The Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Occupational Medicine has published an alphabetical and systematic Thesaurus “Safety and Health at Work”. The Thesaurus has been created in a long-standing cooperation between documentalists, librarians and scientists from the Federal Institute of Occupational Safety and Occupational Medicine.    

The disease MCS – Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (ICD-10 T78.4) is mentioned at the Thesaurus “Safety and Health at Work”, alphabetical Part, Status May 2009, as: 

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (B02.19.00)     

At the systematic Part MCS – Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is found at the category B02:  

“Work related Disease and Occupational Disease/Disease”  

integrated in Part:  

• B02.19 Other Disease 
• B02.19.00 Multiple Chemical Sensitivity  

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is integrated analogue.  

MCS is not classified as a mental disease

To clear up occurring doubts, it is to point out that MCS – Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is not integrated into chapter B02.15: Mental diseases, Depression, Neurosis, Post traumatic Stress Disorder or psychosomatic diseases. 

Thesaurus “Safety and Health at Work”

The Thesaurus offers a quick overview on the broad group of themes “Safety and Health at Work”. It contains about 3 500 main keywords and is the joining of the keywords from the two previous Thesauri “Safety at Work” and “Occupational Medicine”. The Thesaurus is based on the practical work of the Library group, documentation at the content development and their research of technical literature. It is a tool for documentation.   

The Thesaurus is intended for all who search for literature about “Safety and Health at Work”. It is supportive for prearrangement of research inquiries at the data pool LITDOK and can be helpful for searching in topic related databases.  

Author: Silvia K. Müller, CSN – Chemical Sensitivity Network, July 23, 2009  

Reference:  Thesaurus „Sicherheit und Gesundheit bei der Arbeit“ Alphabetischer Teil, Systemischer Teil, Dortmund/Berlin/Dresden 2009. 

Use of medications among people with chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy persons: a population-based study of fatiguing illness in Georgia 

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating condition of unknown etiology and no definitive pharmacotherapy. Patients are usually prescribed symptomatic treatment or self-medicate. We evaluated prescription and non-prescription drug use among persons with CFS in Georgia and compared it to that in non-fatigued Well controls and also to chronically Unwell individuals not fully meeting criteria for CFS.  

A population-based, case-control study. To identify persons with possible CFS-like illness and controls, we conducted a random-digit dialing telephone screening of 19,807 Georgia residents, followed by a detailed telephone interview of 5,630 to identify subjects with CFS-like illness, other chronically Unwell, and Well subjects. All those with CFS-like illness (n=469), a random sample of chronically Unwell subjects (n=505), and Well individuals (n=641) who were age-, sex-, race-, and geographically matched to those with CFS-like illness were invited for a clinical evaluation and 783 participated (48 % overall response rate).  

Clinical evaluation identified 113 persons with CFS, 264 Unwell subjects with insufficient symptoms for CFS (named ISF), and 124 Well controls; the remaining 280 subjects had exclusionary medical or psychiatric conditions, and 2 subjects could not be classified. Subjects were asked to bring all medications taken in the past 2 weeks to the clinic where a research nurse viewed and recorded the name and the dose of each medication.  

More than 90% of persons with CFS used at least one drug or supplement within the preceding two weeks. Among users, people with CFS used an average of 5.8 drugs or supplements, compared to 4.1 by ISF and 3.7 by Well controls. Persons with CFS were significantly more likely to use antidepressants, sedatives, muscle relaxants, and anti-acids than either Well controls or the ISF group. In addition, persons with CFS were significantly more likely to use pain-relievers, anti-histamines and cold/sinus medications than were Well controls.  

Researchers and medical care providers of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome should be aware of polypharmacy as a problem in such patients, and the related potential iatrogenic effects and drug interactions. 

Reference:  Boneva RS, Lin JM, Maloney EM, Jones JF, Reeves WC, Use of medications among people with chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy persons: a population-based study of fatiguing illness in Georgia, Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2009 Jul 20;7(1):67.