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Dear Stewart, I don't know whether freon or other CFC's have the properties of carcinogens or of suspected carcinogens or whether body temperature impacts fertility (for those questions, I defer to Dr Olga Sivolchalova of the RAMS Institute, who I have copied on this email), because i am merely an uneducated lawyer. But I posit possible harms worthy of further attention for two reasons: First of all your too-glib remark is not funny because we all know that Inuit and Eskimo ARE dying out, as I heard about at the Alaska Governor's Conference on Safety and Health when I was a speaker there in 2000. A great deal of federal money spent to try to figure out precisely why. Does the cold make a difference? Your guess is likely more informed than mine. Second of all, there is no place in a professional forum for such an off-handed glib remark. And that is really the more important point. As a lawyer and a law teacher, i learned long ago that many great wisdoms are found in seemingly odd or even stupid comments. My father said, "a broken clock is right twice a day, and if you look at it in just the right moment, the information it gives you is correct" Far toomany people have suffered, especially women, because medical professionals, legal professionals and other caretakers refused to take seriously their complaints. In our professions, dismissive attitudes regarding the complaints of patients or potential patients, have more than the usual social implications that attend ignoring a woman's complaints: when we ignore the seemingly peculiar complaint, we run the risk of opening the door to a cold and fierce epidemic because complaints were ignored. Ask the people who fight for rights for peple with AIDS. Their motto is: Silence=death. The other part of the communication, the occupational health professional's obligation in my opinion, is to have an open ear and an open mind so those who are not silent but are suffering can be heard. I for one would love to spend some time asking about the exposures and working conditions and types of plastics (is there vinyl chloride present in wrapping meats in the cutting machines? for example) or the possible broken condition of the freezers (after CFC's were banned in the Montreal international convention for protecting the Ozone layer-- if they can make a hole in the ozone layer--- and deciding whether that is true or not is up to scientists, not lowly lawyers like me-- but if they could make a hole in the ozone layer, the prospect of some occupational exposure harming fertility seems possible to me.) I don't know, i'm just an attorney. But I do know that my ignorance has a chilling effect on my skepticism about patients' odd complaints. I want to know more before drawing conclusions about anything. Thank you for your consideration and time. All the very best to you, Ilise Prof. I.L. Feitshans JD and ScM Legal Advisor WHO/RAMS Committee of Experts on Reproductive Health at Work [log in to unmask] ----- Original Message ----- From: Stewart Lloyd <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 11:55 AM Subject: Re: Walk-in Freezers > New one on me. If cold causes a drop in fertility, why haven't the Inuit & > Eskimo died out? > > Stewart.