On this web site, we are now calling "Chemical Injury" "Chronic Chemical Injury". We did this for two reasons: In Canada, our governments, at both the federal and provincial levels, classify it as a chronic health condition. Health conditions are considered chronic when they last longer than 6 months, which this kind of Chemical Injury does. There was a need to distinguish the Chemical Injury that results in a person becoming Chemically Intolerant from the more familiar Chemical Injury that might occur as a result of a workplace accident. Since one kind of Chemical Injury is long-term and considered Chronic, and since the other kind of Chemical Injury is short-term and considered Acute, it made sense to reflect this difference in its name.

We use a different name because names matter.  In the medical world and in society, the word "Sensitivity" is often used in the allergy context. Since people with Chronic Chemical Injury (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)) have toxic reactions, not allergic reactions, the name can be very misleading and it can be very dangerous for the patient if the health professionals view the reactions as allergic reactions, and treat them as such.  People with Chronic Chemical Injury have developed an intolerance to further exposures of toxic chemicals. When they are exposed to toxic chemicals, their intolerance is manifested by having toxic reactions, which could involve multiple systems of the body. For some mildly affected people, their intolerance may be limited to only a few types of toxic chemicals, but for those at the extreme severe end of the spectrum, they might be intolerant to almost all toxic chemicals. The name "Multiple Chemical Sensitivity" or "MCS" tends to minimize the seriousness of the health condition in the eyes of the health professionals and society.  The health professionals view the term "Intolerant" as more serious than "Sensitive". Also the term "Intolerant" is acknowledged by the medical world as a physiological condition. So the name "Multiple Chemical Sensitivity" just puts unnecessary obstacles in our way.  Consequently, on this web site, we use the more accurate names of Chronic Chemical Injury, Chemical Injury and Chemical Intolerance.

Yes. Today, perfumes and scented products are made in a chemical factory by chemists. Over 4,000 synthetic chemicals are used in the perfume and scent industry. Most of these chemicals are very toxic, and they can negatively affect the various different systems of the body. These toxic chemicals are classified as volatile organic compound (VOCs). It is the toxic chemicals in the scent to which the person is reacting. If they are only reacting to scent and not to a lot of other toxic products, then they would be considered as mildly affected Chemically Intolerant.

Some names for this health condition are: 20th Century Disease, Chemical Allergies, Environmental Sensitivity, Environmental Hypersensitivity, Environmental Illness, Ecological Illness, Chemical Sensitivity, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), Scent Sensitivity, Toxin Induced Loss Of Tolerance (TILT), Chemical Intolerance, Chemical Injury and Chronic Chemical Injury. In a nutshell, the name changes as the name and understanding of this health condition grows. The name given to a patient at the time of diagnosis sometimes depends on the decade it was given in, the country in which the diagnosis was given, and the understanding of the doctor who is doing the diagnosing. Many people continue to still use the name of the health condition that they were given by their health professional when they were diagnosed. Here is our understanding of the progression of the name in Canada: In the late 1970s and early 1980s, 20th Century Disease was the diagnosis term that was often used. In the early 1980s, the names Chemical Allergies, Environmental Illness and Ecological Illness emerged. In the late 1980s, the name Environmental Hypersensitivity started being used. In the late 1980s, the names Chemical Sensitivity and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) began to be used in the US and soon began to be used in Canada. Even today, it remains as the most common name for this health condition in Canada. In the mid 1990s, the names Environmental Sensitivity (ES) and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) began to be used by the Canadian governments. These are the names that the Canadian governments still use today. In the 1990s, Scent Sensitivity began to be used. In the late 1990s, the name Toxin Induced Loss Of Tolerance (TILT) began to be used in the US, but is only occasionally used here in Canada. In the late 1990s, the names Chemical Intolerance and Chemical Injury began to be used in the US, and these names are growing in their usage in Canada. Around 2020, the name Chronic Chemical Injury started to be used, to distinguish it from Acute Chemical Injury. With all these names in usage for the same health condition, it can be confusing. All we can do is educate ourselves, and wait for more solid medical research to increase our understanding of the issue. On this web site, we have decided to now use the names Chronic Chemical Injury, Chemical Injury and Chemical Intolerance for this health condition. This is due to our strong belief, backed up by medical research, that these names help to clarify the facts that the people have been injured by their exposures to toxic chemicals, and that the reactions experienced by these individuals are toxic reactions, not allergic reactions.

