The Campaign for Fragrance-Free Health Care in the U.S.

http://www.massnurses.org/health/articles/chemexpos0406_1.htm

Although this relates specifically to indoor air quality in the health care setting, there's plenty of information that I am sure you would find helpful, including links to numerous web sites with fragrance free information. Good Luck!

COMMENT FROM DEBRA: Thanks, Julie. This is a great site for this information. Topics include:
* The chemicals and their health effects
* Web sites for fragrance-free information
* Model for a fragrance-free policy
* Sample of fragrance survey
* How to advocate for a fragrance policy in a health care setting

Wow! Thank you so much for this link. My chiropractor has Glade Plug Ins all over his office and they did not remove them even after I complained. I sent for the copy of "The Hidden Dangers of Fragrances" and I am going to give it to them. I really hope it will make them think twice about using them.

http://www.ourlittleplace.com/perfume.html

If you choose the fragrance (or perfume) tab at the top of this home page (other tabs there are great also) there is so much information you forget where you started. Of particular importance, I would think, in the case of the person who asked about fragrance-free workplaces, is the SPECT span from UCLA Medical Center showing the brain of a MCS patient before and after inhalation of fragrance....and the extensive list of additives to fragrances...the assessment by the American Lung Association deeming fragrance "more harmful than 2nd hand smoke"...etc.
Good luck.

I just discovered a town in Massachusetts called Shutesbury that has created access to their library for people with MCS by designating Monday mornings from 10:30AM to 12:00 noon "Fragrance-Free Hours". I found the site by entering a Google search for "fragrance-free community". The web address is www.shutesbury.org/ada. There is a good question & answer article by the ADA Committee Chair about the dangers of fragrances. Very brief and to the point, it's a good article to copy and send or give to friends and family.

It might also be something that all of us who suffer from MCS could work on within our own communities. I for one am quite fed up with not being able to leave the house without getting sick, and I've missed the pleasures of a library visit for many years now. We need to speak up for our rights as they are stated under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Clare Brady

Good news!

All 17 hospitals in the Swedish region Västra Götaland near Gothenburg are scentfree from the 10th of September 2008.

The politicians in the region's health committee have decided that all 45,000 employees in the hospital and health departments are to follow the same scent-free and smoke-free rules. That includes primary care and dentists too.

It is supposedly the first time in the world that such a big collective effort has been made for a scent-free health environment.

This came to me from Lawrence Plumlee via Dr Paula Davey.