About Anne

Anne Lipscomb is a former award-winning public relations manager who developed multiple chemical sensitivity, becoming one of a handful of workers in the U.S. to receive workers’ compensation for illness related to sick building syndrome. Having spent most of her childhood living in Africa, she then lived in France and India as an exchange student. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, Anne moved to Seattle and worked in international trade. 

Upon moving to a new office building Anne and more than 60 other staff were sickened. It changed her world forever. She has improved her health since then but still suffers from an illness which is not yet formally recognized by mainstream medicine. 

After sickness forced Anne to live as a shut-in inside her Seattle home for more than 14 years, while avoiding contact with most everyday chemicals, Anne embarked on a healing quest through a maze of mainstream and alternative healthcare, which eventually improved her condition. Seeing that her response to the illness was practically the only thing she could control, Anne also chose to look for potential gains cloaked within her misfortune by embarking on an inner journey that continues to enrich her life in surprising ways and has even led her to live part-time in Paris.

Anne’s book, Poisoned by Pollution:  An Unexpected Spiritual Journey, is a story of how the power of one woman’s imagination ultimately helped her triumph over what might have been devastating physical limitations. In the book Anne shares her hard-won wisdom and the skills that she used to create a surprisingly adventurous life.