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In Review

According to the defense's medical examiner, the woman has no severe asthma. The assertion is that she has severe panic disorder, instead. Now, if this is true, then how does the medical examiner explain the rales, crackles, grunted breathing, tachycardia, erythema of the oropharynx, adenopathy, and hypopotassemia? And if her case ever gets re-filed, then how will the medical examiner explain the October 2005 findings? Those findings were consistent with severe rhinitis, glossitis, and the previously mentioned adenopathy.

It is common in the world of occupational medicine for rhinitis (or rhinosinusitis) to coexist with asthma.Therefore, the presence of a severe upper-respiratory pathology in the woman supports the possibility of severe asthma. It does not support the existence of panic disorder. Moreover, since when has Reactive Hyperplasia been regarded as a mental illness?

The woman highlighted in this account stated that the medical examiner lied on record. And according to her, he gave her no medical examination beyond asking her to inhale and exhale three times while he had a stethoscope affixed to her. He simply asked her a lot of questions, she said. And she added that she has a witness who can corroborate her allegations.

The Defense's Medical Examiner De Facto Insinuated
that the Other Physicians Who Diagnosed the Woman
Committed Malpractice

If the woman has only mild asthma and severe panic disorder, then the physicians who stated otherwise committed malpractice. Therefore, the defense's medical examiner not only attacked the woman's reputation, in calling her mentally ill, he also attacked the reputation of each physician who diagnosed her as having a physical illness; and who then prescribed her medications that treat physical illness.

The symptoms of the woman can easily be construed as signs of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. However, its not her symptoms that indicate this. It's her objective medical findings that do. This is because her symptoms are predominately limited to her respiratory system, (both upper and lower). Her objective findings indicate pathologies to more than one body system; namely, her endocrine system and her entire respiratory system.

The irony to this is that anti-MCS propagandists have repeatedly asserted that persons who show signs of MCS have no objective medical findings; that MCS is only suspected via self-reported symptoms. Well, the woman highlighted in this account has over a dozen objective medical findings attached to her record. And her medical findings indicate a form of multiple physical pathology, or at the very least, they indicate coexisting illnesses in the same one patient. And keep in mind that she was given the diagnoses of:

[1] Reactive Hyperplasia, [2] Glossitis, [3] Rhinitis and
Turbinate Hypertrophy, as well as [4] Asthma.

At this point in time, the question is this: In the event that her case gets re-filed, will the defense succeed in convincing an administrative law judge that the woman is merely mentally ill, or will the woman's objective medical findings, along with the monofilament fiber lab results, the woman's exposure history, and the deposition of a former fellow employee prevail?

Two other questions arise:

[1] How many workman's comp cases consisted in the defense's independent medical examiner lying on record?

[2] How do defense attorneys and independent medical examiners sleep at night, when the workman's comp claimant involved is one fighting for economic survival, and therefore, physical survival? That is to ask, what is it like to live without a conscience?
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December 2006 Update
In November 2006, the woman filed her workman's comp case pro se, in the State of Tennessee. That is to say, she is going forth with her case, and she is doing so without an attorney.

February 2007 Update
The woman now has an attorney from the great State of Tennessee, who will be representing her in the workman's compensation case.

March 2007 Update
The women during a benefit analysis conversation with an officer affiliated with an organization called Tennessee Disability Coalition, was told that the organization has several other clients who were "injured" due to indoor air quality at the building that housed the Cendant Corporation's Customer Contact Center, in Elizabethton, TN.