Chemicals fuel debate over mysterious ailment

Chemicals fuel debate over mysterious ailment
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13371037

"Meggan Smoler buries her face in her hands and collapses into the back seat of the Subaru she has called home for the past four months.  "I'm fighting to stay alive in a world I can't tolerate," says the 32-year-old mother. "I don't know how I can make it through the next 24 hours."  Smoler complains of blacking out unexpectedly, nerve pain and fatigue. Her speech slurs in midconversation, and she says her vision sometimes blurs. Unable to find a home she can tolerate, she has lived in her car — with her husband and 7-year-old son — all summer.  Smoler is crippled, she says, by encounters with routine chemicals such as pesticides, perfume, paint, air fresheners and car exhaust. She is joined by as much as 16 percent of the U.S. population who describe ailments that remain a medical mystery. Sufferers call their disease multiple chemical sensitivity, or MCS. While many doctors and scientists call their physical symptoms an eruption of psychological stress, some research is uncovering scientific underpinnings to MCS. Japan, Germany, Canada, Austria and Great Britain have acknowledged the disease as real and eligible for insurance coverage. Colorado has even given MCS its own special month."