Local news gives you a strong feeling about a town and its people. When you read that a small town like Bolinas, California feeds its homeless neighbors out of its own pockets, rather than through an agency, you figure their must be some very nice folks living there. But when you read about another town - South Whitehall Township, PA - complaining about the ugliness of a shed while one of their neighbor’s lives is at stake, you wonder what is wrong with the people living there.

This afternoon, a friend of mine sent me an ABC feature on a South Whitehall Township woman, Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes, who has been ordered to take down the shelter her husband built to protect her from chemical assault. Feudale-Bowes suffers from Environmental Illness.

Both the title of the article and many of the comments left after it show the problems a woman like Feudale-Bowes faces the moment anyone hears she has this type of disorder. ABC’s subheading puts single quotes around the words environmental illness, suggesting that this kind of ailment is dubious, so-called, not-to-be-believed. They show ignorance of the matter in doing this - a lack of research into the reality of this severe affliction. Comments like this one follow suit:

Just another hypochondriac that expects the rest of us to confirm their fears.

Chilling.

Feudale-Bowes’ neighbors have complained that the environmental safety shelter doesn’t conform to zoning laws, is unsightly and will bring down their property values, and when Judge Carol McGinley ruled that it had to be taken down, she allowed the people of South Whitehall Township to continue living in the grip of amazingly selfish values. What do you think about a town where a pretty yard is more important than the health, potentially the life, of a severely ill woman? What do you think about that town?

I’m sure there must be many good people in South Whitehall Township, PA. but the ones who have brought this disaster down on a woman whose sufferings include migraines, joint pain, bladder inflammation, seizures and temporary paralysis should take a good long look at themselves, the health they are lucky enough to enjoy, and their personal moral codes that have revealed them talking about yard decor while their neighbor is in debilitating agony.

Where are the good people in South Whitehall Township who will hold a fund raiser, volunteer labor hours, go to the city zoning commission, in defense of their ailing neighbor? Who will offer to bring Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes’ safety shelter up to code? Who will visit her, console her and her family, lend a hand in helping her cope with a life of such challenging pain? Who will confront this family’s neighbors and reveal to them that a light has been shone on their selfishness and that this is giving the town a very poor name in the public eye.

Every major world religion embraces the values of charity, care of the poor, help for the sick and love of neighbor. What religion, what system of ethics is being practiced in the neighborhoods and courtrooms of South Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania? Who can look this woman’s suffering in the eye and put single quotes around her pain, quickly moving on to talk about zoning laws and property values? Those meddlesome, self-centered neighbors should be hanging their heads in shame right now and asking the Feudale-Bowes family to forgive them for this totally needless infliction of misery brought on by a distorted sense of values. I sincerely hope that the national news coverage of this story will make those neighbors take a long look at themselves and what has been revealed about the size of their hearts.

And, I sincerely hope that the good people living near this family will react with the outrage and active response this situation calls for. I pray that caring people will give the Feudale-Bowes family whatever assistance they need in order to provide Elizabeth with the safety shelter her illness decrees as a necessity for her.

As I write this, it’s not hard for me to get into Feudale-Bowes’ shoes. Everyone in my family caught a flu two months ago. Nothing to make a big deal out of and my husband, my parents, my siblings and their kids have all recovered. But, because of my own Environmental Illness, I am still sick with it. I’ve been in continuous pain for weeks…the pain Feudale-Bowes described as feeling like, “fire with ground glass in it.” My damaged autoimmune system is taking its own sweet time to recover from a sickness that everyone else shook off after a week or so.

Does the fact that I don’t look too bad mean this isn’t happening to me? Does the fact that I’m writing this article mean that I’m really okay? Or does it simply mean that I’ve learned to live with a level of discomfort and pain that would have most people rushing off to an ER if they experienced it? Like most people with autoimmune diseases, multiple chemical sensitivities or environmental illnesses, I’m a master at coping and I do what I can.

Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes was just doing what she could when suddenly her own neighbors turned on her and brought the law down on her. On top of all of her own sufferings, she has been forced to deal with this stress and humiliation. My cheeks burn with shame for the people who brought this on her. And I cringe to think of the so-called doctors, the judges, the citizens who have forced her to hear, probably for the millionth time in her life, that her sickness is probably all in her head. One of the most damaging things about these kinds of incurable, chronic illnesses is being called a crazy or a fibber, while the pain continues on in mind and body.

Does anyone, these days, anyone at all actually NOT know at least one person with an environmentally-related illness? Has anyone not know someone who died of cancer due to pesticide exposure? Been born with autism because of chemical pollution? Gotten sick at Macy’s from the perfume? Had migraines from commuting through smog? Been bedridden from ‘unknown’ causes? Visited doctor after doctor, looking for a root, a diagnosis, a solution, a cure to a host of environmentally-related illnesses for which modern medicine has no real answer? It’s hard for me to believe that anyone in America these days doesn’t know someone who is suffering from Fibromyalgia, Endometriosis, MCS, Chronic Fatigue and so on…

And if that sufferer is your mother, your brother, your child, your neighbor…what do your ethics call you to do?

As I see it, the people of South Whitehall township owe Mrs. Feudale-Bowes a sincere apology and the offer of their hands, their money and their time to make this situation right.

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