The environment was right for Nova Scotia's new environmental health clinic.

With a $1-million contribution from the Nova Scotia government, Dalhousie University medical school is establishing an environmental health clinic that will research and treat the controversial condition known as multiple-chemical sensitivity. Already several hundred Nova Scotians, including about 100 former employees of Halifax's Camp Hill Hospital, have been referred to a part-time clinic that addresses environmental illness and other unexplained conditions. Some physicians contend that the sensitivity is largely psychosomatic and treatments provide little more than a placebo effect, but proponents believe research will support environmental health's goal of becoming a new, recognized speciality.