Comments maskedavenger has made

Thank you

This is one of the best articles I've read on the social aspects of MCS.  Thank you for your work.  I have been fighting 11 years against a drift toward poverty due to MCS.  Homelessness now looms as a real possibility--not so much because I can't locate safe (enough) housing as because I can't pay for it.

I still have a hard time believing my society would let this happen to me, but I have to ask the question:  Why should others be concerned about my plight?  Because it could happen to them?  Because I'm an educated, white, U.S. citizen and this shouldn't happen to us?  In the end, I want others to care simply because I'm a fellow human being, and I have to acknowledge that many people in this world are sicker, hungrier, more persecuted, more at the mercy of violence, and have less hope of rescue than I.

I guess MCS is remarkable for its illumination of our interconnectedness, in a society that operates largely on the principle of everyone for him or herself.  But greed and selfishness have long been known to backfire on those who indulge in them.  Maybe the true uniqueness of MCS is its occassional ability to bring the relatively affluent and insulated face-to-face with the cruelty and short-sightedness of our economic and political systems, as we are pushed out of the "us" category and become one of "them."

The Masked Avenger

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity in Native Americans

I am curious if the high proportion of Native Americans who have Multiple Chemical Sensitivity has been related to the high incidence of alcoholism among Native Americans.  I had no idea MCS was so prevalent in this group.  These findings seem like they might support Claudia Miller's theories about there being some genetic commonality between the two problems.  I am a (white) MCS patient with familial alcoholism, so I do too.  And/or do you think Native Americans have had high rates of exposure to toxics?

Thanks for the useful links.

The Masked Avenger