Chemical Sensitivity and the New EU Chemical Law

The Chicago Tribune published an interesting article yesterday, called "Exposed!", about chemical sensitivity to common chemicals. This complements a previous post written in DweezelJazz: "What Is Multiple Chemical Sensitivity?".

The article points out that the disorder known as multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) has been described since the 1940s and that today it affects an estimated 12% of the population. It isn't officially recognized by the U.S. medical establishment, but it is recognized by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the Americans With Disabilities Act includes MCS as a disability.

The article also gives short accounts of people's experiences with chemical sensitivity. It illustrates how difficult it is to comprehend the nature of the situation even when you know or live with someone who experiences it. Marny Turvil, a mother of two, discovered five years ago that she has MCS. Her mother suffers from it also. Turvil is quoted as saying: 'In typical mainstream fashion I thought she was nuts. Then I started having clear symptoms.' Turvil is further quoted: 'People will discredit things that threaten their well-being. To be told products you use every day are full of dangerous chemicals is a very threatening thing.'

Mainstream doctors don't recognize MCS. This is because the disorder has not been understood in medical terms; a scientific mechanism of explanation for the cause and effect has not yet been defined. Almost every aspect of modern life includes the use of innumerable chemicals in all manner of products from foods to cleaning agents to building materials...the list goes on. Our economy is based on the sale of all these items and we have grown highly dependent on the products available. It isn't convenient to find that we may need to change these things. As a result, there has been little mainstream funding dedicated to research into the disorder.

It is noticeable though that there are more frequent news items in the Press either directly addressing or skirting around the issue as is demonstrated for example in an earlier post "Toxic Fumes on Airline Flights: What's It All About?"

Public places, including hospitals, can pose grave difficulties, and can even be life-threatening, for people with MCS depending on the severity of their sensitivity. A nurse named Keith, who has MCS and has experienced difficulties when being treated at hospital, wrote an article called "Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A Hidden Disability" on the NurseLinkup blog to alert the nursing community.

On June 1st of this year a new EU chemicals law known as REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) was passed, requiring the registration and safety testing of tens of thousands of chemicals. For the first time, chemical companies will have to provide basic health and environmental safety data on the chemicals they produce. An article entitled "Beginners Guide to REACH" published by Greenpeace some years ago states that previously only chemicals that started production after 1981 required this data, which is a small fraction of chemicals on the market.

According to a BBC article, "Analysis: New EU chemicals law", manufacturers will have to register safety data for around 30,000 chemicals already in use.

There are around 100,000 chemicals for which data is not available. The 30,000 chemicals included in this system of legislation were chosen because they're produced in the highest volumes and/or are already known to have dangerous properties. The BBC article says that "these include thousands of everyday products - for example, flame retardants on sofa coverings, musks used in shampoos, and paints of all kinds - as well as specialised chemicals used only by industry."

The first deadline for registration is in 2010. This is for chemicals of the highest concern, (the European Commission estimates there are 1,500 chemicals in this category) which include carcinogens, mutagens and substances toxic to reproductive health. This deadline also applies to chemicals produced in quantities of over 1,000 tonnes per year.

The second deadline is 2013 for chemicals produced in quantities of 100 to 1,000 tonnes per year. And there is a third deadline of 2018 for substances produced in 1 to 100 tonnes per year.

The description of this law demonstrates how little legislation and scientific knowledge is available for the many products and chemicals used in our society today. The effects they are having is not accounted for, either on us as human beings or on our world and its wildlife.

While the new law is a big step in the right direction, we as consumers can have a huge impact as a result of how we spend our money. There are products available on the market through health food stores and catalog companies that do already account for their ingredients. We can help to safeguard ourselves, our loved ones and our environment right away by taking consumer action.

Some links that may be helpful in finding some of these products are Janice's and The HEALTHY HOUSE Ltd. While I can't vouch for all of the products these companies sell, I have bought some very good items from each. As with every purchase, it pays to investigate the product as thoroughly as possible.

There are also ways to clean very effectively using simple, and coincidentally economical, substances such as vinegar and baking soda, which I'll discuss in another article.