EHAO - CORRECTION TO URGEcfNT PLEA FOR HELP FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH CENTER, DALLAS

[Guest guest]

Forwarded by EHA Ontario to its members - a plea to help Dr. Rea's clinic ...

 

Please note the correction in the street address given below.

 

Dear Friend,

 

I am writing as a friend and supporter of the Environmental Health Center,

Dallas, a rare and precious clinic which is under attack by corporate interests

with deep pockets, and, as a result, is in dire financial straights. It is

impossible to overestimate the importance of this precious clinic. In terms of

medicine, to draw an analogy, its closing would be equivalent to the loss of

Greenpeace from the world environmental movement. That's how serious its closure

would be.

 

This clinic needs your help.

 

I am sending this email far and wide to my colleagues, friends, family and

acquaintances in the hope that you will respond to the gravity of the situation.

I apologize to those with whom I've been out of touch for so long due to health

reasons. (In truth, only this clinic put me back in front of my keyboard and

made me capable again of writing to you.)

 

 

If you suffer from toxic injury and chemical sensitivity, or if a friend or

member of your family does, you probably know about the EHCD. If not, you should

know about it because toxic injury can happen to anyone, and can hit very, very

hard. It is very difficult, often impossible to find treatment for it it even in

large centres. Very few medical shools have a curriculum that trains doctors in

diagnosis and treatment. So literally everyone has a stake in the continued

existence of this clinic.

 

This pioneering centre was founded by Dr. William Rea in the late 1970s. It has

served as the single most precious place for people with chemical sensitivities,

and for all who have benefited from the pioneering of environmental medicine,

since then. 

 

   **  It has helped to test and codify so many crucial diagnostic procedures

and treatments for environmentally related illness,   

       both MCS as such, and so many others. 

   ** It has treated almost 30,000 patients, most of whom were not able to find

help anywhere else, including military veterans,  

      9/11 first responders and thousands of children with a host of illnesses

ranging from extreme sensitivities to autism.

   **  It has trained hundreds of doctors on-site and internationally. 

   **  Its existence has provided the real-ilfe model of state-of-the-art

diagnostics and effective treatment from which physicians, 

       health officials and patients can fight for similar approaches, so

desperately needed in every community.        

   ** In Japan, four clinics so far have been built on the same model and Dr.

Rae consults internationally. The attachment here 

       tells you a lot more about him and the clinic, if you are interested.

   ** Dr. Rea's clinic is the ONLY facility on this continent where safer

residences are available. When people get really sick      

      with chemical sensitivity, they cannot get better unless they have a safe

home.

 

I was a patient at the Clinic between February and June 2008, also seeking help

while in critical health after years of illness and suffering. I made progress

that seemed incredible (and joyous) to me at the time, after so many years of

incompetent treatment and decline. I met many physicians who were learning about

what many other (retrograde) physicians continue to deny.  

 

So here is the scary part: For a some time now, a group of Texas physicians,

acting as point men for other interests (notably insurance companies and

reactionary doctors, with the chemical and pharmaceutical industries behind

them) have been attempting to shut the center down. If you want to understand

the politics of this kind of struggle,  you can check out my blog --

www.thechemicaledge.wordpress.com, go to MCS 101 and then to 6. System Failure

for a full account. Or see this in the second attached document.

 

 

The point at this moment is that it's been a long and complicated battle, and

the legal fees are huge and increasingly unbearable. Indeed, they now threaten

to shut down the clinic completely -- a strategy that corporate interests with

deep pockets use to great effect on many similar fronts. Dr. Rea may not even

get a chance to fight the substantive issues if the costs are too much for him

and his dedicated staff to continue on with.

 

Today, we are at a turning point, in our struggle to rescue our planet and

transform medicine so it can help us heal from the chemical damage. Finally a

period is opening up in which the evidence linking environmental degradation to

a vast host of health impacts has grown into an avalanche with the power to

compel change. But as this evidence mounts, chemical, pharmaceutical, financial

and backward looking medical interests, threatened by it, are launching new

offensives in several important countries to discredit medicine geared to

healing toxic injury. Most immediately they are getting closer and closer to

shutting down our oldest and most important clinical site, thereby discrediting

Dr. Rea, his amazing staff, his methods and his patients. 

 

Please consider how crucial this clinic is: as a place for  help when all else

fails; as a  living example of the practice of environmental medicine in every

country in the world; as a place whose emulation we can demand from our own

health systems. It's loss would be, without exaggeration, a global disaster.

 

And then PLEASE find a way to send the Center some financial help so it can

survive to help all of us.  Any and all contributions are needed and welcome.

And PLEASE forward this email on to anyone you know who cares about the

environment and the devastating health impacts of chemical pollution.

 

Please make your cheque payable to the William J. Rea Legal Defense Fund,

 

and send to Environmental Health Centre,  8345 Walnut Hill Lane, Suite 220,

Dallas, TX 75231 Attn: Ellie

 

Please help. Thank you.

 

Varda Burstyn

--

Varda Burstyn

705.876.1909 (tel)

705.761.2174 (mobile)

website: www.vardaburstyn.com

blog: www.thechemicaledge.wordpress.com

 

 

--

Mary de Bassecourt

Executive Director

Environmental Health Association of Ontario (EHA Ontario)

office

www.ehaontario.ca

Fax: 1-866-877-1770