutual interest." With the U.S. FDA's recent track record of NO regulation on GM foods and its subsequent attack on the cherry industry for advertising the benefits of cherries to health, there is no confusion about whose "mutual interest" the Trilateral Cooperation Charter would be protecting.
An essential part of treatment for chemical sensitivity is a daily supplement of high potency vitamins and minerals at levels above those artificially labeled minimum daily requirement by the FDA. After the requirement for purer air and organic food, high potency vitamins and minerals are the single most important factor for maintaining functionality and continuing to heal from chemical sensitivity.
In a positive move, Representative Ron Paul has introduced the Health Freedom Protection Act [H.R. 2117] in the House. This bill would allow people to tell the truth about foods and elements in foods that have therapeutic effects. It will help consumers who might find an illness effectively treated with inexpensive and non-toxic dietary regimens to avoid costly and side-effect laden drugs.
Drug companies have also initiated efforts via the FDA and Congress to deprive the public of compounded pharmaceuticals. Compounded pharmaceuticals are a method physicians have found for providing patients with more natural and less toxic medicines like bio-identical hormone replacement for women or homeopathic medicines for allergies. These are medicines that drug companies make no money on and that actually compete with their own products. A bill initiated by Senator Kennedy that would deprive patients of safe medicines is deceptively called the Safe Drug Compounding Act of 2007.
The FDA currently has no jurisdiction over state licensed and regulated pharmacies or physicians but Kennedy’s bill would dramatically change this situation. Kennedy’s bill would give the FDA the authority to tell physicians what, if any, compounded medications or allergy desensitization they could prescribe and to dictate to pharmacists what type of compounded medications they could prepare. People will be denied the right to have these medications and treatments.
The bill has not yet been formally introduced, so it has no bill number at this time. If passed, it would give FDA unprecedented authority to restrict access to compounded medications and homeopathic medicines that the chemically sensitive need to live and recover.
Wyeth, the maker of Premarin and Prempro which are synthetic hormone replacement drugs, has already pressured the FDA to ban compounding pharmacies from preparing natural hormones. As of January 8, 2008 the FDA banned the use of bio-identical hormones.[Reference]
While the public is dealt with en masse by camoflaged moves to strengthen the pharmaceutical/chemical industry monopoly on health, the industry attacks Environmental Medicine doctors and physicians practicing altenative medicine individually, and attempts to have their licenses fraudulently revoked.
As part of an organized global effort to destroy the specialty of Environmental Medicine and to eliminate from practice physicians who diagnose and treat patients suffering from chemical sensitivities, Dr. Rea's license to practice medicine was reviewed by the Texas State Medical Board beginning in 2005, after over thirty years of practice in this specialty.
This review was initiated based on an anonymous complaint regarding five patients treated at the clinic in Dallas (probably from an insurance company), without the knowledge or consent of the actual patients, and despite the fact that all five patients improved under his care, are still his patients, and have all written to the Texas State Medical Board saying they are not part of the complaint; two citing the fact that he saved their lives.
The complaint violates the civil liberties of these patients. It takes away their right to report the status of their own bodies, and be the arbiter of their own subjective states such as feeling pain, nausea, or being able to think clearly.
Yet, the Texas State Medical Board then proceeded to have a peer review of this anonymous complaint performed by one anonymous allergist. This anonymous allergist was not trained in Environmental Medicine and so was not actually even a peer. Despite the fact that all five patients had improved, several of them substantially so, while under Dr. Rea's care, the anonymous reviewer gave a negative review.
Subsequently, Dr. Rea had 17 actual peers, physicians who practice Environmental Medicine, review all five of these cases as well. To a person these 17 reviewers found that his treatment of these patients was not only adequate, but that it met or exceeded the standard of care for treatment in this specialty. Further, the reviewers also noted that the state board reviewer was uniformed about the specialty of Environmental Medicine, clearly did not understand the complex nature of the diagnosis and treatment of patients who suffer from chemical sensitivities, grossly misunderstood many of the facts in the medical records, was antagonistic and biased against the specialty of Environmental Medicine, and was clearly unqualified to conduct such a review due to lack of experience, knowledge, and expressed biases.
The Texas State Medical Board has chosen to dismiss the review done by 17 actual peers and has chosen to support the conclusion of their one unqualified reviewer. The anonymous complaint, the anonymous review and the lack of adherence to the protocol for peer review are a violation of Dr. Rea's constitutional rights and attempt to dispose of hope for untold thousands of people. Over 30,000 patients have been seen and helped at the Environmental Health Center founded by Dr. Rea.
