Chemical Illness Environmental Sensitivity Becomes Crippling Ailment For Many These Days.

September 8, 1991|By ROBERT McCLURE, Staff Writer

What started out as a simple trip to the grocery store for Juanita LaBossiere ended up nearly sending her husband to jail.

LaBossiere suffers from an affliction called multiple chemical sensitivity. No outing is ever simple for her. On this day, she passed a man polishing the chrome dairy case when something in the cleanser got to her.

``I couldn`t talk. My vision went. I kept getting worse,`` LaBossiere said.

She stumbled outside, then collapsed. Paramedics came but did not know what to do. When her husband, Greg, arrived, he whisked her into the car -- with paramedics shouting at him that he would be arrested for interfering.

Relief waited in the form of a special shot at their Lake Worth home. Later, police came banging on the door. They threatened to arrest Greg LaBozziere but did not.

Researchers say the mysterious but crippling affliction of chemical sensitivity affects one of every seven Americans to some degree. That is 37 million people, more than have diabetes. And the incidence apparently is growing, researchers say.

Americans today represent the first generation to grow up in a chemical- dominated society, said Boca Raton physician Albert Robbins, a nationally recognized expert on chemical sensitivity.

``We are an experimental generation,`` Robbins said. ``We live in a chemically different world.``

On the average day, 1,643 chemicals are registered in the United States, adding to the 11 million-plus already in use.

Little is known about how the vast majority of these chemicals affect humans, a National Academy of Sciences study said.

In fact, there probably are thousands of people stricken who have no idea what is troubling them, doctors who have studied the condition say.

Sarah Bowman worked as a bookbinder in a library basement in Bloomington, Ind., before moving to South Florida. Despite chronic bronchitis, she never guessed that formaldehyde in the glue she worked with was slowly making her a chemical cripple. Finally, she had to quit.

Bowman saw more than 40 doctors. But, like many afflicted with serious chemical sensitivity, she was branded as having psychiatric problems and put on medication.

Then, while preparing for an Independence Day picnic in 1989, Bowman collapsed and stopped breathing. She was rushed to a hospital where she barely survived.

Someone suggested she might have ``environmental illness.``

``I had never heard of environmental illness before that,`` Bowman said.

Now she lives in La Belle, in Hendry County, traveling two hours to Robbins` decontaminated office. Even there, danger lurks.

One day last week, when Bowman and her husband, Sherman, visited, a fresh coat of asphalt had been put down outside.

Before she could return from the office to her car, Bowman was overcome by fumes. She staggered and had to sit down. Luckily, her husband was able to dash to the car, grab a shot and inject her with relief-giving adrenaline.

Most cases are not that serious. Many sufferers continue to work, perhaps putting up with a scratchy throat, a stuffy nose or headaches. Symptoms often, but not always, occur at work.

``Most of these people hang on to their jobs way too long. Their personal lives are falling apart, but they keep their jobs,`` said Earon Davis, a Chicago-area health consultant who testified before Congress on the topic.

This is compounded by the fact that most doctors fail to advise sufferers to stop working.

``It`s not in the regular (medical) textbooks. It`s a whole different phenomenon,`` Robbins said. ``Doctors are not taught to look at the environment. They`re taught to look at body parts.``

He is backed up by a 1985 congressional report that said damage from chemicals known as neurotoxins ``may go unnoticed, or be ascribed to social pressures.``


Different substances affect different people, but some common ones are new carpeting, new clothing, perfume, new particleboard or plywood, cleaning products, cosmetics and pesticides.

Treatment can be complicated but basically involves staying away from whatever ails you. Finding out which chemicals cause the problem is something like a detective`s search for a criminal.

Many of the afflicted must make major changes in their lives: They can`t go to movies. They must stay out of shopping malls. For many, the smell of pine- scented air fresheners at Christmas is taboo. So is the scent of new shirts. Some can`t attend a PTA meeting. If they deteriorate far enough, they may not be able to work and could even lose their driver`s licenses.

Bill O`Neill, a real estate salesman with Campbell & Rosemurgy in Deerfield Beach, recently saw firsthand how the condition can affect someone. He sold a condominium to a woman who suffers from the syndrome.

Like many sufferers, she did not talk about her malady at first. At the fourth or fifth showing, she asked O`Neill not to wear cologne.

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