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Richard B. Philp

Selected Works

2007

Environmental illness

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Full-Text Articles in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Psychological Or Somatic?, Richard B. Philp Dec 2006

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Psychological Or Somatic?, Richard B. Philp

Richard B. Philp

Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is one of a complex group of related disorders that includes fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, acute anxiety disorder, and sick building syndrome that share some symptomatology and that are sometimes grouped under the category of idiopathic environmental intolerance or IEIs. In MCS the individual (female in 4 of 5 cases) reacts in an aversive manner to a host of inhaled chemicals (odors) after an initial “sensitizing” exposure. This group is characterized by the absence of any definitive, objective, diagnostic criteria. Because of this these conditions are generally felt to have a predominantly psychological etiology. Nevertheless, there …