August 23, 2000 – “The majority of medical experts recognize the real presence of disease in patients with multiple intolerance to chemicals (or polytoxicosensitivity), even if they do not always agree on the origin and treatment of the disease. syndrome, ”says medical consultant Pierre Auger, who sometimes treats hypersensitive patients at the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Clinic, located at the Montreal Chest Institute.
“Several doctors still deny the reality of the symptoms felt, which leads to the a priori diagnosis of psychological illness before having considered other possibilities”, for his part, deplores Dr Michel Joffres, director of research at the Environmental Health Center of Nova Scotia. Based in Halifax, the Center is the only public medical clinic in the country that treats hypersensitive people. “The studies which propose a purely psychological reason for these phenomena are of very poor quality, but are constantly used by the detractors to promote their ideology of non-existence of the problems, explains this epidemiologist. Our recent research shows that there is a consistent set of symptoms and that affected people improve faster if they clean up their environment. ”
The hypersensitive is generally an adult between the ages of 18 and 55 who, when exposed to strong odors or chemicals, experiences a set of neuropsychological, respiratory, cardiac, digestive, skin, etc. symptoms. While 16% of people living in 4,046 California homes surveyed said they had unpleasant sensations when in contact with chemicals, in another study only 4% of seniors and less than 1% of college students had marked intolerance diagnosed by a doctor. .
A conference organized by the magazine The House of the 21st Century will bring together Dr. Auger and other specialists in Montreal on September 7 in the evening to take stock of this controversial syndrome. Other speakers: Dr. Lynn Marshall (Environmental Health Clinic, University of Toronto, replacing Dr. Michel Joffres), Jacinthe Ouellet (living with chemical hypersensitivity); Dr. Joel Krepps (a hypersensitive psychiatrist); Jacqueline Meunier (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation studies and publications); Cornelia Novac Oana (hypnotherapist, pediatrician in Romania for 17 years); Gilles Parent (naturopath).
Conference open to all, from 7:00 p.m. to 10:45 p.m., at the Center St-Pierre, 1212 rue Panet (in front of the Maison de Radio-Canada), room 100. Admission: $ 2.
Source: André Fauteux, The House of the 21st Century, info@21esiecle.qc.ca or 1 (450) 228-1555
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References
Environmental health information bulletin, January-February 2000. http://www.cspq.qc.ca/cse/.
Dr Michel Auger can be reached at (514) 849-5201, extension 2539.