Without Dr. Rea's help, I would have remained in constant agony, always crying and begging for help, unable to sleep or sit still or address the injustice of what was happening to me with any verbal acuity; and, of course, I would have had no place to go to recover thus far. With Dr. Rea's help, I at least regained my mental abilities - perhaps better than I have ever had them in my life - and my spirit; and if I have suffered pain sometimes, and difficulty always, I at least knew in what direction to go to relieve it.
If I can not earn a living yet, I can write and speak now for those who will come after me or who exist now, and work with passion so that no one in my situation will be left totally without hope of health and life and justice.
Dr. Rea's case is not unique. This campaign to revoke the licenses of doctors who are deemed to practice "alternative" medicine has been going on for at least 10 years now. The typical pattern in these attacks is to single out physicians and file anonymous complaints against them with different state medical boards. These same types of complaints have been made against doctors who treat patients for chemical sensitivities, mold exposure, for Gulf War Syndrome, and now possibly against physicians who are treating patients who were injured in the 911 tragedy.
A popular environmental physician in Ontario Canada, Dr. Jozef Krop, skilled in educating the public about chemical sensitivity via an easy-to-understand website which includes clear comparisons of cost-effectiveness of treatment, is currently under attack in Canada and has recently had to take his case to the Canadian Supreme Court.
Efforts to deprive physicians of the right to practice alternative medicine may not ultimately be successful, but they serve the purpose of retarding knowledge by draining the energy and resources of the targeted physician and instilling fear in others. The cases can also be used as propaganda to deter people from discovering help in Environmental Medicine or acknowledging the validity of chemical sensitivity.
While citizens work diligently to get chemical sensitivity recognized with MCS Awareness months etc., the industry works unflaggingly toward the goal that no one will ever be able to be diagnosed by a practicing M.D. as having the condition. Without an appropriate diagnosis and means for treatment through insurance and disability payments, people with chemical sensitivity will not be able to prolong their lives or get well. They will not have the means to write letters like I am writing to you now. There will be no letter from the doctor saying they need an air filter to stay functional and alive. There will be no letter from the doctor to tell the neighbor that pesticide use could threaten their life.
The benign effective treatments that Dr. Rapp showed on the Phil Donahue Show and the Oprah Winfrey Show would not be available to anyone. Mothers will be forced to give their children drugs which lead to heart attack, strokes, suicide and permanent disability.[View Here]
Recent developments in California may silence me and other vulnerable individuals for months or even years to come.
President Bush has issued a State of Emergency in California through the U.S. Department of Agriculture for eradication of the light brown apple moth with aerial spraying of pesticides over residential areas in several counties every thirty days for as long as two years. Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties were sprayed last year despite heavy citizen protest and legal attempts to stop the spraying, where over 600 residents reported illness afterwards. Plans are to continue spraying in these counties. Additionally, plans were disclosed to spray the county where I live, Marin, and others including San Francisco, Alameda, and parts of Contra Costa.
There is no real agricultural emergency. The moth has been in California for over ten years and no crops have been lost.
David Dilworth, of Helping Our Penninsula's Environment states "We know the moth is widespread in California from Napa to Los Angeles. According to U.C. Davis entomologists, the moth has been here for a very long time and there is no documented damage from this moth in California. So HOPE does not see that there is any emergency whatsoever."
Terrence Zito, HOPE Chairman adds, "There is no emergency, eradication is impossible and aerial spraying is the least effective method of control. Even though substantially more effective, safer and less costly methods exist, California Department of Food and Agriculture refuses to even discuss using the targeted pheromone baited sticky traps which have caught all but one of the 9,000 moths found in California."
Citizens in these areas are aghast at this development and are exploring every avenue to keep from being aerial sprayed with pesticides without their consent. They are handicapped however by the fact that the U.S.D.A. was able to obtain an "emergency exemption from registration" from the U.S. EPA. Representatives of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation say that because of that exemption, the spraying program is not subject to state approval.
Plans to spray have actually created a state of emergency for human beings in these areas, especially the young, the weak, and the elderly.
Justification for the spraying is given as potential loss of revenue from the agricultural industry, however officials state if nothing was done to control the moths, potential crop damage would amount to about 2%, or a cost estimate of 133 million dollars.
Citizen groups have brought to the attention of officials that the cost of the spraying in lost revenues from tourism, real estate values, and to the organic produce industry that will now be contaminated with the spray, could conservatively be estimated at 170 billion dollars. So the decision to spray seems egregiously ill-conceived even on a financial basis.[View Here]
Concerned citizens have also pointed out that the spray contains chemicals that permeate the skin, and that exposure constitutes conducting a medical experiment without informed consent. Penalties for this range from a $1000 dollars to $10,000 per person depending on what people were told. With over 6 million people living in the proposed areas, damages from this could total 6.8 billion dollars.
