International Appeal from Wuerzburg

The European Academy for Environmental Medicine (EUROPAEM) invited many renowned national and international scientists and health care professionals to a medical conference held in Wuerzburg, Germany from April 23 to April 25, 2010. These professionals were from the fields of environmental medicine, toxicology, immunology, neurology and genetics and other health fields as well as physicians and dentist. Also in attendance were representatives of patient initiatives. The theme of this international medical conference was Science Meets Practice. It dealt specifically with the issues of Neuro- Endocrine- Immunology and their importance in environmental medicine.

Greatly concerned, participants noted the increasing prevalence of chronic multisystem illnesses such as multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CSF), fibromyalgia (FMS) as well as cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome, neurodegenerative diseases, auto immune diseases, and cancer.

At the conference it was impressively demonstrated that these chronic diseases are based on similar pathological mechanisms. Common mechanisms are chronic inflammatory processes influenced by environmental factors including chemical pollutants, biological infectious agents, and electromagnetic field (EMF) triggers.

Chronic diseases mean long-term patients and such patients require consecutive higher medical costs. This often leads to social exclusion of the affected people. Facing the appalling reports of Europe´s growing financial constraints, especially in public health, a further increase of chronic illnesses will accelerate the ongoing collapse of the National Health Service and medical insurance companies in Europe. Remedy is only possible with a change of priorities from today´s unilaterally symptomatic oriented medicine to causally oriented medicine focusing on cost-effective primary prevention.

Conference participants addressed an urgent appeal to the European environment and health ministers, to the European Commission, the European parliamentarians, national governments and to the directors of social and private insurance companies. They urge them to take these findings and developments into serious consideration, stressing and weighting financial investments primarily in prevention, precaution and best early detection and diagnosis of these chronic and environmentally related illnesses.

All over Europe this requires the full awareness of these research findings of the practicing physicians of environmental medicine and their integration into university research and teaching. The European governments are asked to finally implement the already ratified decisions of the Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health Ministers held in Budapest in 2004.

This appeal was unanimously adopted by the congress.

Wuerzburg April 25, 2010

For the board of EUROPAEM,

Jean Huss, Vice-Chairman

Dr. Kurt Mueller, Chairman

Dr. Peter Ohnsorge, Managing Chairman

Dr. Hans-Peter Donate, Press, Responsible

• German Version – International Appeal from Wuerzburg
• Japanese Version – International Appeal from Wuerzburg / Thanks to Takeshi for translation.

Carne Cruda gives the scoop on the meeting of the working group to create a document of consensus on the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity in Spain held in the Ministry of Health on April 21th 2010

“I’m your fan”. This was the title of the post in the blog of Carne Cruda, Spanish radio program, on October 22th where they asked people about their favorites songs. José Luís Aparicio posted a comment with his 10 favorite’s songs and the last one he chose was “No Fun” by The Stooges. But his choice went beyond the music, and, as he explained, he chose “No Fun” because my blog was named after this song. He also explained what MCS is (illness that he also suffers) and he asked Carne Cruda to talk about MCS and he also mentioned the interview that Salvador L. Arnal did with me for Rebelión.

4 days after I received an invitation from Carne Cruda through the editorial El Viejo Topo to interview me to talk about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

On November 2009 4th I was interviewed on Carne Cruda and I met José Luís Aparicio. They were so shocked by MCS that next day the show’s director explained during the radio show that they would contact the Ministry of Health because they wanted to interview the Minister of Health in their show and talk about MCS and to explain to them the terrible situation of the MCS sufferers.

This is how all this started. After a lot of calls to the Ministry of Health without receiving any response, last December they did a live phone call during the radio show and they finally had to accept. On January 15th 2010 José Martínez Olmos, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Health, was interviewed on “Carne Cruda, in a special show devoted to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity with Miguel Jara, Dr. Pablo Arnold, José Luís Aparicio and David Palma on behalf of me. He made the public commitment to meet with associations that deal with MCS between ten and twenty days after the show.

On February 4th 2010 was held the meeting with Ministry of Health to state the situation of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity sufferers in Spain. A petitions document done by MCS associations under David Palma’s coordination was submitted. One person by each MCS association attended to the meeting and also Jaume Cortés, lawyer of Colectivo Ronda, and Dr. Pablo Arnold. Also a copy of “Desaparecida: Una vida rota por la Sensibilidad Química Múltiple (Missing: A life broken by Multiple Chemical Sensitivity)” was hand delivered on behalf of me, as an example of what MCS sufferers have to go through in Spain. Representatives of Ministry of Health committed to contact MCS associations to jointly agree on experts to form a Scientific Committee to create a document of consensus on the MCS.

Then the 13 MCS associations set up the “Comité para el Reconocimiento del Síndrome de Sensibilidad Química Múltiple” (committee for the recognition of MCS in Spain) to have an unanimous voice for this process. The committee elaborated the list of doctors and the Ministry of Health invited all the 11 doctors nominated by the associations and 16 people from the Ministry of Health, between doctors and consultants, to attend to a meeting on April 21th 2010.

The first impression is positive. The working group elaborated the schedule and they agreed to create a draft of the document of consensus on the MCS to be review by MCS associations in September/October 2010. The reviewed document will be published by the Ministry of Health in December. They stated that this is the first step to make possible the inclusion of the MCS in ICD-10, i.e. its official recognition as disease in Spain.

