In this reply letter, we want to clarify the methods and some results of our former article “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity in chemical laboratory workers”.

Background

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) is an acquired disease with an unknown biological mechanism. It is characterized by the development of sensitivity to certain chemical products. Most of the hypotheses formulated to explain the syndrome associate it to a previous exposition to some kind of volatile chemical. University researchers in chemical laboratories suffer a phenomenon of multi-exposition to chemical agents at low concentration during long periods of time although in an irregular form. Many of these chemical agents have similar properties to those suspicious of causing MCS. This article studies the prevalence of MCS in laboratory researchers.

Methods

The exposition to chemicals used by laboratory staff in our University departments was evaluated using the following methods: INRST ND 2233‐200‐05, from the French lnstitut National de Recherche et de Sécurité (INRS), and the NTP 937, by the Spanish Instituto Nacional de Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo (INSST). In order to identify the persons affected by MCS we used the international reference questionnaire for MCS medical diagnosis, Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory (EESI), and specifically its shorter version, the Quick Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory (QEESI).

Results

In our study, we found no association between sex and prevalence of the MCS.

中文翻译：

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实验室工作人员对多种化学物质敏感的风险

在此回复信中，我们想澄清我们以前的文章“化学实验室工作人员的多种化学敏感性”的方法和一些结果。

背景

多种化学敏感性（MCS）是一种获得性疾病，生物学机制未知。它的特点是对某些化学产品的敏感性提高。为解释这种综合症而制定的大多数假设都将其与先前对某种挥发性化学物质的阐述联系起来。化学实验室的大学研究人员长期处于低浓度的化学制剂多重暴露现象，尽管这种形式不规则。这些化学试剂中的许多具有与可引起MCS的那些相似的特性。本文研究了MCS在实验室研究人员中的患病率。

方法

我们大学部门的实验室工作人员所使用的化学物质的暴露程度采用以下方法进行了评估：法国国家安全研究中心（INRS）的INRST ND 2233-200-05，西班牙研究机构的NTP 937国立塞古丽达德·萨卢德·恩·特拉巴霍（INSST）。为了确定受MCS影响的人员，我们使用了国际参考调查表进行MCS医学诊断，环境暴露和敏感性清单（EESI），特别是其简短版本，即快速环境暴露和敏感性清单（QEESI）。

结果

在我们的研究中，我们发现性别与MCS患病率之间没有关联。