Environmental Health Perspectives 105, Supplement 2, March 1997

Chemical Sensitivity: The Scientific Literature

Nancy Fiedler and Howard Kipen

University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey


Abstract
This article provides an overview of the scientific literature in which chemically sensitive patients have been directly evaluated. For that purpose, consideration of various case definitions is offered along with summaries of subjects' demographic profiles, exposure characteristics, and symptom profiles across studies. Controlled investigations of chemically sensitive subjects without other organic illnesses are reviewed. To date, psychiatric, personality, cognitive/neurologic, immunologic, and olfactory studies have been conducted comparing subjects with primary chemical sensitivity to various control groups. Thus far, the most consistent finding is that chemically sensitive patients have a higher rate of psychiatric disorders across studies and relative to diverse comparison groups. However, since these studies are cross-sectional, causality cannot be implied. Demonstrating the role of low-level chemical exposure in a controlled environment has yet to be undertaken with this patient group and is crucial to the understanding of this phenomenon. -- Environ Health Perspect 105 (Suppl 2):409-415 (1997)

Key words: chemical sensitivity, psychiatric, neurologic, olfaction, immune, unexplained symptoms

This paper is based on a presentation at the Conference on Experimental Approaches to Chemical Sensitivity held 20-22 September 1995 in Princeton, New Jersey. Manuscript received at EHP 6 March 1996; manuscript accepted 13 August 1996.

This work was supported by grants from the Hazardous Substance Management Research Center, a National Science Foundation, Industry/University Cooperative Center; the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology; and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Superfund Basic Research Program, grant ES-91-02.

Address correspondence to Dr. N. Fiedler, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Environmental and Health Sciences Institute, 681 Frelinghuysen Road, Room 210, Piscataway, NJ 08855. Telephone: (908) 445-0190. Fax: (908) 445-0173. E-mail: nfiedler@eohsi.rutgers.edu

Abbreviations used: EEG, electroencephalogram; EMG, electromyogram; MCS, multiple chemical sensitivity; MEK, methyl ethyl ketone; MMPI-2, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory; PEA, phenyl ethyl alcohol; PET, positron emission tomography; PYR, pyridine; SPECT, single photon emission computed tomography.

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Last Update: March 26, 1997