It will be published an official press release but the day after the meeting, Carne Cruda gave the scoop, since is thanks to Carne Cruda that we are in this process and we wanted to give them our gratitude. David and I gave this great news during the program and Javier Gallego, the director and host of Carne Cruda, was really moved.

Thanks to José Luís Aparicio and special thanks to all the team of Carne Cruda, led by Javier Gallego, because if they wouldn’t have been interested in MCS, this would never have happened. I told them during the program, but I want to repeat again here:

Thanks in the name of all people with MCS!

Translated by Eva Caballé.

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CSN says thank you to Eva for the permission to reprint!

Masses

Choke

Slowly

We are not allowed to stop dreaming. Dreams we have not chosen. Dreams that are sold to us as indispensible for our happiness. And we sleep carefree and dream. We dream and we buy to be able to sleep and to keep dreaming about more stuff. We sleep deeply warmed by the glow of the robotized masses, heads full of dreams that don’t allow rest.

Don’t even dare to stop having sweet empty dreams. Don’t even dare to stop breathing deeply and find yourself lost in the nightmare of other’s dreams, without being able to wake up; in a world that burns you and locks you into an illness that only allows you to dream that your nightmares disappear.

Tonight you will go to sleep satisfied, snuggled up to your soft-skinned, seductively perfumed life, where everything is inoffensive and perfect. Your dreams will, once more, banish me to the hidden side of the world, where light pierces and sound scorches the nerves, where dreams become a cruel poison that slowly kills me and drags me from nightmare to nightmare with no way out.

Your toxic dreams bury my existence under a stone slab made up of three words: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. Your world of ideal dreams sentences me to live jailed.

Wake up from the heavy dream in which you are sinking us so that you and I can dream that we actually live, a real dream; so that no more will anyone see their dreams turned into the torture of a merciless illness.

Author: Eva Caballé for Delirio, April 2010

Photo: Aida/Delirio

• German Version

More articles from Eva Caballé for Deliro:

• Naked Truth about MCS
  
• Metamorphosis insinde Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

Editorial: Removing industrial trans fat from foods

Banning trans fats from all foods in the UK would prevent thousands of heart attacks and deaths every year, and would be a simple way to protect the public and save lives, said two senior doctors on bmj.com

Their views follow calls by public health specialists to eliminate the consumption of industrially-produced trans fats in the UK by next year.

Trans fats (also known as trans fatty acids) are solid fats found in margarines, biscuits, cakes, and fast food. Many studies demonstrate harmful effects of trans fats on cardiovascular risk factors.

For example, trans fats increase the amount of low density lipoprotein (LDL) or ‘bad cholesterol’ in the blood and reduce the amount of high density lipoprotein (HDL) or ‘good cholesterol.’ People with high levels of LDL cholesterol tend to have a higher risk of getting heart disease, while people with high levels of HDL cholesterol tend to have a lower risk.

A recent analysis of all the evidence recommended that people should reduce or stop their dietary intake of trans fatty acids to minimise the related risk of coronary heart disease.

The authors, from Harvard School of Public Health in the US, report that bans in Denmark and New York City effectively eliminated trans fats, without reducing food availability, taste, or affordability.

There is also no evidence that such legislation leads to harm from increased use of saturated fats.

Removing industrial trans fats is one of the most straightforward public health strategies for rapid improvements in health, they write. Based on current disease rates, a strategy to reduce consumption of trans fats by even 1% of total energy intake would be expected to prevent 11,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths annually in England alone.

Action by the UK might also produce larger benefits by inspiring other developed and developing countries to take similar measures to protect their citizens’ health, they conclude.

Literature: BJM – British Medical Journal, Banning trans fats would save lives, say doctors, April 15, 2010

April 21th 2010 will be held the first meeting of the working group to create a document of consensus on the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity in Spain

As you probably know, on February 4th 2010 was held the meeting between represent-atives of Ministry of Health and associations that deal with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity to state the situation of MCS in Spain. In that meeting the representatives of Ministry of Health committed to contact MCS associations to jointly agree on experts to form a Scientific Committee to create a document of consensus on the MCS. They stated that this would the first step to make possible the inclusion of the MCS in ICD-10, i.e. its official recognition as disease in Spain.

During last months, the associations have been working on the list of doctors that would be part of the working group. This list was submitted to the Ministry of Health few weeks ago.

The Ministry of Health has already set a date to hold this meeting: April 21th 2010 and it’s scheduled to last 4 hours. 11 (*) doctors nominated by the associations and 16 people from the Ministry of Health, between doctors and consultants, will attend to this meeting.

I want to thank all MCS associations for their work choosing the doctors and I also want to congratulate them for set up the “Comité para el Reconocimiento del Síndrome de Sensibilidad Química Múltiple” (committee for the recognition of MCS in Spain) for this process. And I specially want to thank all doctors who are going to be part of the MCS working group for their commitment, which has already been more than enough shown during years of work supporting people with MCS. I want to give them all our support in this process that has just now started, because all MCS sufferers and relatives have our hopes pinned on it.

Translation: Eva Caballé, No Fun, April 2010

(*) Update April 13th: finally will attend to the meeting 11 doctors nominated by Associations, because the Ministry of Health has agreed to include 2 doctors who have been previously dismissed.

Related Articles:

• Meeting between Ministry of Health and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Associations in Spain
• How to become a MCS Activist in less than 365 days? Have a look to Spain!