Happy Mother's Day, Now take that perfume to the Hazo house and love yourself, your mother and mother Earth, read this:
THE OLYMPIAN |
For me, people used to be in two categories — smokers and nonsmokers.
Now people are divided into two other categories — scented and unscented.The first group could light up whenever and wherever — work, church, social gatherings, on public transportation, restaurants, even hospitals. The rest of us suffered in silence with sore throats, burning eyes, headaches, asthma, nausea. It took 40 years of excavating the truth from under corporate propaganda to reveal the health toll of secondhand (even thirdhand) exposure to tobacco smoke — cancers, asthma, dementia and more. Children, with still- developing bodies, were especially vulnerable.
The similarities to smoking are striking: same toxins and health effects, just a different delivery method.
These are addictive chemicals that damage the user’s sense of smell, increasing the need for more product to achieve the same effect. There’s no government regulation and another big lie that the public is not at risk from exposure to their dangerous products. Employers and businesses are too timid to establish scent policies, citing personal rights. Sound familiar?
Many say, “I don’t wear perfume.” But they use so many other scented products — soaps, lotions, powders, sprays, hair and laundry products — they are literally off-gassing toxic chemicals all the time, contaminating the air and making themselves and others ill. They leave a chemical residue on everything they handle, everywhere they sit. Males also overuse scent, cleverly labeled body spray.
Overpowering scents are now the rule, not the exception. As one cancer patient complained, “At least smokers put them out now and then. Scented people never stop smelling.”
Laundry scents are especially noxious. Wearers can be detected at 25 paces. Dryer vents perfume the outdoors, forcing neighbors with fragile health inside.
“But chemicals are everywhere,” some say. That’s a good reason to reduce exposure however we can.
It’s challenging to avoid synthetic chemicals in our air, food, water and buildings. Why saturate our clothes, bodies, homes and cars with them? Do we really need scented trash bags? Deodorizers (perfume) on motion detectors? Fragrance in gum?
To create consumer brand loyalty, manufacturers hide increasing amounts of chemicals under the undefined term “fragrance,” protected as a trade secret. Scent-pushing ads exploit our insecurities to convince us such products make us cleaner, fresher, more attractive. In truth, most say they don’t like other people’s fragrances.
Scented products now are so prevalent and potent, they are a public health hazard. The human body can tolerate only so many assaults before the immune system goes haywire, triggering cancers, autoimmune illnesses and other problems. The chemicals in cosmetics are known carcinogens, estrogen-mimickers, and neuro-toxins (nerve-killing), hence, their link to breast and other cancers, dementia, ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, birth defects and lung diseases (see safecosmetics.org).
About one in seven people, including me, have developed multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), a condition in which even minor exposures to chemicals in common household and personal products provoke strong physiological reactions.
“Sensitivity” is a misnomer. I’m sensitive to the sound of a child crying, but it doesn’t give me a headache, sore throat, nausea, dizziness, muscle aches, persistent rashes, cloudy thinking, exhaustion or an asthma attack. Nor does it make me avoid public places, social gatherings, health care facilities and travel.
People with MCS are like the canaries lowered into the coal mines — the first to succumb to poisonous fumes, warning others to steer clear.
Moderately sensitive people (one in four) worry they are heading to MCS. Probably so, if they continue to have chronic, low-grade exposures to chemicals.
But there’s a choice. For every scented product, there’s a fragrance free one, often cheaper and just as effective.
In his later years, my dad apologized for smoking near me during my childhood. “We didn’t realize back then how dangerous it was for others,” he lamented. I didn’t tell him he should have passed on his aftershave, too.
My father didn’t know any better. Now you do. Go fragrance free — if not for yourself, or people like me, then for the children.
Evonne Hedgepeth, Ph.D., a health educator and writer, founded NW Canaries, an e-mail networking group for people with multiple chemical sensitivity. She can be reached at evonne@lifespaneducation.com.
Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2010/05/10/1233678/scented-products-are-so-prevalent.html#ixzz0nX4zbZeR
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