[occ-env-med-l] Update of Comprehensive Bibliography on MCS

[Guest guest]

I have recently updated my comprehensive bibliography of all

peer-reviewed articles on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity,

which I had not done since publishing a review

article in 1999 ( " On the recognition of multiple chemical

sensitivity in medical literature and government policy "

Intl J Toxicol. 1999;18:383-392).

The bibliography is now complete from 1945 through April

2007 and includes 833 articles from PubMed and other

sources. Over 90% are in English with the rest mostly in

German and Japanese, with a few each in French, Spanish,

Italian, German, Danish, Swedish, Russian and Polish.

Shown below are the subtotals for the periods before and

after 1999, and for each of the subsets into which I have

categorized the articles (those supporting a physical basis

for MCS, a psychiatric basis, a bit of both or neither, etc).

The most important finding of this analysis is that, as in

1999, there are still more than twice as many articles that

support a physical basis for MCS compared to a psychiatric

basis (48% vs 24%), while only 17% support a bit of both or

neither (such as prevalence studies). Only in the German

literature does the psych perspective prevail (a Freudian

legacy perhaps?).

If anyone doubts these results, I encourage them to do their

own re-classification and post the results for comparison.

The MCS bibliography and subsets from the first period

(through September 1999) are available online at

http://www.mcsrr.org/resources/bibliography/index.html

I have no immediate plans to post the bibliography for the

second period, so if you'd like a copy please write me

privately and specify which if any of the subsets you want.

--Albert Donnay, MHS

Director, MCS Referral & Resources

adonnay@...

p.s. I've also updated a list of medical society position

statements on MCS, which I'll post separately.

ANALYSIS OF COMPREHENSIVE MCS BIBLIOGRAPHY BY ALBERT DONNAY

------------------------------------------------------------

# Peer Reviewed First 54yrs Last 8yrs All years

Articles on MCS* 1945-9/99 10/99-4/07 1945-4/07

=============== ========= ========== =========

All Articles 595 238 833

=100%

Subset Supporting

Physical Basis 311 93 404

= 48%

Subset Supporting

Psychiatric Basis 137 62 199

= 24%

Subset Supporting

Mixed Basis or Neither 96 45 141

(such as prevalence studies) = 17%

Subset on Research 37 32 69

Methods and/or Definition = 8%

Not categorized 14 6 20

(AD can't read all the non-English literature) = 3%

* Analysis includes all peer reviewed articles that are

either directly about MCS or that make more than a passing

reference to MCS. Search terms included MCS (singular or

plural) and other names but only if explicitly used as a

synonym (such as " environmental sensitivities " and the

oxymoronic " idiopathic environmental intolerances " ). It

excludes all articles from Journal of Clinical Ecology given

its acknowledged bias in favor of a physical basis for MCS.