MD’s edit Wikipedia article about MCS night per night

A German Wikipedia article about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is edited every day, sometimes every few minutes. It is an article that is supposed to give scientifically proven facts about the illness Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. Of course, the facts about MCS don’t change every few minutes. But the article is not about the facts. It’s about an interest conflict: Industry vs. MCS sufferers. 

In Germany, as in other countries, there are people who have personal experience with MCS, who have a lot of medical knowledge, and who give information and help to MCS sufferers. When they write an article in Wikipedia about MCS, it’s described as an organic condition. Then, doctors who are Wiki-Administrators edit the article immediately, saying MCS is psychosomatic. Those people who want to help can’t write an article that stays up for more than a few minutes. 

What is Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)?

People who suffer from MCS react to many commonly used toxic chemicals. They react to those chemicals even in very small amounts. MCS symptoms can vary from mild to life-threatening, and can be triggered by toxic chemicals such as pollutants in buildings, solvent agents, smoke from chimneys, perfume, laundry powder, or cosmetics. MCS is not an allergy, and if MCS sufferers also have allergies, such as to pollen or foods, it is a separate health issue. 

Why is this information not on Wikipedia? What’s the problem? Allergies and intolerances are nothing new, nothing unusual. But MCS is a problem, a problem for the profits of some corporate interests. 

MCS: A financial problem

In some toxic jobs, MCS occurs often. Many MCS suffers had to work with harmful substances, for example they worked in a shoe factory, in a printing office, or with varnishes. Many MCS sufferers can’t work anymore. Who will pay them money to live on? In Germany, there are special laws about social money for people who can’t work anymore. In other countries, there may be other rules, but financial security for people with MCS is always a concern. 

Additionally, there are cases of people developing MCS by exposure to toxic chemicals in buildings like schools or offices. While it’s common knowledge that many toxic substances and the worst working conditions can be found in manufacturing, harmful substances can also be found in flats, schools, offices, etc. If a state would admit that a school building is toxic, it would have to be redeveloped or built completely new with non-toxic, and expensive, material. That costs a lot of money. So even though a lot of schools and other buildings are toxic, nothing is being done to fix it. 

Further, MCS sufferers need financial support beyond the usual social money. They need a nontoxic flat without chemicals, without cheap laminate on the floor and black mold in the walls. They need air purifiers, which cost a whole month of pay to an average person. They need water purifiers because there are chemicals in the water. They need organic food because they react to pesticides. Many MCS sufferers can even work again if they receive proper health care and support. They often can work from home using the Internet. MCS sufferers need financial support! As all people, with MCS desperately need a right to get a job with good working conditions, and financial support if they can’t work anymore. And yet no one wants to pay for this. 

Sufferers need money to survive, but industry won’t pay!

If MCS sufferers received enough financial support to be able to live, and if public buildings were redeveloped, it would cost the state an immense amount of money. It’s easy to guess who doesn’t want that. There are some people who don’t want to pay higher taxes from the several millions they earn every month. Some people prefer to have a villa, a yacht and a big car while the others die. And there are some people who don’t want to admit that their factories or other buildings make other people ill. 

Psychiatry: How the problem MCS is “solved”

The people who have money and don’t want to pay do have a “solution” for their problem. Of course, they say, it’s not the dirty factories and their products that cause MCS. MCS, they say, can’t be an organic illness. The sufferers, they say, are psychos, so afraid of pollutants that they develop psychosomatic symptoms. MCS has to be treated not by giving the people enough money for a nontoxic place to live in, but by medication and psycho therapies. Those, of course, are a big source of profit for the pharmaceutical industry. 

Even better, those people say, is if MCS sufferers can’t ever find out they have it. Better they believe they are psychos themselves. It’s easy to tell people who feel constantly sick because of ubiquitous toxic chemicals that their illness has another cause: a psycho-cause, of course. 

Internet: Dangerous for the financially strong monopolies

But some people find out what is making them ill. In many cases, they find out about MCS using the Internet. Some MCS sufferers, who know why they are ill, share information about MCS on the Internet. Some can only use a computer wearing a charcoal-mask because of the toxic chemicals in the computers like flame retardant, some don’t have enough money to afford a “safe home,” so they live in an environment that makes them feel sick almost all the time, but still they write and share information. 

The best example: Wikipedia

It’s not easy to make MCS public via the Internet, because certain people don’t want information about MCS on the internet. They want other information on the Internet that says MCS is psychosomatic. And they want that kind of “information” to be on Wikipedia. 

So someone with experience and medical knowledge writes on Wikipedia that MCS is an organic illness. They explain that MCS is recognized by the WHO and important German public authorities, the Federal Department of Health or the DIMDI, which also is very important. In fact, the German public authorities fully recognize MCS as an organic illness. But even so, many people with MCS are diagnosed with another illness, and are told, “MCS may exist and be an organic illness, but you don’t have it, you are psycho.” This happens even though the German authorities fully recognize MCS as an organic illness. 

This is the information that is blocked on Wikipedia. Some doctors can’t accept the truth. Even if one Wiki Admin allows the truth, another Wiki Admin, doctors, edit the article immediately. They call MCS not an illness but an illness concept. They say it is psychosomatic. And they cite outdated studies that say MCS sufferers didn’t react to chemicals they didn’t know were there, and that people claiming they have MCS reacted to placebos. They cite one outdated study conducted years ago by people in the psychiatric field, yet refuse to look at the hundreds of current toxicology studies showing the role of toxic chemicals acting as toxicants in initiating cases of MCS. 

Who are the people who edit Wikipedia?

The people who edit the German Wiki-article on MCS say they are doctors. Two of them call themselves “Christian2003” and “Mesenchym.” Some of them are on the job every minute of the day, and no article that says MCS is an organic illness stays on Wikipedia more than a very few minutes. 

And those editing “doctors” have a lot of interest in chemistry. For example, Christian2003 and Mesenchym take part in a group about chemistry on Wikipedia. What are some interests these Wiki-Admins have? A pharma-project on Wikipedia, a website about “quality control” for Wikipedia articles about chemistry and medicine. Quality control means they have an opinion monopoly on the information posted on Wikipedia. And to make it complete, they want a Black List for websites they think are not qualified, not industry-friendly. They’ve already made their list, and those with opposing views are shown as unqualified. 

If you are able to read German or want to use a translation program, you can read more about censorship on Wikipedia in CSN-Forum: “Hat da wer Panik vor MCS? Wiki” 

Author: Amalie, CSN – Chemical Sensitivity Network, August 12, 2009

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 and is filed under Chemical Sensitivity, MCS, Diagnosis Chemical Injury, Environmental Illnesses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.