Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

Are you experiencing allergies but cannot identify the cause? If so, you may be suffering from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)

Here's how physician Gerald Ross of the Environmental Health Center in Dallas describes multiple chemical sensitivity: "Think of a patient as a rain barrel. The water in the barrel is the total load of environmental pollutants that the body must cope with. Then along comes some other source of stress. But the barrel can't hold it, and it pours out. The overflow represents a health problem ... and you get sick."

The consequences of MCS are severe; lives are radically and sometimes permanently disrupted. And the solutions to 20th-century allergies are painstaking and expensive. Worse, some physicians and psychiatrists say that MCS is all in people's heads, and that these people are being abetted by overzealous scientists who ignore basic scientific principles.

You don't have to agree with MCS proponents or MCS detractors. Whichever side you're on, you will  find the assertions in Allergic to the Twentieth Century compelling, though; in fact, it may go down better if you start it without any preconceived notions.

Allergic to the Twentieth Century: The Explosion in Environmental Allergies--From Sick Buildings to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

by: Peter Radetsky Bill Phillips Release Date: July, 1997, Media: Hardcover

Amazon.com's Price: $9.60 Amazon.com prices subject to change. Order Today Availability: This item is currently out of print - Used copies may be found on Ebay or Amazon.

Reader Comments

MCS is Essential Reading for These Times

It's a shame this indispensable book has gone out of print because it is one of the best I have read on the subject.  Environmental allergies, Sick Building Syndrome, Gulf War Syndrome, or Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) is the subject at hand, and I think it one of the most important subjects of our time.  MCS, despite some doctor's insistence that it does not exist, affects every living thing on Earth.  An estimated 40 million Americans already show clear and obvious signs of this illness.  The rest of us are undoubtedly affected in less obvious ways.  We cannot afford to ignore this problem.

One of the most fascinating parts of this book, which has stuck in my memory for a number of years, is descriptions and interviews with the sickest people alive with MCS.  The descriptions of their symptoms and the great lengths they must go to just to try to live their lives is tragic and fascinating and a warning to us all.

Even though you may not know how chemical poisoning is affecting you, it almost certainly is.  Sticking our collective heads in the sand will not help us, and will almost certainly allow things to get much worse before they get better.  Inform yourself and read this book.

Peter Radetsky has experience writing popular science books, and this one is very readable.  He interviews a variety of sick people, scientists, doctors, and psychiatrists with a wide range of opinions on the subject.  Though the role of infectious pathogens is fairly well understood these days, the role of toxicity has been almost completely ignored by modern science and allopathic medicine.  

It is too bad this book has apparently not gone to paperback because the subject is so important, and this is such a well-done job on the topic.  For little more than the price of postage, you can inform yourself on a topic of great importance that we have only begun to scratch the surface of.

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