Book: Poisoned [introduction]

The Day My World Changed

It was back in the early 90s when there were lots of stories in the media about “bubble people”–remember them? In 1976, there had been a TV movie called, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (based on a true story) starring John Travolta, and now the media had suddenly discovered whole communities of people who had withdrawn from a society they said made them sick. I was a radio news reporter in Minneapolis at the time. An article in the local paper talked about a woman in North Dakota who was sealed into a specially-built home, unable to enjoy human contact even with her husband.

How bizarre!

The article quoted the Diane Allman, president of the local chapter of the Human Ecology Action League (HEAL).

Perfect, I thought. A local angle.

I looked Allman up in the phone book and asked for an interview. She agreed to come to the studio the following Monday, but only if I would promise to do the following:

1. Wear no fragrance, nor deodorant or hairspray.
2. Ask everyone she might come in contact with to do the same.
3. Shower that morning with fragrance-free soap and shampoo.
4. Wear clothes that had been washed in fragrance-free detergent, and use no fabric softener.

Weird, I thought, but promised.

Radio news people usually go to work very early in the morning, and I was no exception. I always had a terrible time waking up, especially since buying my first house a few months earlier. Despite afternoon naps and an 8 o’clock bedtime, I needed two separate alarm clocks on opposite sides of the room to force me out of bed at 3:30 a.m. On top of that, I seemed to wake up with headaches every day. Driving to work at 4 a.m., I was glad the freeways were nearly empty because I was too tired to even focus on the road–my eyes seemed to jitter all over, never stopping long enough to see anything specific. My brain jangled as though electrified. The effect usually faded by the time I did my first newscast at 5:30, and I chalked it up to exhaustion.

The morning of my interview with Diane Allman, however, was different. I noticed as I drove to work that I was able to focus my eyes and my brain felt clear. I had no headache for the first time in weeks. Instead of forcing myself to read as fast as I could during newscasts, I seemed to have a natural energy and enthusiasm on the air that I had long forgotten.

[to be continued...]