In 1962, in her classic book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson compared the threat of environmental destruction from pesticides and other environmental chemicals with the risk of nuclear war. Most Americans, including legislators, farmers and food processors, paid little attention. About the same time, Theron Randolph, M.D., a Chicago internist, allergist and specialist in environmental medicine, warned:
While it is true that outdoor air pollution is a significant source of exposure, a far greater threat is posed by the presence of indoor ... air pollution ... Many household products give off noxious fumes. Indoor air pollution is particularly dangerous because exposure is so constant.
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| Reasons For Yeast Infections |
Recent books on the topic include Theo Colburn's book Our Stolen Future, and Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber.
During the past 30 years, Dr. Randolph and several hundred physicians and other professionals in the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) have been studying and treating patients with chronic health disorders related to chemical overload. They have found that by lightening this load, many patients with puzzling and persistent health problems improve.
People with environmentally induced illness (EI) or multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and their physicians have faced much of the same sort of skepticism and hostility as those who have been working to bring "the yeast solution" into the medical mainstream. Yet, happier, the situation seems to be changing.
After graduating from medical school in the late 1950s and preparing for a career as a cardiac surgeon, the personal and professional life of William Rea, M.D., was forever changed. Dr. Rea, a Dallas surgeon who later became board-certified in environmental medicine, had his home sprayed with insecticides, which made him and other members of his family sick.
Over the ensuing decades, Dr. Rea has published a number of scientific articles and written several books that document the role that chemical exposures play in adversely affecting many parts of the immune system. And he said, "Your resistance resembles a rain barrel, and chemicals in your environment are like pipes draining into the barrel. When you're exposed to many chemicals, your barrel overflows and you develop symptoms."
In the early '80s, Sherry Rogers, M.D., a Syracuse, New York physician, began writing and publishing scientific articles and books about allergies and food and chemical sensitivities. Included in her many publications is her 1998 book, Depression: Cured at Last! Here's an excerpt from this book:
If you think you have trouble believing that everyday chemicals found in the average home and office can make people depressed, you can imagine how I felt ... One of the big problems with chemical sensitivity is that it usually does not happen dramatically or quickly, but rather insidiously: It sneaks up on someone ... Furthermore, most chemical sensitivity sneaks up on a person over a period of weeks, months or years, as the detoxification system is slowly damaged.
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| Reasons For Yeast Infections |
During the past two decades, two "mainstream" professionals, Nicholas A. Ashford, Ph.D., J.D., and Claudia S. Miller, M.D., M.S., have discussed the role that chemical pollutants play in making people sick.
And in the second edition of their book, Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes, they cite a study that compares the symptoms of patients with multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS) with the symptoms of patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and fibromyalgia (FM). To find out more, you can check out Reasons For Yeast Infections.