Sadly, this is primarily due to the discrediting campaign carried out by the chemical/pharmaceutical industries, which began in earnest in 1990 and is still ongoing. The chemical corporations often have a chemical division, in which they make toxic chemical products, and a pharmaceutical division in which they make drugs to treat diseases. Consequently, for the pharmaceutical division to acknowledge that their chemical division makes products harmful to human health, would be shooting themselves in their financial foot. So instead they used their pharmaceutical division to put out pseudo research papers, to discredit the patient, and any medical doctor or researcher that takes this health condition as legitimate. Their pseudo research states that this is just a psychological health condition, in which the patient is just anxious and has developed phobias about exposures to toxic chemicals. They also renamed this health condition as Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance (IEI), in order to remove the word “chemical” from its name and claim that there is no known cause. Dr. Ann McCampbell has documented this discrediting campaign in her excellent article: Multiple Chemical Sensitivities Under Siege. Here is the link to it: https://annmccampbellmd.com/publicationswritings/publication-1 The article on our web site, Fighting the Stigma by Exposing the Source, quotes from this documentary. Additionally, in 2021 the Quebec government commissioned McGill University to do a review study of the literature on the subject of MCS and summarize it for them. They reviewed over 4,000 papers and documents. As a result, the Quebec Public Health Agency came to the conclusion that trace amounts of chemicals are not to blame and that MCS is a type of anxiety disorder in which anticipation of a danger causes very real and debilitating physical symptoms. These conclusions are similar to the chemical/pharmaceutical industries pseudo research papers. However, one interesting fact that often gets overlooked is that those particular researchers did not include any of the toxicological research studies in their review. Chronic Chemical Injury (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)) is simply the human body becoming poisoned by constant toxic chemical exposures. If they had included the toxicological research studies in their review, they would have come to a very different conclusion. Then there are global on-line resources for medical doctors to provide them with the latest evidence-based clinical diagnoses. One such resource that Canadian medical doctors rely on is called UpToDate. This tool is used by medical doctors in over 190 countries. In a Google search regarding what UpToDate teaches about MCS, we learn that: UpToDate categorizes Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) as Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance (IEI). The database heavily emphasizes that observational studies frequently identify psychopathology in patients with IEI. They suggest that the underlying issue in many cases may be a psychiatric or behavioral condition, such as a somatic symptom disorder, depression, or an anxiety disorder. Management focuses on clinical care without validating unproven environmental causes. Recommended treatments include behavioral desensitization, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and the use of antidepressants for co-occurring mood or anxiety disorders. UpToDate stresses the importance of a supportive, empathetic physician-patient relationship, while encouraging patients to safely return to normal social activities and work rather than isolating themselves. This is an echo of the chemical/pharmaceutical industries pseudo research papers, which means that the chemical/pharmaceutical industries are influencing the doctors writing this advice in some way. Consequently, the medical doctors are receiving false and misleading information from the organizations that they trust and depend on to assist them with diagnostic and treatment guidance. This false advice above will only increase the suffering of those with Chronic Chemical Injury and further worsen their health condition.

