The stink

I've written before (with barely concealed mirth) about the twin neuroses of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Electrosensitivity. These are two would-be diseases involving people who believe they are allergic to the modern world. Perfumes, wi-fi, electricity, detergents, smoke of any kind, etc. The champions of these syndromes are particularly obsessed with fragrances. Readers of Velvet Glove, Iron Fist—of whom I hope and trust you are one—will remember these folks as the "no scents is good sense" people.

Although the two syndromes are totally different, with one involving chemical 'toxins' supposedly affecting the lungs and the other involving electrical waves affecting the brain, people who suffer from one have a remarkable tendency to suffer from the other. The symptoms are classically psychosomatic and unprovable—panic, fatigue, coughing, light-headedness etc.—and the 'victims' are predominantly middle class women living in rich countries, especially Canada and America. If Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Electrosensitivity are real diseases, it's strange that they target such a specific group of people. So strange, in fact, that you might almost suspect that the tree-hugging hippy crap they believe about getting back to nature has turned into psychosis.

People who suffer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity—or Californian Asthma, as I prefer to call it—are determined to have their malady recognised by health authorities. They are insistent that minute traces of anything they consider to be 'unnatural' are having a profound effect on their health. Unfortunately for them, science does not agree. There's no doubt that they believe that they are ill, but double-blind control trials suggest that the only illness they suffer from is, not to put too fine a point on it, of the mental variety.

And so I was interested to hear about this study which appears to give the MCS faction some hope.

Scented laundry products emit hazardous chemicals through dryer vents

The same University of Washington researcher who used chemical sleuthing to deduce what's in fragranced consumer products now has turned her attention to the scented air wafting from household laundry vents.

This is a study of the air that comes out of laundry machines when you use detergents. I'm not going to go through the findings in detail, suffice to say that the intrepid researcher held a jar to the outlet vent of a washing machine and found various chemicals at incredibly low levels (parts per billion+). She then uses the old "no safe level" canard to imply that they constitute a health hazard. If you need to know why this is junk you're probably reading the wrong blog. Like the infamous third-hand smoke study, it's not that the science is wrong necessarily, just that it is irrelevant unless you can show harm to health.

This study has been published in the obscure, but peer-reviewed, journal Air Quality, Atmosphere and Health and was authored by Dr. Anne Steinemann, who has published in peer-reviewed journals before and has a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of California. So it can't just be a load of old guff written by be one of these hyper-sensitive cranks with an axe to grind, can it?

Unless, of course, she's the same Anne Steinemann who joined this electrosensitivity internet group (how does that work?) a few weeks ago...

Dear All,

Thank you for a wonderful group. I am a new member, and have looked through the old posts to find answers, so please pardon me if you've already addressed these issues.

(1) I am being severely affected by WiFi signals coming from neighbors' homes. (I see at least 10 signals on my computer.) I have tried talking with them, to see if they would at least turn off their WiFi at night - no luck. What other mitigations are possible? (I realize that I am probably going to have to move - but how do I survive in the meantime?)

(2) I'd like a way to measure the EMFs around a house, before I move into it. I have a Tri-Field meter already, but it evidently doesn't pick up WiFi signals.

What would you recommend?

Please e-mail me directly at anne.steinemann@... with your responses.

Many thanks,

Anne Steinemann

Anne Steinemann has previously told people to clean their houses with vinegar and baking soda and has produced a study showing that there are chemicals in soaps and detergents. Well, yes. And so what? There are chemicals in vinegar, and everything else, too. The mere presence of a chemical is not evidence of harm. It is not even suggestive of harm. But it is to these people, because all chemicals are evil and the dose does not make the poison.

The most stupid and dangerous thing the Surgeon General ever did was come up with his "no safe level" of secondhand smoke line. He did it purely to scare people and probably didn't believe it himself, but when a top medical authority goes out of his way to induce hypochondria, you open the floodgates to every loon who wants to ban the things that displease them.

"The feeling is growing that you shouldn't be putting these things in environments where everyone is exposed," Miller said. Like second-hand tobacco smoke, she said, scented products expose people to hazards against their will. "Your right to wear fragrance ends at my nose."

Does this rhetoric sound at all familiar? It doesn't matter that these studies do little more than show how sophisticated their measuring equipment is. All that matters is that a list of peer-reviewed studies is built up to shove under the nose of some clueless lawmaker in the future. The fact that the studies themselves tell us nothing is unimportant. After all, when did a politician—or a journalist—ever read a study?