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OUTCASTING SMELLERS
Welcome. Here we illustrate one of the latest (but certainly not the last) health hysteria: the war against SCENTS. No - don't go into denial mode. This is not a joke. This is not an isolated phenomenon, either. It is rapidly spreading. With the mentality of the masses plowed by the second-hand smoke fraud, now it is the turn of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) to plant its seeds. There is money in it, and with it, there is prohibition.

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SCENT-FREE place of worship

THE LUNG ASSOCIATION: this is a completely smoke and scent free area

Scent-free building

Scent-free school

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bottle.jpg (3497 bytes)May 13, 2003 Death By Chanel No. 5 - Exasperated by her shiftless husband's stinginess, a Florida woman exacted a revenge most terrible.  Dousing herself and her young daughter in perfume, the 36-year-old wife paraded before her chemically sensitive husband callously spraying shots of Lysol and burning scented candles.  Clouds of bug spray completed the scene of horror.

Strangely the husband survived the assault and filed a complaint against his younger wife.  He has produced a letter from his doctor "confirming" that he suffers extreme chemical sensitivity, "including all fragrances, air fresheners and other volatile chemicals," and that his wife was aware of his condition.  The wife's lawyer counters that the husband is "a faker." 

August 27, 2003 - B.O. Legislation "City officials say one smelly employee is responsible for a new policy that requires all city employees to smell nice when reporting for work.  The Murfreesboro City Council adopted the good hygiene policy Thursday:

'No employee shall have an odor generally offensive to others when reporting to work. An offensive body odor may result from a lack of good hygiene, from an excessive application of a fragrant aftershave or cologne or from other cause.' "

More outrageous than sitting down and crafting a law to legislate cleanliness is the willingness of elected leaders to resort to lawmaking to address all aspects of life.  In the old days an employee whose odor was offensive would have been ordered home to clean up or to a doctor to investigate any physical problems.  Instead of relying on interpersonal skills and common courtesy our rules concoct a law that will inevitably be misused.  Expect an anti-smoking hysteric to invoke this law to harass a co-worker who smokes.

June 23, 2003 - The Hypochondriacs Are In Charge Of City Hall  - Question: What if I am already contaminated with terrible smells but I have to go somewhere that is Fragrance Free? - Answer: If you can, shower beforehand using baking soda instead of soap and shampoo. Baking soda effectively removes many odors. Change into clothing that has not been dry cleaned or laundered with scented products, especially fabric softeners, and has not been around smoke or fragrances. Rinse contaminated clothes with baking soda. Dry without additives. Wear a hat to contain residual odors from hair products. Wear an uncontaminated shirt over your other clothing. Depending on the event, these measures may be sufficient. Ask others present if your clothing, hair, etc. is a problem. Leave if you cause discomfort to others, or sense that your presence may be a problem. Remember: “An ounce of prevention!” Planning ahead to be free of scents is the easiest and best solution.

The above comes verbatim from a Frequently Asked Questions sheet prepared by the city of Shutesbury, Massachusetts.  The interlocutor is one Ziporah Hildebrandt (we could not make this name up), chairwoman of the ADA Committee.  We single out this one exchange as the most unbelievable in a list of howlers but each and every exchange is truly jaw-dropping and displays how far the batty scent-free issue has intruded upon society.  If one is to follow Nurse Hildebrandt's dictates don't imagine that merely forgoing a splash of cologne or perfume will assuage the hyper-delicate.  To be tolerable in the Shutesbury's odor mania even the hint of an "unnatural" order upon the body or clothes is forbidden.  That includes smells picked up by handling faxes and paper run through copy machines as well as all smoke.  Just filled up your car?  You will be rejected by the standards of Shutesbury.  Welcome to the brave new world of "fragrance-free" utopia.  The odds are that you will not meet the stringent standards determined by Ziporah Hildebrandt and the whiners that have hijacked Shutesbury.

April 30, 2003 - Can The Ghetto Be Far Behind? - Shutesbury, Mass. (AP) -- 'People who attend Shutesbury's upcoming town meeting will be segregated by scent to avoid disturbing those hypersensitive to chemicals and odors. Splitting the meeting hall into three sections May 3 is part of a two-year-long effort that also has produced ``fragrance-free'' hours at the library.

One section of the room will be reserved for people who never use perfumes or scented deodorants, detergents or other products. The second will be for those who sometimes wear fragrance but not on the day of the meeting, and the third will be labeled, ``Seating for those who forgot and used cologne and perfume.''

Using fragrances in public is similar to smoking, said Town Administrator David Ames, who is also responsible for making the town compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. He said the Massachusetts Office of Disabilities recommended establishing the fragrance zones.

A local survey found that nine of 52 respondents identified themselves as afflicted with multiple chemical sensitivities syndrome, although the National Institute of Environmental Health Science says the very existence of such an affliction is in dispute.'  (Associated Press, 4/28/03)

There really isn't much more to add except that the reporter neglected to ask Head Nurse Ames just how it would be determined to what section each person should be herded.  Will there be a super-nose sniffer checking underarm odor?  Will Shutesbury invest in some high-tech scanning device?  Town meeting attendees operate on the honor system?  Or will Head Nurse Ames, this being Massachusetts after all, assign scarlet letters to those sinners who lasciviously smother sweaty body odor with deodorant so that the pure of scent can recognize their inferiors from afar?