To truly answer that question, we will need more solid medical research. In the meantime, we can share our understanding of this issue. In the last 25 years or so, some doctors and some medical researchers have begun to view and treat these as three different health conditions that overlap each other. However, prior to this, and continuing to the present time, some doctors and some medical researchers view and treat FM and ME as symptoms of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). In some cases, the FM and ME symptoms have been actually diagnosed as MCS. We do know that toxic chemical exposures can cause the toxic reaction of Fibromyalgia, and muscle pain is a well known common symptom experience by those who are Chemically Intolerant. We also know that potent toxic chemical exposures can cause the more severe toxic reaction of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. ME is a less common symptom of people with Chemical Intolerance, because it is considered a very severe toxic reaction to very potent toxic chemical exposures. Some patients who are Chronic Chemical Injured, and who also experience FM and ME, don’t see any need to state on surveys or questionnaires that they have FM and/or ME. This is due to the fact that to them it is all one and the same thing. To them, it is all Chemical Injury, and the FM and ME are only their more severe symptoms of toxic chemical exposures. Additionally, there are common symptoms among all three health conditions, and there are no clear distinctions between them that is agreed upon by medical doctors and researchers. All three have: cognitive difficulty (brain fog), extreme fatigue, severe muscle pain, and some degree of chemical intolerance. (Although some people with FM, don’t always notice chemical intolerance.) It is not easy or obvious for people to be able to connect the dots from their symptoms to their toxic chemical exposures, and they often need help in accomplishing this. Consequently many people are unaware that their symptoms are actually toxic reactions to toxic chemical exposures. That fact coupled with the fact that MCS is greatly stigmatized, some people with FM and/or ME state emphatically that any reaction that they experience to scented products or other things is not MCS. It is only FM and/or ME. Consequently, only solid medical research will be able to sort that out. In the last 25 years or so, much medical research on FM and ME has focused on trying to find a connection to infections. Some medical research organizations begin their research with the premise that these are post-infection caused illnesses. However, when that is their premise, they are ignoring all the patients that experience FM and ME, and yet didn’t have any infection. So as we said at the beginning, we need to wait for more solid medical research that doesn’t start with a premise one way or the other, in order to truly know whether they are three different health conditions that over lap, or different aspects of the same health condition.

First let’s define the word “recovery” in the context of people with Chronic Chemical Injury (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), Chemical Intolerance). When people say that they are recovered and no longer have Chemical Sensitivity (Chemical Intolerance), they probably mean that they are no longer having toxic reactions to exposures to toxic chemicals that had previously given them toxic reactions and made them ill. However, it is crucial to always remember that toxic chemicals are poisons to the human body. Poison is poison to everyone. Chronic Chemical Injury is acquired. To maintain their “recovered”, non-reactive state and prevent becoming chemically injured a second time, the person needs to continue to live a low-toxicity lifestyle and live in a low-toxicity home. If they begin living their life as though those toxic chemicals will no longer negatively affect them, then they risk becoming chemically injured again and experiencing chemical intolerance all over again. It is definitely possible to recover degrees of one’s health, but whether one achieves full or partial recovery from their Chemical Intolerances will depend on many factors, such as: the degree that the person’s body was chemically injured, the degree that the person was able to live in a low-toxicity home and lead a low-toxicity lifestyle, the degree that the person was able to receive adequate medical help, the person’s age, and so on. The fact that there had been over a 50% drop in the 2022 prevalence of people who had been diagnosed by a health care professional with MCS is proof that full recovery from Chemical Intolerance for those mildly or moderately affected occurs. We will need much more medical research to know how permanent that recovery truly is. Below is the Dose-Response Relationship Chart that helps explain this challenge. (The chart is created in a very simplistic way for illustration purposes.) Please note that the red arrow goes two ways – our health can either worsen or improve. The determining factor is to what degree we can avoid further exposures to toxic chemicals.

No you do not. This is a physiological health condition, in the same way that cancer and cardiovascular health problems are physiological health conditions. Health treatment protocols should not be dependent on the religion or the philosophy that a person embraces. Therefore, it is inaccurate to state that the Chronic Chemically Injured need to do yoga, meditation or any other spiritual activity for healing. Chronic Chemical Injury is a physiological health condition that requires physiological remedies to aid in the healing. The key treatment that everyone agrees on to successfully treat Chemical Intolerance is avoidance of further toxic chemical exposures. It is the key treatment because other treatments will not be effective, or will not be as effective as they could be, if this initial requirement is not met. Avoidance of further exposures to toxic chemicals is best achieved by living in a low-toxicity home and leading a low-toxicity lifestyle. These two things are crucial to achieving any degree of recovery of health. Please see the articles: Housing And Medical Needs Of The Chronic Chemically Injured and Natural Does Not Mean Alternative.