Oral Histories

Interview of Ann McCampbell

Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Lives with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. Medical doctor specializing in internal medicine and environmental health. Chemical sensitivity and disability advocate and activist. Founding board member of the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation. Co-Chair of the Multiple Chemical Sensitivities Task Force of New Mexico.
Series:
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness
Topic:
Environmental Illness
Social Movements
Biographical Note:
Interviewed for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness series. Lives with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. Medical doctor specializing in internal medicine and environmental health. Chemical sensitivity and disability advocate and activist. Founding board member of the Chemical Sensitivity Foundation. Co-Chair of the Multiple Chemical Sensitivities Task Force of New Mexico.
Interviewer:
Yiu, Wei Si Nic
Interviewee:
McCampbell, Ann
Persons Present:
McCampbell and Yiu
Place Conducted:
The interview was conducted via telephone.
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library’s Center for Oral History Research.
Interviewer Background and Preparation:
This interview was conducted by Wei Si Nic Yiu, a graduate student researcher, for the Center for the Study of Women; PhD student in Gender Studies, UCLA. Yiu’s dissertation focuses on queerness and archives of Asia.
Processing of Interview:
The interviewer prepared for the interview by reading a pre-interview questionnaire completed by the narrator
Length:
1.5 hrs
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Audio:
Series Statement:
Chemical Entanglements: Oral Histories of Environmental Illness is a collection of interviews with over seventy individuals living in the U.S. and Canada whose family history, occupation, art practice, or activism have brought them into direct contact with illness experience and disability related to chronic, low-dose exposure to toxicant chemicals. The procurement of this collection (from March 2019 through September 2020) was sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women under the directorship of Rachel C. Lee, with interviews conducted by six undergraduates, five graduate students, two career staff, and two faculty members at CSW.
Personal background--Getting MCS--Interactions with unhelpful doctors--Reaching out to family for help--Barriers to appropriate and safe housing--Getting accommodations from doctors and when taking the New Mexico medical license test--Divide in different US states in recognizing MCS as an illness--Transition from being a physician to an MCS advocate--Inaccessibility of building and other places--How the illness impacts her daily life in terms of social functions--Steps that can be taken to make different spaces more accessible--Doing phone consultations, doing medical legal work--1996 Town hall meeting in New Mexico for MCS, inspiration for her activism--Creative outlets--Experiencing COVID-19 as a person with MCS--Steps that could change our relationship with chemicals today--Gender and how it affects the recognition of MCS as a real illness--Big corporations and their gaslighting organizations formed to counter patient activism and avoid responsibility