John Molot - 12,000 Canaries Cant Be Wrong: Whats Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It

Whats making us sick,

and what you can do about it

John Molot, M.D.

ECW Press

DEDICATION

To my parents, Dave and Lotte, for being who they were, and for never allowing me to give up;

To Helen and Lewis, my siblings and my best friends;

To my children: Noah and Josh, for being appreciative and encouraging and making me proud; and Samantha, for enabling me to see the world through a different and better lens;

To my brother Morris, whose death initiated my journey towards writing this book.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to all my patients, for allowing me into their lives and letting me learn from their experiences;

to the many thousands of dedicated scientists whose published work supplied the wealth of data in this book, for providing the data to finally and powerfully respond to the cynicism and ignorance of those who still erroneously and harmfully advocate that the science upholding the practice of environmental medicine is junk;

to Mark Lazarovitz, for his continuous support and encouragement to write this book;

to David Wineberg, who coaxed and coached and taught me more English in one year than all my teachers in high school;

to Arnold Gosewich, for his honesty and expertise;

to Robby, Kevin, and Annie Shore, for their ideas, examples, and suggestions;

to those who worked on the original edition: Leon Mintz, for his graphic support, Gillian Watts, for her copy editing and index, Angel Guerra, for the book design, and Andris Pone, for naming this book;

to Arlene Anthony, Sam and Esther Cukierman, Jean Golden, Jaimini Randev, Henry Molot, Lewis Molot, Lynn Marshall, Jayne Hobbs, Rickey Held, and Vincent Chetcuti, for their careful reading and thoughtful suggestions;

to Marie-Andree Doyon, my admin, and Carol Ciasnocha, my nurse, for their unfailing, enduring partnerships with me, for their participation in the care and support of thousands of patients seen together over the past 30 years, and for their wisdom and friendship;

and most of all to my wife, Debra Aronson, for listening to all my rants, for helping to transform them into this book, and especially for making it comprehensible for everyone else; for her perseverance and inspiration; for her enduring labour, without which this project would have failed; for all the magical, muted, rejuvenating appearances of bowls of fruit and vegetables; for her unwavering belief in me; and for her smile.

INTRODUCTION

In 1986, technology replaced the old tradition of using canaries to detect carbon monoxide in coal mines. Miners would take them underground because the canary is particularly sensitive to the gas, and any sign of distress from the canary was a clear signal warning that environmental conditions in the mine were unsafe and that the miners should be evacuated.

Over the past 30 years I have assessed and followed more than 12,000 patients with chronic medical conditions linked to the environment. Consider them human canaries warning that our environment is unsafe even if the rest of us cant detect it. Many of these people have distressing symptoms that they attribute to multiple common chemical exposures at levels that the rest of us tolerate. This condition is called multiple chemical sensitivities.

This experience also provided me with the opportunity to eventually see a pattern of illness that defied explanation. My curiosity and fascination with what I have observed in my medical practice has driven me to scrutinize the literature in cell biology, toxicology, pharmacology, epidemiology, and environmental health. However, most doctors have refused to accept the possibility that the pattern of illness in these patients could be real, that exposures to low levels of chemicals that we all seem to be tolerating could be making people sick. Instead, they told these patients that the symptoms were in their heads. This denial, which stigmatized and discriminated against my patients, motivated me to persevere, to try to understand, to consolidate, and to remain up-to-date with the increasingly relentless flow of new information regarding the impact of pollution exposure on human biology.

The evidence now validates and explains the existence of environmentally related conditions. The existence of multiple chemical sensitivities, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and sick building syndrome can no longer be refuted. Not only that, the human canaries were right. These conditions turn out to be just the tip of a giant iceberg.

Humanity is facing a huge challenge. In 12,000 Canaries Cant Be Wrong: Whats Making Us Sick, and What You Can Do About It, you will read about how pollution evolution is pushing us along a continuum that is leading to the emergence of more and more cases of chronic disease, starting even in early childhood. But this book is not intended to be apocalyptic. You will gain an understanding of the mechanisms behind it all and be better informed about what you can do about it.

Environmental medicine has been discredited or ignored by critics who claim a lack of scientific evidence. That opinion is no longer justified. The concepts in this book are based on information found in more than 2,000 articles from the medical literature published in the peer-reviewed journals of many health and biology disciplines. All the studies can be found in the database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

For those who wish to see just how strong the evidence is, there is a sister version of this book available on JohnMolot.com. 12,000 Canaries Cant Be Wrong: Establishing the New Era of Environmental Medicine contains more than 2,000 references. Every scientific statement is supported, sometimes with many citations. It demonstrates how robust the science now is in support of the concepts of environmental medicine.

Successful chronic disease prevention and management is predicated on individualized person-centred care and empowerment. 12,000 Canaries Cant Be Wrong will provide you with the information required to make informed decisions to protect yourself and your family, including your future children and grandchildren. You can experience a better quality of health for a longer period of time.

John Molot, M.D. CCFP FCFP