The Issue
Some percentage of deaths by adverse drug reactions are of people with undiagnosed sensitivities. Some percentage of people who suicide don’t realize their moods are affected by foods. Studies on prevalence suggest it’s 15%. Meanwhile, negligent politicians and health officials encourage a stereotype that does not represent the group as a whole, does not have the overall group’s history. In that way, they distract us from ongoing abuses.
The federal and Ontario governments have known for several decades that Canadians with undiagnosed environmental sensitivities are being unnecessarily hurt and killed by acts of commission in health care. They know and have known how to prevent that harm. In some situations (kids, psych patients) they had and have a duty of care. For a limited period, from 1988 to 1993, several federal departments were acting to protect people with sensitivities in health care and other venues, especially the built environment.
While Canadian institutions that hide abuse by adopting the “modern chemicals” stereotype say it’s three percent, the US National Academy of Science, the National Council on Disabilities, and many others estimate the prevalence at 10-15 percent. The central nervous system is usually affected, along with other systems.
Where it’s a factor, people are not being screened out of the psych population, with horrific but buried consequences, even though Health Canada was advocating checking for sensitivities in ambiguous cases under health ministers Perrin Beatty and Benoit Bouchard. Based on prevalence, children with central nervous system sequelae are being horrifically abused in schools, by inappropriate responses.
The same concerns exist for children in care, and about the family dysfunction that puts them there.
As consumers had warned the Ontario Ministry of Health since 1985, Nicholas Ashford (MIT) and Claudia Miller (UofTexas) warned that harm can be caused if patients with ambiguous symptoms are subjected to inappropriate measures before being checked for sensitivity. They won a Macedo Award from the American Association for World Health for their 1989 report to the New Jersey State Department of Health. It references clinical and scientific literature since 1880.
Former Health Minister Perrin Beatty supported those protections in September and December 1990. The subsequent health minister, Benoit Bouchard, also worked towards the protection of psychiatric patients whose problems are caused or exacerbated by sensitivities. Then opposition MP John Manley was in good company when Manley supported such protections in 1991. For more about Health Canada, check here.
Knowing of this abuse for decades, CMHA is the Red Cross of our ‘blood scandal’. They invisiblize us in communities and, based on prevalence, they abuse clients whose problems are caused or exacerbated by sensitivities, some of whom then commit suicide.
Psychiatrists are our ‘Christian Brothers’, except they do it to our communities and to our minds, with misconceptions and chemicals respectively. Members of the Canadian Psychiatric Association continue to abuse during three decades of protest, and after being approached several times by the federal health department.
It’s instructive on the dehumanization of persons with sensitivities to note that Canadian psychiatrists responded to actual humans protesting real life abuses by referring the matter to a ‘scientific’ committee. What astonishing arrogance! What belligerence! What cruelty! Abuse not dissimilar to ‘conversion therapy’ interferes horribly with child development.
Again, based on prevalence, perhaps one of Canada’s dozen daily suicides is someone whose central nervous system dysfunction is caused or exacerbated by sensitivities, and who may have been ploughed under by inappropriate care.
PS Coverage of this issue usually focuses on the stereotype. This results in so many mistakes, I made a list of them. Some are specific to journalism, but all may be important when doing stories. By far the worst is the “modern environment” stereotype.