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10/2000:

ALS: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Lou Gehrig's cases prompt investigation at Texas Air Force base

October 20, 2000

Web posted at: 9:43 AM EDT (1343 GMT)

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (AP) -- A suspected high occurrence of Lou Gehrig's disease among former and current workers at Kelly Air Force Base has prompted a federal investigation to determine whether the base is to blame.

The disease, scientifically known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, has struck 16 workers in recent years, killing five people, the local ALS Association says.

ALS statistically affects fewer than two out of 100,000 people each year in the United States, leaving some experts baffled by the high numbers at the air base.

An ongoing environmental cleanup of Kelly and its associated health-risk studies have only heightened suspicions.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/10/20/airbase.illnesses.ap/index.html

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Swiss/German TOX-DOC - information, May 15. 2001:

What is ALS ?

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's disease" or "Motor-Neuron-Disease" is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.

Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually lead to their death.

When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With all voluntary muscle action affected, patients in the later stages of the disease become totally paralyzed; their minds fall into The Great Forgottenness - Alzheimer' Disease.

A-myo-trophic comes from the Greek language. "A" means no or negative. "Myo" refers to muscle, and "Trophic" means nourishment---"No muscle nourishment." When a muscle has no nourishment, it "atrophies" or wastes away. "Lateral" identifies the areas in a person's spinal cord where portions of the nerve cells that nourish the muscles are located. As this area degenerates it leads to scarring or hardening ("sclerosis") in the region.

As motor neurons degenerate, they can no longer send impulses to the muscle fibers that normally result in muscle movement.

Early symptoms of ALS often include MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity), increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs, speech, swallowing and breathing.

When muscles no longer receive the messages from the motor neurons that they require to function, the muscles begin to atrophy (waste away). Limbs begin to look "thinner" as muscle tissue atrophies.

Death usually occurs within five years of the final diagnosis and is attributed to respiratory failure or cachexia.

***

"People get sick from exposure to toxic chemicals. And they do not realize there is a link between chemical exposure and severe disease. Many of these illnesses are preventable.

Education is the key to prevention. (Jacob B.Berkson)

***

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks ...

And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. (William Shakespeare),

Swiss/German TOX-DOC - information, e-mail-address: gschwinger@neurotox.org