I wanted to send a follow up note – I’m working on a series of articles on alternative healing and came across your site in the midst of my research. Quick heads up – you’ve got a dead link (on this page: http://ehn.users.sonic.net/ehnca.org/www/ehnlinx/a.htm) to what used to be the American Association of Oriental Medicine (AAOM): http://www.aaom.org/

The AAOM has since become the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (AAAOM) and has changed its homepage to: http://www.aaaomonline.org/

Also, are you open to adding another resource? The guide below is an exceptional resource on alternative healing. There is information on natural ways to cure allergies, foods that improve your kids’ focus, remedies to lower blood pressure, and much, more more.

The Alternative Healing Guide from Answers.com
http://healing.answers.com/

Check it out and let me know what you think.

And if you have any great resources (other than your site!) that you think would be helpful to me for this series of articles on alternative healing (more specifically, for sports-related injuries and illnesses in adolescents), please pass them along!

Thanks very much – I appreciate your time and consideration!

Best,
Nicki

Nicole Stoff
Research Assistant
http://www.answers.com

You will never be forgotten.

Lovingly,

Connie Pitts

I just now learned of Barbara’s passing and wanted to convey my deepest sympathies to her family and friends.

What an amazingly dedicated advocate for environmental health and wellness she was–such an intelligent and perceptive researcher and curator of medical information.

She was so helpful to me in my work as a reporter on a variety of environmental health topics over the years, when I worked for MSNBC,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3035496/ns/health-your_environment/
MSN, and writing for a variety of environmental magazines and outlets.

Sadly,I was just looking for her proper email….to try to be in touch about some recent news when I discovered this website.

So so sad to hear. She will be sorely missed!

Barb and I finally met in person during one of the many battles she was engaged in – against pesticide applications in the Oakland Hills in early 2005. By then I was already largely housebound, so I didn’t get to spend much face to face time with her. Most of our interactions were online, but we managed to build a beautiful friendship in spite of the physical obstacles, and I treasured every moment.

She was a great comfort to many of us in the toxically injured community, always ready to share her experiences and insights, not to mention elaborate and dramatic stories about the stranger moments our illness provides us with. I appreciated her wicked sense of humor. She was a master at comic relief. She once told me a story about wearing her two-can respirator at the airport. She wrote:

”
I was having to wear my mask. And, I scared the bejabbers out of a little boy about three years of age. His mother tried to assure him that I was all right. But he wasn’t buying any of that. So I told him I only looked like a fly-face, but that IF I took off my mask, I’d look like another person. So I held my breath and took off my mask and then put it on again so I could breathe, to his chortling, Fly-face, Fly-face, Fly-face. Then his mother had another problem on her hands . . . to train her son NOT to call folks, Fly-face if he saw them with a mask. But, at least he wasn’t scared and crying anymore.
”

Something else that became a bit of a joke, were the doctor’s predictions of Barb’s imminent demise. She just kept outliving their deadlines. For years! A few years ago she wrote to me:

”
So far, I’m still defying the doctors . . . my last “death sentence” runs out December 2007. Can’t tell you what it does to have a doctor tell you when you are going to die. So far, it’s given me the strength to keep on keeping on, but if I were a different personality, I could see where I’d just curl up and let death overtake me. It’s not just the “dead”line that gets me, but they all push drugs. If I were to take them it would certainly make their predictions come true. There’s something very wrong in all that.
”

Barb took her health care into her own hands, and we all got several more years with her.

But I think my favorite story is the love story Barb lived. I only met Bill once, briefly, but I know that the two of them were pillars of support for one another. I found her stories of their marriage hopeful, inspiring, and exemplary of how loving relationships can survive the greatest obstacles. They scaled every Everest in their path, no matter what awkward mobility devices necessary. Shortly after Bill died, Barb wrote to me these very sad words:

”
I’ve a freedom now that is not so freeing after all . . . There’s the freedom of not having to bounce up for water or ice every time Bill calls out, but then the fact that I don’t have to worry about answering Bill’s beck and call is also a new burden. The silence has become deafening!
”

I can only imagine the sound of the silence that overwhelmed Barb’s senses, after more than 5 decades of marriage, which included a house full of children, followed by visiting grandchildren.

Even through the cold distance of cyberspace, Barb’s embraces were warm, genuine, and tender, and she expressed a deep commitment to her community. From a couple of emails I reread over the last few days, here are a few more of Barb’s words, directed to all of us. She said:

”
I hope to help others along my journey. However long I have, I’ll try to make good use of the time . . . for my family, myself and of course all of my friends in my EHN world.
”

”
My blessings are many. They begin with all of you and I thank each and everyone of you for your love and your kind concern. Thank YOU!

Loving wishes and hugs,
barb wilkie
”

Barb did make good use of her time, and while her personal journey is over, I know that her work will continue to help and empower many more.

I strongly believe that the best way we can honor Barb is to make sure that eventually no one will ever need her help anymore, and to find a way to finally shut down for good the toxic death industries, that manufacture fragrances and flavors, nuclear power and wireless technology, pesticides and bombs.

It takes a great spirit, to accept what you must, and to direct
energy to changing what can be changed, and ~~ having the wisdom
to know the difference! Barb had that spirit and inspired many of
us to take up the challenge. She’ll always be in my heart!

Barri Boone, MCSer since the early ’90′s

Barb was very compassionate and understanding…and I picked that up through just her posts–never having met her in person. I did talk with her once on the phone and she came across in that same sweet way. Thank you Barb for all you did! You’ll be missed!

It would be a great honor to meet members of her family, to see and meet those who made her who she was. In the Jewish tradition, family and friends are everything (to a lesser degree when you have MCS), and so feeling as i do about Barb, I feel by extension that her family is now part of mine. I want to know everything about this pivotal woman, and want to carry my feelings about her around for the rest of my life, as an inspiration and cloak myself in warm thoughts about her to comfort me when I feel like I can’t go on. I envision her smile, laugh, strength of commitment, always articulated clearly and beautifully.

I had wanted to become friends with Barb, at least to come visit her and perhaps socialize with her since I met her 6 or 7 years ago, but her life was full and she didn’t encourage personal friendship, although I know she admired and appreciated me as a woman and MCS sufferer. The last time I called, several months ago, she didn’t have the strength to “entertain,” but invited me to come for 15 minute or so if I was in the area. (I live an hour away in San Jose, so it would have been a special trip to see her.)I never did make it over there, and perhaps I didn’t want to see her in this seriously weakened condition. I wanted so much from her, to soak in her knowledge and experiences, that I was afraid I’d tax her too greatly. So, I missed being with her one last time.

If her family reads this, just know that in my 62 years of life, having accomplished a great deal in my own life professionally and socially, Barb is one of two people I’ve know who I can honestly say was as fine a human being as there is, and she DID change my life. I will carry her memory with me always, talk about her greatness and humanness to others for the rest of my life. Shalom Barbara. Rest in peace. Marsha Miliman

Diane Drayton Buckland
Independent Chemical Researcher/Activist
website | profile | email | links | firewater ~ fluoride truth
MCS-Global Chemical Injury/MCS

Again, Thanks for this list.