White paper: Chemical sensitivity: history and phenomenology

Nearly everyone has heard something about chemical sensitivity, either from personal experience with someone who has the condition or from the media. The television series Northern Exposure recently featured a chemically sensitive attorney who lived in a geodesic dome in Alaska, and L.A. Law depicted the struggles of a Persian Gulf veteran with chemical sensitivities who lost his case against the Veterans Administration, but may appeal later in the season. Television news programs and the printed media have showcased patients living spartan existences in remote areas or in aluminum foil-lined rooms. Our views of the illness no doubt are colored by our own personal experiences of it. While some discount or make jokes about chemical sensitivity or these patients, physicians who have seen a number of them are discovering that many appear to be credible individuals with prior good work records who say they became ill following an identifiable exposure to chemicals.