A cocktail of highly toxic man made chemicals has been found in every single person tested in a UK-wide blood survey commissioned by WWF...

The Results of WWF's Biomonitoring Survey shockingly reveals that chemicals, such as DDT, which have been banned for decades and which are associated with a range of health problems including cancers and nervous and immune system disorders continue to contaminate people today. Other chemicals with similar properties, and which are still in use, were also found in high levels...

"The chemical industry is contaminating the nation and the government is rolling over and allowing it to continue," said Justin Woolford, leader of WWF's Chemicals and Health Campaign...

"This report shows us that it doesn't matter who we are or where we live we are all contaminated by industrial chemicals which have not been properly assessed for their safety before they are unleashed upon us," said Justin Woolford. "The number and concentrations of chemicals found are deplorable. We are unwittingly playing Russian roulette with our health because of regulatory inaction." (1)

In a Testimony to the Flemish Parliament (Belgium), the well respected international ME/CFS researcher, Professor Kenny De Meirleir explains:

"..During an attempt to describe what exactly is going on in the patients, we discovered a subgroup. We discovered in about ten families with at least two patients that someone had been exposed to pentachlorophenol (PCP). Fifteen to twenty years later, all these people suffered from the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Following PCP poisoning, we notice changes in the immune system that increase the risk of infection. Therefore, there is a relationship between toxins and the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Several publications have already shown that zinc, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and nickel affect the immune system, so that infections are no longer eliminated. In a family who have built their home on a site where arsenic has been dumped in the past, we notice that the immune system is similarly affected. This has already been shown in animal experiments as well.

Then the connection between the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and opportunistic infections needs to be shown. We examined the incidence of chronic mycoplasma infections in a group of 272 patients and found this to be 68.7 percent. In two control groups the incidence was less than 10 percent. We find all kinds of infections. In some people, two or even three infections occur and in 17 percent of cases we find multiple infections. There are 7 trigger factors that may lead to the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, specifically pregnancy, a number of isotropic viruses, long-term stress, excessive physical activity, various infections, transfusions, allergic reactions and heavy metals, phosphates and PCBs. These factors also lead to a deterioration of immune system function. Once a cellular dysfunction has appeared, infections occur that perpetuate a defect in the immune system and make a return to the normal situation impossible. A number of abnormalities develop which lead to the symptoms of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, so that additional infections occur and cancer risk increases.

In long-term cases of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the incidence of cancer is five times higher than normal. It is, therefore, possible to indirectly implicate chemicals in cancer, especially in immune system disorders where P53 (the protective factor against cancer) disappears. If one has one or more factors and gets an infection one cannot get rid of, one enters a vicious circle that is very hard to break. In the 1984 Lake Tahoe epidemic, where 9 percent of the population develops the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome after infections, the incidence of cancer is higher than normal. Certain lymphotropic and brain cancers occur up to a million times more often in the American population. There is a large statistical increase. This means that specific cancers can develop, which in turn will be related to changes in the immune system. Therefore, the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome can be explained. One of its inducing factors can be found in the environment..." (2)

Here are just a few examples of the many articles about the link between ME/CFS and Chemicals:

A preliminary investigation of chlorinated hydrocarbons and chronic fatigue syndrome - (R H Dunstan et al - Med J Aust 1995; 163: 294-297)

Chronic fatigue syndrome following a toxic exposure Racciatti D. et al. - The Science of The Total Environment Volume 270, Issues 1-3, Pages 27-31 April 10, 2001

Four Cases of Pesticide Poisoning, Presenting as ME, Treated with a Choline and Ascorbic Acid Mixture John Richardson - J of CFS, Vol. 6 No. 2, 2000, pp. 11-21

Three Babuska Clusters of Enteroviral Associated Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Paper Presented by Byron Marshall Hyde M.D.: New South Wales, February 1998 - The Nightingale Research Foundation. (quote:)

"..It should be remembered, that the period when polio virus claimed most victims, and most increase in incidence in the United States, was the same period when large scale introduction of the pesticide DDT came into circulation. Obviously, this is just one of many stressors. Many environmental stressors can decrease the circulating interferon and thus increase the risk of individuals falling ill with a chronic viral infection. In neurotropic viruses such as the enterovirus, there is evidence that the site of injury in some cases may be the blood brain barrier of the small arterioles and capillaries of the brain..."

Indeed Malcolm Hooper, Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland writes: "There is convincing evidence that when combined with physical trauma, chemical or biological insult, stress potentiates the condition and that the disorder may be due in part to multiple chemical and / or biological exposures which have been shown to increase the permeability of the blood brain barrier (BBB), leading to a significant brain injury.

Evidence of BBB breakdown in ME / ICD-CFS was presented at the international conference held in London in April 1999: scientists in Israel have shown that severe stress (physical or mental) can produce breakdown of the BBB; if that barrier is broken, small amounts of substances which are normally outside the brain could produce brain injury. It is postulated that in the case of ME / ICD-CFS, a person already under physical or mental stress is exposed to an agent (viral or chemical) which crosses the BBB, enters the brain, and produces long-term dysfunction." ...

If influential doctors can succeed in portraying ME as non-existent and CFS as psychiatric in origin, then the chemical companies and the governments who granted them product licences would not be at risk of being accountable should there turn out to be a provable link with the synergistic effects of so many chemicals, daily exposure to which is now impossible to avoid due to the huge increase in chemical usage. It is this prevailing use of so many chemicals which is thought to be chronically stimulating the immune system.

In the shadows is also the massive insurance industry, which cannot ever face liability for chemical injury or environmental illness without considerable strain and even collapse. Accountability becomes more remote if all research which demonstrates the link between chemicals and the present upsurge in chemically-induced ME / ICD-CFS is blocked, dismissed, trivialised, ignored or discredited. (3)

Regards, Paul Lynch

References:

(1) Highly toxic chemicals contaminate the nation - Monday 24 November 2003  http://www.wwf.org.uk/news/n_0000001055.asp

(2) Testimony of Prof. Kenny De Meirleir in the Flemish Parliament. 6 June 2001.  http://listserv.nodak.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0203d&L=co- cure&F=&S=&P=3931

(3) What is ME? What is CFS? INFORMATION FOR CLINICIANS AND LAWYERS December 2001, E.P. Marshall, M. Williams, M. Hooper  http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/What_Is_ME_What_Is_CFS.htm


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 http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/327/7426/0-h#42071