Spanish Workgroup met with Ministry of Health to create a MCS Consensus Dokument

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!


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