January 15, 2003 - Smelly bus passengers banned - That brain and intelligence are now reduced to a pair of nostrils is a devastatingly sad reality of our contemporary “health-conscious” society. In the city of Bend, Oregon, The regulations ban anyone who "emanates a grossly repulsive odour that is unavoidable by other Bend Extended Area Transit customers" from being in the bus station or on a bus. "It's an effort to keep the riding experience as pleasant and safe as possible," said city attorney Jim Forbes. ‘ It just so happen that the hysteria about odours is also a convenient excuse to keep the smelly poor off city transit buses. Yesterday’s segregation was about colour, religion, or even accent. Today it’s about smell and lifestyle; the excuses have changed, but the substance has not -- it has just become much more petty. But hey, what is to be expected from a society that seems to believe that cigarette odour kills?

October 17, 2002 - How To Buy Perfume - A Sign Of Our Hysterical Times  Fragrance sensitivity is also emerging as a growing workplace allergen. “People often joke about it, people wearing offensive perfumes,” says Carrie Loewenherz,” an industrial hygienist for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. But, she adds, for people sensitive to it, it’s no joking matter.

Take Lauren Colburn, an Atlanta, Ga. newspaper researcher, for example. She had to shift to the “graveyard” shift — a real hardship — to avoid people wearing perfumes and fragranced products. “But more sensitive people are speaking up about it, and I hope the perfume industry is listening,” she says.

The perfume industry can listen intently and respond to every complaint with alacrity but, as with the tobacco industry, nothing it does will ever be enough.  As the newspaper researcher above makes clear, only the elimination of scented products will solve this problem, a problem that didn't exist 20 years ago and occurs only in the most affluent regions of wealthy nations.  Like the scent of a freshly lit cigarette, an odor that until recently everyone, smokers included, found pleasing, perfume, cologne, deodorant and the like are all on the chopping block because of the hyper-sensitivities of a handful of complainers.

The well-researched article delves into some of the processes at work in producing scented products, identifies a few special interests who before too long will be advocating "scent-free" policies and even digs up some common sense comments from the Environmental Protection Agency.

May 23, 2002 - The smell delirium grows - Allergy sufferers seek remedy on airplanes"A new ruling that could ban perfume on airplanes is being welcomed by allergy sufferers across Canada. The Canadian Transportation Agency has been investigating complaints from passengers who reported allergic reactions to perfumes and pets aboard airplanes. … Dr. Matt van Olm, a Calgary respiratory disease specialist, believes scented products are like second-hand smoke."

Smokers said goodbye to their right to smoke on aeroplanes long ago. But the phobia about odours is far from over; in fact, the fraud about passive smoke just marked the beginning of a sick era of hypochondria and obsession about odours – and almost everything else. More generally, the sickness applies to the concept that those who claim to have dysfunction have the absolute right to force the entire society to conform and adapt to their needs. Long ago Michael Fumento warned us on the nose phobia about perfumes; but he was not taken too seriously by those whose vision is short enough not to see beyond their nose -- and now here it is. Soon, those who wear perfumes and after shaves on airplanes will find the police waiting for them at the airport. In times of normality (if there is such a thing anymore), stating that "scented products are like second-hand smoke" would simply mean that they are harmless – as much as "smoking in the elevator" was a police jargon to indicate a ridiculously small misdemeanour, worthy of just a benign sniff. No more. Today, junk science frauds find a fertile terrain in the hypochondriac stupidity of the masses, and allow the real problems to go unnoticed – such as the reduction of up to 90% of the air circulation on airplanes since the passive smoke fraud was embraced by the airlines. All we need is that the air has no scent (of tobacco, perfumes, or cats) and idiots are happy – even if there is contamination with tuberculosis, which has no scent at all. One antismoking slogan goes like this: "If you can smell it, it can kill you." Does anyone have still any doubt that we are going back to the Middle Ages?

Fragrance dangers - "The ban on fragranced products in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is not the trivial or amusing issue that some media make it out to be. On the contrary, fragrances are known to doctors, scientists and the fragrance industry as respiratory irritants. People suffering from asthma, allergies, chronic sinus problems, rhinitis, chronic lung disease and multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS) have their health problems triggered and exacerbated by exposures to fragranced products." - Why not? If one believes the second-hand smoke fraud, one can believe anything!

The smell test - To the horror of perfume makers worldwide, Halifax has become the first major center in North America to prohibit the wearing of all cosmetic fragrances - from Giorgio to grandmother's lavender soap - in most indoor public places, including municipal offices, libraries, hospitals, classrooms, courts, and mass transit buses.

Scents-orship - A story in last Saturday's National Post described the growing number of scent-free policies that have inundated our government buildings, schools, and workplaces as "the Halifax holy war." Halifax is also a "hysteria hotbed," and the foothold of "fragrance fanatacism."

Scents and sensibility- The anti-perfume activists of Halifax target young and old alike. On Sunday, The Daily News reported that an 84-year-old Halifax woman was thrown out of city hall because she wore perfume to a council meeting. And yesterday, the News reported that the RCMP is investigating high school student Gary Falkenham after a teacher turned him in for wearing Aqua Velva deodorant and scented hair gel. Mr. Falkenham is understandably incredulous: "I just looked at [the officer] and said, 'Are you serious?'"

Scents and senselessness - Nine cafeteria workers from the Dirksen Senate Office Building cafeteria in Washington, D.C. were rushed to the hospital last August. "Everyone was getting sick headaches, stomachaches, vomiting, diarrhea," said a cafeteria cashier. One worker suffered head and neck injuries when she collapsed, and the eight others reported nausea. "I threw up. I had a headache. I felt very lightheaded, nauseated," said one. The cause of this "poisoning"? "The haz-mat [hazardous material] unit went down, and all the readings were negative," a police officer said. "What they found was a bag of onions...and they just gave off a strong odor."


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