About Meg

Why I Started Interior Medicine

Hi! I'm Meg. My background is unusual for someone who runs a non-toxic home website.

Anytime someone brought up non-toxic living to me when I was in my twenties, I rolled my eyes. What changed my mind was repeated, incremental exposure to the facts.

Before college, I planned to major in Interior Architecture, but reading Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert made me decide to major in Biochemistry and Biophysics instead. Spending four years learning about tiny molecules and how our bodies use them is likely what makes "toxins" feel more real and relevant to me to this day. I learned in a class that Teflon was made of PFAS, and it was thought, even back then in 2007 (!), that PFAS may be carcinogenic to humans — which, of course, now we know they are. I also learned about the biochemistry of how we digest synthetic food additives, and this marked the first time I had any interest in organic food and safer cleaning products. Before, I had dismissed them as unnecessary and just "for the hippies," but learning how synthetic chemicals affected my body on a molecular level changed my mind.

While figuring out my next career steps, I spent a year in an Epidemiology and Biostatistics Master's program and my time there ended up being incredibly valuable: I learned how to think about public health versus individual risk, correlation versus causation, and much more, all of which I still use constantly to this day. I thought the best thing I could do for public health was prevent disease, so pivoted to become a naturopathic doctor (which in Oregon and 22 other states means a licensed, board-certified primary care physician who can prescribe a full formulary of medications.)

Years later, pandemic lockdown moved my patient care to Zoom screens and gave me time to wonder about my Ghost Ship: that alternative life where I had become an Interior Architect instead. I took online classes in Architecture and Interior Design for fun in the evenings, and while choosing materials for one of my projects, I noticed that stain-proof couch upholstery was made with PFAS, just like the Teflon pans of 2007. I wondered if I could help prevent disease by choosing a couch made without PFAS for my (imaginary!) clients. Making a home healthier, where people spend so much of their time, before they got sick, made sense, and felt closer to my prevention goal than anything else. Because of that, I started Interior Medicine in early 2021.

Since then, it's become a full-time endeavor, and it's growing into something larger: not just a resource on evaluating non-toxic home products, but an ongoing project in how to think about environmental toxicants. What does the evidence actually say? Why is it so hard to evaluate? And what does it take to land somewhere reasonable, rather than swinging between fear and dismissal?

I plan to keep improving and growing Interior Medicine as long as I can, and I feel so lucky that I get to do that. Thank you so much for being here!