History of the Rise and Fall of Environmental Medicine in the United States

Abstract

The concepts and descriptions of chemical sensitivity in the United States emerged from the observations of a group of American allergists who were using elimination diets to find causes of diagnosable medical conditions. They observed that conditions distinct from traditional allergic diseases, including neuropsychological disorders, could go into remission when foods were eliminated from some patients' diets. When some patients reported that they could eat a food from noncommercial sources but had illness associated with the same food from commercialsources, reactivity to chemical residues such as pesticides and preservatives on foods was discovered. Further observations were made that chemical inhalants such as vehicle exhaust and industrial fumes could exacerbate some conditions. Dr. Theron Randolph pioneered the diagnostic tool he called a comprehensive environmental control unit, in which patients would be fed organic foods on a rotation diet in a facility with relatively clean air. As the field of environmental medicine emerged, commercial interests including the corporate food industry, chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, and workers' compensation insurance companies were threatened. The same techniques used to suppress scientific discoveries that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and heart disease, burning fossil fuels deranges the biosphere, and using leaded gasoline damages children's brains were used to suppress that dietary and environmental exposures could cause disease. As a number of diseases ranging from obesity and diabetes to depression increase at devastating rates, a return to the principles of environmental medicine becomes imperative. Key Words: Chemical sensitivity—Multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome—Neurogenic inflammation—Respiratory irritants.