rant alert

Today I read an article about people getting environmental injuries at work and their efforts to remain on the job. I just want to point out to people that if they continue to expose themselves to things that hurt them, they, too, can end up just like me. My doctor said I'd be better in two years provided I lived someplace safe and sweated out the chemicals I'd inhaled; things didn't go completely according to plan, and here I am almost three years later. I am able to work again now, but I'm only managing 10 hours a week from home, where it's safe.

In other news, yesterday I read an article about a lady who had to give up custody of her autistic son because he kept clobbering her. If you google chemicals and autism, you turn up a bunch of tiny studies that indicate that if you get chemicals away from autistic kids and figure out their food sensitivities, they act like normal kids. I don't think that plan will work for every autistic kid out there, but we, as a society would lose what, exactly, by trying it?

Really, what do we have to lose? Autistic kids and grown-ups on disability. I think the air freshener industry can adapt. The perfume industry can adapt. After all, the bisphenol A companies are going to have to.

One more thing - there's a line in the NY Times article that is inaccurate:

In other words, an allergy can kill while a sensitivity just makes you miserable.

As I said before, sensitivities can worsen with continuing exposure, and then you develop sensitivities to other things, and those things include food. Then you can have life-threatening allergies with your sensitivities, and if your sensitivities cause things like heart palpitations (that's heart trouble) instead of headaches, your sensitivities are life-threatening. And that doesn't include asthma, seizures, rage reactions, and stupid mistakes caused by brain fog.