Susceptibility disease/illness

It is likely that some or all of these mechanisms are involved in chemical sensitivity, and that disease occurs when the total load of biological, chemical, physical and psychological stressors exceeds a critical threshold for any particular individual. When the body is burdened by multiple stressors, susceptibility to MCS as well as other diseases is increased. It is not uncommon for trauma to precede or exacerbate this illness. 

Selgrade, M.K., Starnes, D.M., Illing, J.W., Daniels, M.J., and Graham, J.A. 1989. Effects of phosgene exposure on bacterial, viral, and neoplastic lung disease susceptability in mice. Inhalation Toxicol. 1 243-259. 

This point of view overlooks the fact that every well and normal individual is potentially an ill individual, and the roots of disease may be present in his make-up years before there is any overt disease. A dozen young men used as normal controls may each have metabolic peculiarities that point toward a different metabolic derangement gout, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, anemia, atherosclerosis, hypertension, nephrosis, hypothyroidism, rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatic heart disease, liver cirrhosis, and myasthenia gravis, for example, and yet at the time of their use as controls these young men may show no symptoms of the disease which is to appear later in life. It seems far from safe to assume that because an individual on clinical examination seems well, all of his blood values, for example, are normal and meaningless so far as disease susceptibilities are concerned. 

Legionnaires disease is frequently characterized as an opportunistic disease, meaning that it most frequently attacks individuals who have an underlying illness or a weakened immune system. The most susceptible people include the aged, smokers, and immunosuppressed individuals. People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, organ transplant patients, and individuals on corticosteroid therapy are also at elevated risk. 

There is no silver bullet to explain or cure GWS, which is not a discreet syndrome at all but a variable cluster of symptoms and disease states with different susceptibilities. The battle to cure Gulf War illnesses must be fought at the cellular, molecular and genetic levels to try to heal the delayed wounds of war and protect future soldiers. The best evidence linking toxic causes to chronic effect lies within the bodies and minds of Gulf War veterans. That evidence has been too long ignored. 

This knowledge would enable clinicians to characterize the likelihood of a patient s having an adverse drug reaction or being susceptible to chemical-induced illnesses. It would also permit a personalized and especially effective drug-treatment regime for diseases such as cancer. 

The appearance of pseudomembranous colitis in clusters of patients (143-146) may explain the wide variation in occurrence, and suggests that the disease may result from cross-contamination among patients rendered susceptible by antibiotic treatment. This is especially true for epidemic outbreaks in hospitals, where the disease may be considered a nosocomial infection favored by serious illness, frequent and prolonged use of broad-spectrum antibiotics (especially cephalosporins), and poor compliance with the rules of hospital hygiene (147). In such an epidemic, a variable proportion of... 

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