Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Drinking Water Leave Military Families Reeling
I was a military wife for a lot of years. I have very serious health problems. Doctors officially blame that on my genes, which can&#x27;t be changed, so it&#x27;s a de facto means to throw their hands in the air and call me unfixable.<p>I think environmental factors are a big part of the problem and that those can be addressed.<p>I lived on a military base for 2.75 years where there was one tap in the house labeled &quot;potable water.&quot; You weren&#x27;t supposed to drink water from the bathroom sink while brushing teeth, yet we bathed in this stuff and washed our dishes with it, etc.<p>The house was not very far from Hinkley, CA, location of the hexavalent chromium plume made famous in the movie &quot;Erin Brockovich.&quot;<p>When I have said on the internet that I believe hexavalent chromium poisoning is one of my problems, I have been dismissed as a nutter and conspiracy theorist by internet strangers who are confident they know all about my life better than I do.<p>I actually spent some years on an antivaxxer email list. They had a lot of interesting and useful information that helped me begin turning my health around while my doctor expressed zero curiosity about my improvement, advised me other patients needed him more and scheduled me fewer appointments.<p>YouTube recently demonitized anti vax channels (seemingly part of general trend to shut down such views). Most people seem to think that&#x27;s a good thing. It leaves me wondering where people like me are supposed to go in a world where &quot;fringe&quot; views cannot be discussed in good faith on the internet. Are we supposed to just quietly die because that&#x27;s the PC answer when doctors tell you &quot;People like you don&#x27;t get well. Symptom management is the name of the game.&quot;?<p>If you make zero effort to get me well and write me off for dead because of the label you gave me, wouldn&#x27;t my decline and death be a form of self-fulfilling prophecy?<p>And when I defy that prediction, I&#x27;m written off as a crazy person and thrown off of one forum after another.<p>Insert some quote about &quot;And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak.&quot;