The World Trade Center attack produced chemical exposures of almost unprecedented magnitude. Photo courtesy of Don Shapiro, Healthy Housing Coalition.

Welcome to the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation

The primary goal of the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation, is to raise public awareness about multiple chemical sensitivity. To this end, we are now enabling visitors to this site to play a short documentary produced/directed by Alison Johnson that is titled Chemical Sensitivity: A 15-Minute Introduction. This DVD includes information about the development of multiple chemical sensitivity among veterans of the 1991 Gulf War and First Responders and others exposed to the World Trade Center toxins.

Click here to read the transcript of Chemical Sensitivity: A 15-Minute Introduction

NIEHS Seminar: "Multiple Chemical Sensitivity"

A major milestone in the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation’s efforts to raise awareness about chemical sensitivity occurred in October 2010, when Chair Alison Johnson was invited to present a seminar titled “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A Rapidly Growing Disorder” at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a branch of the NIH. This event was cosponsored by the NIEHS National Toxicology Program and the NIEHS Disability Advocacy Committee.

Click here for the article about the seminar appearing in the December issue of the NIEHS newsletter.

New CDC Policy Limits the Use of Fragranced Products in All CDC Facilities Nationwide

In June 2009, the CDC implemented a new indoor environmental quality policy for all its facilities. This policy prohibits, among other things:

• Incense, candles, or reed diffusers
• Plug-in or spray air fresheners

The policy also states: "[The] CDC encourages employees to be as fragrance-free as possible when they arrive in the workplace. Fragrance is not appropriate for a professional work environment, and the use of some products with fragrance may be detrimental to the health of workers with chemical sensitivities, allergies, asthma, and chronic headaches/migraines."

Click here to download the entire 13-page CDC policy.

Recent Research from Chemical Sensitivity Foundation Board Member Dr. Anne Steinemann

CSF Board member Dr. Anne Steinemann, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Public Affairs at the University of Washington, has recently published important research documenting the presence of a large number of toxic chemicals in widely used fragranced products, including detergents, fabric softeners, dryer sheets, air fresheners, disinfectants, cleaning products, shampoos, and other household and personal-care products.

Read more about Dr. Steinemann's research

Chemical Sensitivity Bibliography

Our efforts to raise awareness about chemical sensitivity include the distribution of a six-page selected bibliography of studies and articles on chemical sensitivity published in peer-reviewed journals. The amount of solid research on this subject is expanding each year, and we believe it is important to alert physicians and researchers to scientific information on this condition that is as yet not always recognized or understood. One of our goals in distributing this list is to stimulate other scientists to consider launching research studies in this field.

Click here for the Selected Bibliography of Research Articles.

Quick Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory Questionnaire

The Chemical Sensitivity Foundation is working to encourage research to further validate the existence of multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). Such further validation will almost certainly be necessary to stimulate governmental and academic institutions, which have large amounts of research money available, to study a wide range of issues related to chemical sensitivity, including its origins, mechanisms, and most effective treatments. Studies involving sick Gulf War veterans may suggest useful directions because almost all the ill veterans now have chemical sensitivity. In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a team of researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas led by Dr. Robert Haley showed that ill Gulf War veterans are deficient in one of the PON-Q enzymes, an enzyme that helps metabolize certain toxic chemicals. A Canadian team headed by a professor of epidemiology at the University of Toronto has recently found this enzyme and others to be deficient in a group of MCS patients.

One useful tool for researchers, physicians, and patients has been the screening questionnaire called QEESI, Quick Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory V-1, that was developed by Claudia Miller, M.D., of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas.

Click here for a copy of the QEESI questionnaire, which is useful for evaluating a person’s level of chemical sensitivity or intolerance.

HUD Considers Multiple Chemical Sensitivity to be a Disability

Another goal of the Foundation is to call attention to the housing problems faced by those with multiple chemical sensitivity. There is a great need for housing that is constructed, remodeled, or furnished in such a way as to minimize the use of building materials and furnishings that contain and release formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals that can cause severe problems for the chemically sensitive. We also believe that it is important to educate landlords about the effects that their pest-control or cleaning chemicals can have on the chemically sensitive. In 2004 the Foundation provided seed money to produce a DVD to raise awareness about chemical sensitivity among landlords serving renters receiving funds from programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This DVD contains an introduction from Bennie Howard, then Acting Deputy Director for the Office of Disabilities at HUD, in which he stated that HUD considers multiple chemical sensitivity to be a disability under the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Click here to read Bennie Howard's complete statement, a portion of which appears in Chemical Sensitivity: A 15-Minute Introduction.

Ground Zero and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

The Chemical Sensitivity Foundation has engaged in various activities to investigate and help publicize the probable connection between multiple chemical sensitivity and the adverse health effects being experienced by those living or working near the World Trade Center, who were exposed to an unprecedented mixture of potentially toxic chemicals after the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers. We believe that knowledge about this potential chemical sensitivity connection will help ill New Yorkers reduce their symptoms. By raising public awareness that exposure to a chemical soup like that encountered near Ground Zero can cause long-term health problems, including sensitivity to everyday chemicals, we hope that in the future public officials will be less cavalier about the risks involved in exposure to toxic chemicals.

Click here to visit our World Trade Center page.