Attention: Alice Knox
ATSDR's Information Center
1600 Clifton Road
Mail Stop E57
Atlanta, GA 30333


Re: Comments on the Predecisional Draft of A Report on Multiple
Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) dated August 24, 1998

Dear Interagency Workgroup:

I feel that an incomplete and biased review of literature is inadequate. A report that honestly states both sides and includes a bibliography of both sides, including printed rebuttals, as well as acknowledges it's own chemical industry connections is what I see the goal of this report to be. After all, three years should have been enough time to at least put together a good bibliography.

This report has a strong bias towards the chemistry industry. Why can't you at least acknowledge those connections? This report as it stands is a waste of our tax dollars. It is an insult to the thousands of citizens, such as myself, who have been poisoned. I am shocked that the chemical industries publication, Chemical and Engineering News, gave a less biased discussion on these issues than the U. S. government. And that report was published over seven years ago.

This issue really effects my life. I feel you are just trivializing and dismissing me by the biased and incomplete nature of this report. The medical profession and the chemical industry have been fighting over this issue for years, leaving us patients trapped in the middle with no health care and no housing. Why are you still arguing over how to define MCS? It looks like you cannot decide whether to just drag your feet or to cover the issue up. The government should be helping the citizens, the patients. Not being a public relations front for the chemical industry.

And the numbers of people with MCS are growing. If the government does not begin to face this issue, the costs will continue to skyrocket. And it is not just health care costs, which are enormous. There is the extreme costs of loss of job productivity. MCS is not just the very sick. There are the folks who have to take extra sick days for migraines and asthma. Indoor air quality affects all of us. I became ill when I was 29 years old. Just the tax losses from one person not being able to work are staggering. And your report clearly states that you have no idea about how many people are affected with MCS, let alone the less severe forms of it such as sick building syndrome and gulf war syndrome. After all, MCS is a gradual continuum from the healthy but noticing problems, to the extremely ill.

I am disappointed. I was all excited when I had heard that the Interagency Workgroup had finally released their report. Now I feel that your agencies do not have a clue about how this problem rips people's lives apart. There is more to this issue than just theory. You are holding the directions and funding of research which may save people's lives as well as acknowledge the pain and needs of those already affected. While I did not expect your group to have found a single cause, I did expect a more solid and less biased report.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

A letter from an EHN member