Swiss building provides refuge for the hypersensitive
APRIL 6, 2014
Residents of a new purpose-built apartment building on the outskirts of Zurich suffer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), a chronic condition not broadly recognised by the medical community. — File pic -
LEIMBACH,
April 6 — No smoking, no perfume, no mobile phone use — the list of rules at a
newly opened apartment building on the outskirts of Zurich is long.
For
a reason: the structure has been purpose built for people who say exposure to
everyday products like perfume, hand lotion or wireless devices make them so
sick they cannot function.
“I
have been suffering since I was a child. This will really move my life in
another direction,” said Christian Schifferle, the 59-year-old head of the
Healthy Life and Living Foundation (www.stiftung-glw.com), the prime driver
behind the project.
Schifferle
and the other residents suffer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), a
chronic condition not broadly recognised by the medical community. Those
afflicted, however, believe it is sparked by low-level exposure to chemicals in
things such as cigarette smoke, pesticides, scented products and paint fumes.
Twelve
of the 15 apartments in the earth-coloured building in a remote part of
Leimbach, on the outskirts of Switzerland’s largest city, have already been
rented since it opened in December.
Many
occupants also suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity, in which
electrical circuits and radiation from wireless equipment make them equally
ill.
“It
makes me weak, anxious, I can’t breathe, my lungs hurt, and I get dizzy,” says
Schifferle, who suffers from both conditions.
While
living in the building will not cure Schifferle or others, it aims to make
daily lives more comfortable for people whose conditions have often left them
isolated and unable to hold jobs.
‘Only
half alive’
Schifferle,
who first felt sick from the fumes in his parents’ furniture factory when he
was three or four, has lived most of his adult life in a trailer in the
pristine Swiss Alps.
It was
not until he was 35 and stumbled across an American book on MCS that he
realised he was not alone, but it was another decade before he found a doctor
who took him seriously.
“All
my life it has been like I was only half alive,” he said.
The
new building is the first of its kind in Europe, according to officials in
Zurich who decided to play a pioneering role in helping people with what they
called “a very harmful problem”.
They
estimate about 5,000 people in Switzerland alone suffer from MCS.
The
city made available the land and provided interest-free loans to help finance
the SFr6.1-million (US$6.9-million or RM22.63-million) project.
“We
wanted to help these people to have a calm home where they hopefully will be
less sick,” said Zurich housing office spokeswoman Lydia Trueb.
With
a mask covering his nose and mouth, Schifferle proudly shows off the 0.0
reading on a handheld electricity-measuring instrument with a triangular, green
antenna.
“This
room is very good, because we have almost no electricity,” he said, nodding
around a large common area equipped with a big carbon filter to purify the air.
Anyone
entering the building is expected to switch off their mobile phones, which in
any case do not function inside. But there are landlines for telephone and
Internet communication in the building.
Near
the entrance, the only cleaning and personal hygiene products residents are
allowed to use in the building are on prominent display.
Only
isolation helps
“Avoiding
the environmental burdens is really the only thing that helps most of these
patients,” said John van Limburg Stirum, an internist specialised in
environmental medicine who has treated Schifferle and other MCS patients at the
Seegarten Klinik near Zurich.
“They
have to find shelter somewhere where there are no antennas, no radiation from
cell phones, which is getting more and more difficult,” said Stirum.
The
condition is difficult to pin down, and sufferers are often dismissed as
hypochondriacs.
But
a growing body of research suggests an initial chemical exposure can spark an
“allergic reaction” in some people when they later confront even very low
levels of a range of chemicals.
“These
patients are really suffering,” said Stirum, who is urging medical recognition
of the condition.
The
Zurich building was constructed with special materials, by purpose-trained
builders banned from smoking or using scented products like cologne as they
worked. It has a ventilation system aimed at sucking out all odours.
“I
think a good example for the whole thing is the plaster on the wall,” said
architect Andreas Zimmermann, who designed it.
“It
doesn’t smell, and that is very important for these people,” he added, saying
he searched for months for a completely odourless plaster.
The
floor plan is layered like an onion “so that the deeper you enter the
apartment, the cleaner the rooms get,” he said.
The
building’s most “contaminated” parts are the common areas, main hallway,
stairwell and elevator in the centre.
From
there, residents enter their apartments, moving through a hallway where they
can remove “polluted” clothing, the bathroom and kitchen or other technically
equipped rooms, before getting to the “cleanest” rooms: the living room and
bedroom.
A
special “net” has also been built into the facade and roof to protect inhabitants
from electromagnetic or electrostatic waves or fields, Zimmermann said.
Despite
all the efforts, Schifferle still only spends a few days a week in his new
apartment. More ventilation is needed, he said, until all traces and scents of
the builders are gone. — AFP
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