The Harvard study indicating a pandemic of childhood development disorders affecting one out of every six children from overexposure to inadequately-tested chemicals IS NOT CONSIDERED AN EMERGENCY. The fact that the occurrence of autism in children is ten times greater in California than the rest of the country is not considered an emergency. The real loss of 16% of children to lifetime disabilities has not received the attention that the potential loss of 2% of crops has received.
Mothers in these counties will not be able to protect their young. I once was privileged to see a petite calico cat jump at a giant black dog when it threatened her kitten. Skinny-headed and well-known for its stupidity and viciousness to every other animal in the neighborhood, the dog had taken the opportunity, when humans were busy, to make a lunge at her kitten; which I saw and quickly moved to protect. This was not enough for the mother calico who observed the attempt to harm her baby. Usually terrified of the dog herself, she rushed up to him, jumped so high her back feet were off the ground and batted the black predator on the nose. Toxic chemicals and their unwarranted application deprive us of the expression of our most basic loving instincts, the instinct to protect the young and vulnerable.
Because of the increased availability of oxygen by the ocean, the availability of organic food, and the benefit that a warm climate offers of places to be when neighbors are using toxic chemicals, there is a high concentration of people with Chemical Sensitivity living in the counties where the spraying is planned. With over 6 million people total in the spray area, 3.5% or 210,000 people disabled by chemical sensitivity will have to move or face severe consequences. Two hundred thousand disabled people forced from their homes with no place to go at the behest of their own government.
If plans to spray continue, I will have to move, and I do not know where I will go or where the money will come from to make the move.
San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Aptos, Soquel, Capitola, San Rafael, Fairfax, Monterey, Berkeley, and San Jose - these cities also have a high concentration of citizens engaged for change. John Robbins lives in Soquel with his family.
Those ignorant about the basics of chemical sensitivity may miss the significance of these two facts.
Please fight the aerial spraying of pesticide in our state for the light brown apple moth.
Please intervene to stop the FDA's Trilateral Cooperation Charter or act to get Congressional Oversight. The formation of this partnership on the FDA's own initiative violates federal regulations and will deprive Americans of their right to choose healthy vitamins and supplements via CODEX regulations.
Please help to pass the Health Freedom Protection Act [HR 2117] and stop the FDA's censorship of life-saving scientific information.
Please oppose Kennedy's bill deceptively named the Safe Drug Compounding Act of 2007. Please call on the FDA to reverse their January decision on bio-identical hormones.
Please oppose any legislation such as single-payer health insurance that would lock people out of treatment for chemical sensitivity and into drug therapies that don't work.
Please oppose any and all legislation that would allow a physician's license to be revoked unconstitutionally.
Aside from dismantling democracy, all of these measures simply serve to speed the process by which the chemically sensitive "disappear". I believe it is a little-known fact that Nazi Germany began cleansing by unburdening itself of people with tuberculosis, another illness that was cured with pure air, water and nutrition.
Please help me to get adequate food and clothing. Please help me to get a HEPA air filter.
I have family. My father, Dan C. Rattray, lives in Indiana; my brother, Dan C. Rattray Jr., is VA Regional Counsel in Winston-Salem, NC; a sister, Susan Rivin Scott, married to Dr. John A. Scott lives in Indianapolis, Indiana and another sister Ellen Kelso, with Goodwyn IRB, lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Other relatives, Alex and Ann Rattray, my uncle retired from consular service, live in West Linn, Oregon. I have no one to defend me to my family and they have refused to read any unbiased books on the subject of chemical sensitivity. I am sure when all is said and done they will not have wanted to participate in the demise of one they once loved in this manner. There are three good articles which are easy to read now online at American Chronicles.[Article 1], [Article 2], and [Article 3]. The Introduction to Dr. Rea's book, Optimum Environments for Optimum Health & Creativity: Designing and Building a Healthy Home or Office also presents an excellent overview; and can be read online here[Introduction]. A book by Dr. Sherry Rogers Chemical Sensitivity is also a good basic primer.
I understand Jose was sometimes thought to be imprudent in his former life. When I knew him, he was a loving, charitable human being to everyone. As Emerson wrote of great men (and women), "when he sacrifices prudence, ...if to a great trust, he can well spare his mule and panniers who has a winged chariot instead." If we are to protect the internal and external beauty of the world and the humanist values that make life worth living, I think we must all begin to emulate people like Jose.
Respectfully,
Patricia Rattray
www.the-open-boat.com