Panel discusses hazards of environmental illnesses

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6 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1992 The Connecticut Chemical Sensitivities Disorders Association organized a panel on chemically-induced environmental illness at the World Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet.

The panel had three times as many women in attendance as most of the other workshops, indicating widespread interest dance as most of the other workshops, indicating widespread interest in the topic.

in the topic. It was also one of the panels chosen by the conference committee to be taped. A tape of the panel is now available for sale worldwide, increasing the impact tremendously.

The workshop included the participation of Dr. Rosa Lee Bertel, an interationally known researcher in the field of environmental illness. Bertel blasted the military and laid the responsibility on it for a whole range of diseases. Bertel stated that the generations most directly affected by nuclear testing as children are now experiencing many bizarre disease phenomena.

Denise Bland Bowles, an African American industrial-hygienist from the national office of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union (AFSCME) spoke of the effects of indoor air pollution on a predominantly female office workforce. She reported that many employees are becoming ill from routine pesticide spraying in office buildings.

Rose Marie Augustine, a Chicana activist from Tucson, Ariz., who has led a community campaign there against toxic contamination of the water supply, gave an impassioned description of the health problems that the Mexican American community is experiencing, ranging from increased cancer rates to lupus. Chicanos have built a powerful community organization, The Coordinating Council of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, to fight for clean water.

Linda Thompson spoke for the Connecticut Chemical Sensitivities Disorders Association. She reported on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Environmental Illness, as one who has been disabled by this disease.

Thompson said that this new epidemic is a worldwide phenomenon. It is caused by exposures to a wide range of chemicals and chemical products found in offices, factories, and homes. She placed the blame for this public health disaster on the greed of the chemical corporations, who have flooded the market with untested and unsafe products. Thompson said that there are over 1000 new and untested chemicals put on the market each year, and over 70,000 are produced that find their way into air, land, and water systems. She called for mass action and a return to the activism of the 1960s in the environmental movement and the elimination of a worldwide economic system built on profit rather than human needs.

Becky Barclay, an employee at the EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., who was one of the hundreds of employees who became ill when exposed to toxic carpeting at work, chaired the session.

It was evident that even though a number of participants at the conference were from the world environmental leadership, many were unaware of the extent and severity of environmental illness. This is because there is no major environmental organization that is educating the public on environmental illness and the threat it poses to public health.

Many conference participants were shocked at the information presented by the panelists and are turning their attention to action on this issue. The German Green Party is interested in environmental illness (EI) legislation. Women from the Soviet Union attended the panel and reported they are experiencing the same disease phenomena in their country.

The Connecticut group that sponsored the panel is currently mapping an ambitious program for 1992 in the state, which will include a conference on environmental illness and public health, media work, support to people with EI, a speakers bureau, and action for legislative reform. -L.T.

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The panel had three times as many women in atten-