Testimony before the US Access Board
by Lawrence A. Plumlee, M.D.

I testified today at the Access Board for NCCI and CSDA. I said that since the board had received 100's of pages from our community since 1991, I would not repeat what others are asking for.

Rather, I expressed my disappointment that they had not included MCS accommodations in their proposed rules, and said that I thought they needed to understand that the prevalence of MCS was high.

I then read "The Magnitude of the Problem," first paragraph plus a little more, from Ashford and Miller's second edition,* page 232.

I pointed out that this indicated that there were probably about 15,000,000 Americans disabled by MCS, and 100,000,000 who sometimes experienced symptoms to common chemicals, including 30,000,000 who developed symptoms to perfume.

I then pointed out that this book had been out for two years before the rules were proposed in Nov. 99, and let them know that if large numbers of persons needing accommodation were not reason enough for them to act, we would be working to reach their political threshold for promulgating rules to accommodate the chemically sensitive. This led to a smile or two in an otherwise expressionless board.

*VIEWPOINT
Low-Level Chemical Exposures:A Challenge for Science and Policy
NICHOLAS A. ASHFORD AND CLAUDIA S. MILLER
http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/est/98/nov/low.html