Guidelines for Managing Hypersensitivity

Guidelines for the management of environmental hypersensitivity will be distributed to physicians in Nova Scotia, Health Minister Jim Smith said today.

The nine guidelines form part of a report from the Advisory Committee on Environmental Hypersensitivity, which was asked to update a decade-old report on environmental hypersensitivity.

"Patient care will improve as a result of these guidelines," said Dr. Smith. "There will be less need for duplication of testing and referrals to specialists. Family doctors will have the ways to treat patients suffering from a range of symptoms."

The report and appended documents show that targeted research is needed to investigate the causes of environmental hypersensitivity and to determine the most appropriate treatments, said Dr. Smith.

"We can provide better treatment for these conditions if we know more about them," he said.

The report suggests areas for research include toxicology, environmental medicine and psychology. It says the research must be open to scrutiny by peer reviewers with no vested interest in the outcome but who have scientific expertise in the area.

"We put a great deal of time and work into writing this report," said Peter Mosher, secretary to the Advisory Committee on Environmental Hypersensitivity. "All the information currently available on environmental hypersensitivity was carefully reviewed to ensure the final report was balanced and comprehensive."

The report is the most up-to-date review of literature worldwide on environmental hypersensitivity. During its investigation, the committee interviewed experts from Europe and North America.

The report also includes:

• a detailed examination of events at the Camp Hill Medical Centre starting in 1987. The committee's investigation led it to conclude that factors other than chemical exposure should be pursued as an explanation for the symptoms experienced by workers at Camp Hill.

• An examination of the issue of moulds in public buildings such as schools, and whether they could be associated with environmental hypersensitivity. "When analysed in conjunction with the biomedical literature, these statements implicating moulds as causing significant illness in Nova Scotia schoolchildren are superficial, leaving unstated the conditions and circumstances of the reported fungal growth, and are at variance with current knowledge," the report states.

"This report shows the important role that the Nova Scotia Environmental Health Centre in Fall River can play in increasing our understanding of environmental hypersensitivity," said Dr. Smith.

The committee was chaired by Dr. Ross Langley, a professor at Dalhousie Medical School, a senior physician at the QEII Health Sciences Centre and a member of the Environmental Health Steering Committee.

Copies of the report are available by calling 1-800-565-3611.