Wednesday, June 4, 2008

No stinkers allowed

In my last post, I mentioned the odour activists in the US who seemed hell bent on banning everything that smelled, from Chanel No. 5 to Old Spice. But it’s not just in the US that the fanatical fragrance foes are intent on saving the populace from exposure to the deadly toxins in scented body deodorant.

The odour activists have been active in Canada for a number of years, some say as far back as 1991. For example, it was reported in 2000, that a Toronto resident had filed suit against a neighbor for invading her air space with cooking smells from his bar-b-que. At the same time, on Prince Edward Island, a joint union-employer recommendation was made to ban perfumes and aftershaves from government offices. And, Queensway-Carleton Hospital in Ottawa embarked on a "No Scents Is Good Sense" campaign.

But the real hotbed of the anti-fragrance fanatics has been identified as Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 2000, it was reported in the national press in both the US and Canada, that Halifax was in the grip of anti-odour hysteria.

The local newspaper, the Chronicle-Herald, prohibited its employees from using perfume, aftershave, scented deodorant, shampoo, or even strong-smelling mouthwash on the job. Many of the city's public institutions, and private businesses, demanded that workers be "scent-free." The city’s hospitals began instituting bans, leading people to believe it was a serious health hazard.

As one of the fragrance fanatics told the Toronto Globe and Mail, "The main point we've been making is that it's a health issue, not a matter of likes and dislikes." Uh-huh. The health issue she was talking about was Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), a generic condition that has not been proven to even exist.

Although some studies have shown that high concentrations of some perfumes can cause annoyance to allergy and asthma sufferers, there is no evidence that perfumes pose any real threat to the general public.

Karen Robinson, an anti-scent campaigner, during the height of the Halifax hysteria, claimed: ''Aromatic chemicals are poisoning people and the planet as much as tobacco or pesticides,''

Other people have likened exposure to fragrances to the alleged health hazards of exposure to secondhand smoke. Many of the chemicals found in second-hand smoke, are the same chemicals that are found in perfume products, they claim. That’s likely true, since there are literally thousands of chemicals in each, it shouldn’t be surprising that both products share many in common.

However, there is no legitimate scientific evidence that either exposure to secondhand smoke or Giorgio represents a serious health hazard to otherwise healthy human beings.

Said one Haligonian, “I don't think in the beginning people realized quite how invasive this might become". Uh-huh. The same thing could also be said about secondhand smoke.