Letters To The Editor

CHEMICAL SENSITIVITY

Sufferers don’t deserve ridicule

Re: “Taking a whiff” (IN Life, Sept. 1).

Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is a disability that has a physical-biological basis.

Living with MCS involves me in agonizing boundary issues. Many of us live alone out of necessity and have to forgo many normal pleasures because of the proliferation of toxins in normal use.

Our immune systems have collapsed. We do not have what it takes to process the aldehydes, toluenes and other noxious, carcinogenic and neurotoxic synthetics around us. We who know about the connection between environmental toxins and our health would certainly like to urge the rest of you to stop using the substances that harm us all. It would be very nice to go for a walk without worrying about breathing in fresh 2,4-D, organophospate and gaseous fumes.

It does hurt my feelings that some people think their toxic responses to pest control and personal hygiene needs, given the safe alternatives, should override my need to breathe clean air and drink clean water. It doesn’t help to be discounted as some neurotic control-freak in the media.

There is very sound evidence, in large quantity, that poisons actually affect humans and other living organisms in detrimental ways, whether from a single, intense event or from a slow accumulation.

I suggest that, since toxins are almost omnipresent in our modern world, that the media educate the public rather than hold MCS sufferers up to ridicule. I really have appreciated your publication of information and guest editorials that have explored toxics issues. Marguerite Winkel Spokane

Item cavalier about real affliction

I was appalled by staff writer Rebecca Nappi’s Common Ground column (IN Life, 1 Sept.), in which she related the gist of a magazine article that says multiple chemical sensitivity (MSC) is psychosomatic. Hundreds of doctors, including present and former medical school faculty members, say otherwise.

Comparing MCS victims to fainting Victorian ladies is cruel and inaccurate. British psychologist Vicky Rippere has written of “dismissal injury,” the harm caused a patient by having a physical illness dismissed by doctors as psychiatric in origin. Just because there is not yet a good medical test for MCS doesn’t mean the disease doesn’t exist.

Many conditions considered psychosomatic earlier are now recognized as physical. Stomach ulcers, once believed to be due to stress, are now attributed to a specific bacterium that is treatable with an antibiotic. If MCS is a mental condition, psychiatric therapy should be effective in treatment, but it isn’t. Avoiding chemical exposures is what helps.

Are most MCS victims women? Many men develop MCS as a result of chemical exposures on the job. The Gulf War syndrome experienced by so many veterans could be MCS. A Duke University study found that three chemicals used by soldiers to protect from nerve gas could combine to cause nerve damage.

Manufacturers and industrial users of chemicals of course deny MCS is a problem. Drug manufacturers, seeing little chance for profit, don’t research MCS because it is unlikely sensitivity to some chemicals can be treated by administering others. Robert Forman Colville, Wash.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Kaun - the congresswoman we need

Looking for an alternative candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives but think decent politicians have no chance? Vote for Susan Kaun in the Democratic primary on Sept. 17.

Kaun is the only candidate who can make a dent in Washington gridlock. What qualifies her for this massive job?

Kaun is articulate, down to earth, dedicated, passionate about her country and she can get the job done when the odds are against her. She firmly believes nothing will change in Congress without campaign finance reform. As she says: When people give a judge $100, it’s called a bribe and they are thrown in jail. When people give a politician $10,000, it’s called a campaign contribution and they get a “thank you very much, what would you like?

Special interests, left or right, should not rule Congress. The public’s interest should come first.

Kaun stands for education, fair taxes, the working class, cultural diversity and environmental protection. She is a committed Democrat but her economic common sense rivals any Republican’s. She has grave concerns abut the federal deficit and about government getting too big.

Our country needs 435 congresspeople with Susan Kaun’s qualities. Come and see the difference for yourself at the candidate forums (Democrat and Republican), at 7 tonight in the Unity Services Building, Whitman County Fairgrounds, or at 7 p.m. Sept. 9, Schweitzer Engineering, Port of Whitman Research Park in Pullman. Bryan E. Burke Pullman

Questions remain about personnel files

I have been watching the Filegate investigation on C-Span regularly. It has been an education in political posturing. The requirements to work in the White House would seem to be an ability to lie with an honest expression and to have a very short memory.

President Clinton knew the FBI files were on the floor of Craig Livingstone’s office for years and were under the control of a 25-year-old woman who came directly from college to work for Livingstone. Political interns were constantly coming in to look through the FBI files and to copy from them. Clinton still went on television and stated that the files were locked in a vault and that no one was allowed to see them.

Livingstone’s only steady job was working in Clinton’s presidential campaign in the dirty tricks section.

Three questions not answered yet. Who was responsible for hiring Livingstone? What happened to the lists that people were required to sign before taking the FBI files out of the office? How many more people like Livingstone are still working the White House? John H. Stuecker Wallace

Create state for the rest of us

We need one more state in this union of the United States, comprised of Eastern Washington, North Idaho and Western Montana.

For too long, Olympia has ignored us in Eastern Washington, just as Boise has ignored North Idaho and Helena has ignored Western Montana. We need a new state to govern ourselves, instead of paying taxes for services and considerations we never receive. Roxie Sylte and Vernon Akers Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Cabin site poor for other uses

Three questions come to mind after reading “Cabin owner had plenty of warning” (Our view, Aug. 24). Did any member of the editorial staff:

Visit the site of the former Russell cabin?

Consider the size and location of the beach?

Examine the records of the U.S. Forest Service at the district ranger’s office at Priest Lake?

Facts:

The Russell cabin site is on top of a hill not too desirable for camping or a picnic.

The beach is shallow and will accommodate only a small group - not desirable for camping.

In early Forest Service records, it was stated that the Russell cabin perhaps should not be considered for repossession.

Russell was not unreasonable in his quest to continue to use his cabin. He understood the facts. He knew that this parcel of land would serve only a very limited few once in the jurisdiction of the Forest Service.

Much of the early heritage and history of Priest Lake went up in flames at the torch of the USFS. I know! Our cabin was also one of these. Jannis Crow Snook Deer Park

Drug war the problem, not a solution

I understand some members of the National Guard are excited about Bob Dole’s new plan to combat drug smuggling. It will give some of them the opportunity to earn plenty of extra spending money.

Just think how much the drug traffickers would be willing to pay a few sergeants or lieutenants to help protect the shipment of drugs across our borders. Even if drug interdiction at the border was successful, it would only lead to an increase in domestic production of such “substitute” drugs as methamphetamine.

Marijuana is now, arguably, the No. 1 cash crop in the United States. The war on drugs will be won one way, and one way only. It will be won when we realize that the prohibition of illicit drugs is a failure.

A far greater number of people die each year as a result of the violence associated with the drug trade than die from their use of these drugs. Johanna Wools Coulee Dam