Barb Wilkie's site;
EHN's site now at
http://ehnca.org
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Posted by Barb Wilkie on April 11, 2001 at 12:08:37: at DisBiz: minor updates October 13, 2009
Chemical Injury
[as seen through my eyes]Now is the time to consider your health in all of your tomorrows. Do everything you can to eliminate superfluous toxins from your life. NOW. If you surround yourself with scented products, you are absorbing and inhaling superfluous toxins. And so are your children and elderly parents and everyone around you. Synthetic scents are largely petrochemical products, produced by an unregulated industry, which is further protected by TRADE SECRET laws. These laws do not protect the industry from the manufacture and sale of "rip-off" scents. However, trade secret status does a mighty fine job of shielding the industry from an informed consumership and astute doctors. Doctors are denied "proprietary" information even when trying to learn of the chemicals that have poisoned their patients. No one can be too smug about not suffering the effects of chemical poisoning. It could happen to you as the result of medicine, anesthesia, a refinery mishap, a lab chemical spill, a colleague's favorite signature scent, the application of pesticides (scented so people do not object to inhaling the couple of toxins they are allowed to learn about via labeling), . . . the list goes on and on. But then so do the numbers of chemicals used to manufacture synthetic scents. There are over 5,000 chemicals in use to manufacture synthetic scents. Too little is known about individual chemicals and even less is known about them used in combination. What we do know about individual chemicals is that they are recognized as irritants and sensitizers, and they include known or suspected neurotoxins, carcinogens, hormone disrupters, kidney toxicants and teratogens (adversely affecting embryonic and fetal development). By the way, did you know that on regular products, the words "fragrance-free" and "unscented" do not have to mean that? That's right. Under law, products may carry synthetic scents to mask the odors of other chemicals. Or, they can also care chemicals to deaden the sense of smell. Just a little bit of poison can be far too much for the already chemically injured. IF you, or your children, or elderly parents, are adversely affected by synthetic scents, TELL IT TO THE FDA! Don't miss this golden opportunity to inform the FDA. The Environmental Health Network, Larkspur, CA (EHN - www.ehnca.org) has brought a Citizens' Petition before the FDA. All you have to do is to reference Petition Docket Number 99P-1340/CP 1 and email your comments to the MedWatch Online Voluntary Reporting Form (3500) at
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/medwatch-online.htm [It used to be a lot easier when the FDA had a dockets email and you could just whip off an email to them.] For more information on the petition, including analyses that show synthetic scents do contain Phthalates (hormone disrupters), see FDA Petition at http://users.lmi.net/~wilworks/FDApetition/bkgrinfo.htm Be sure to also visit the link to the Product Label for more edifying information. We ALL arestakeholders when it comes to breathing. We ALL deserve safe products, proved safe BEFORE marketing. Until such time that our industry and government can assure us that these products are safe for the youngest and sickest among us, we can affect change by purchasing environmentally-friendly, dye-free, truly fragrance-free products.
-- barb 2009: now available through The Wayback Machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030501170833/http://www.dizbiz.com/twbb/wwwboard/messages/2.htmlOr from Barb Wilkie's site: http://users.lmi.net/wilworks