Exposed!

It may not be a 'real' illness, but symptoms are very real to people with a sensitivity to common chemicals

When Marny Turvil of Evanston gets a whiff of certain cleaning products, fabric softener or gasoline fumes, she feels depressed, irritable, tired and foggy-headed.

But at least one doctor ridiculed her self-diagnosed hypersensitivity to chemicals. Friends wondered about her mental health. And once, while on an airplane, a perfumed flight attendant gazed at the respiratory mask and snarkily asked, "Where are you going, Mt. Everest?"

Such is life with a disorder known as multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), a confounding illness that is not officially recognized by the U.S. medical establishment but has very real symptoms for an estimated 12 percent of the population.

Though a controversial new branch of medicine called clinical ecology (or environmental medicine) has sprung up to help treat people who are hypersensitive to chemicals, the disagreement over whether the condition actually exists has provoked a major schism among physicians and made it difficult to find care and research funding.

The theory behind the disorder is that vague symptoms such as fatigue, depression, memory loss, headaches, confusion and difficulty concentrating are triggered by either one large chemical exposure such as a pesticide application or low-level exposure to everyday chemicals in the environment. But so far, science hasn't been able to link the causes and the symptoms that patients describe.
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