ALIFAX, Nova
Scotia - Perfume is meant to provoke passion, but not the sort stirring
this historic seaport.
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.
With little fanfare, and less public debate, a city renowned for its
sea breezes and friendly folk has declared underarm deodorant, herbal
shampoos, colognes, and other scented products to be hazardous to public
health - or at least too politically incorrect to be countenanced. The
ban, backed by ardent scent opponents, reflects not only concern for
people discomforted by fragrances but a grim new environmental view that
sees a morning slap of aftershave as a blow against Mother Earth.
''Aromatic chemicals are poisoning people and the planet as much as
tobacco or pesticides,'' said Karen Robinson, an anti-scent campaigner who
compares the fight against fragrances to writer Rachel Carson's celebrated
early warnings about the effects of DDT, a powerful insecticide now
restricted by law. ''We don't want a `Silent Spring' brought by cosmetics
in Halifax. We've even got scent-free doughnut shops.''
Meanwhile, students have been suspended from class for wearing hair gel
and other scented goo (one nearly landed in jail for ''assaulting'' his
teacher's olfactory senses); an 84-year-old woman was booted out of City
Hall for wafting her customary cologne while making a civic inquiry; and
another woman was ordered off a city bus for smelling too sweet.
Private enterprise is joining the crusade with surprising alacrity. The
Chronicle-Herald, dominant newspaper in the city of 350,000, has ordered
its employees to refrain from even ''strong mouthwash.'' Other companies
send perfumed or deodorant-wearing workers home to a take shower,
deducting the lost time from their paychecks.
Critics are calling it the Halifax Hysteria.
''We're abandoning common sense in order to placate a small handful of
individuals bothered by scents,'' said City Council or Steve Streatch, one
of the few local politicians willing to speak for the record on what has
become a highly emotional issue, with campaigners wearing gas masks
turning out to jeer anyone opposing their view.
''People have been wearing fragrances since biblical times,'' Streatch
said. ''If someone wears too much, if they become obnoxious to people
around them, then a friend should speak to them. Or a work supervisor. But
bringing government into what people dab on their face or rub into their
underarms is just too much like Big Brother.''
But anti-fragrance advocates hail Halifax as standard-bearer for a
burgeoning New Age movement. In the United States, only Marin County,
California, has displayed similar zeal in combating perfumes and other
fragrances. But its ''ban'' on scents in civic places remains voluntary.
''Almost alone, this good city up in Nova Scotia is showing the courage
to take a stand against neurologically toxic chemicals guised as
fragrance,'' said Fred Nelson of the Michigan-based National Foundation
for the Chemically Hypersensitive. ''Canadians are showing an empathy for
victims of the cosmetic chemical industry that seems to be lacking among
Americans.''
At the heart of the hullabaloo is a syndrome called Multiple Chemical
Sensitivity, also known as environmental illness. Sufferers claim that the
ubiquitous presence of chemicals in modern life has a cumulative effect
that causes some individuals to become violently ill at a whiff of any
scent, whether Chanel No. 5 or Irish Spring.
The trouble is, most US and Canadian physicians and researchers refuse
to recognize Multiple Chemical Sensitivity as a true organic disease.
Specialists say some people do suffer severely from exposure to perfumes
and scented cosmetics, but the reasons are poorly understood and the
reactions - including headaches, vomiting, and seizures - do not appear to
be caused by genuine physical allergies, much less poisoning.
By and large, mainstream epidemiologists and occupational health
doctors believe Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is a complex psychological,
or ''psychosocial'' malady.
''What's taking place in Halifax appears to be collective hysteria over
an illness that does not exist,'' said Dr. Ron House, an epidemiologist at
the Occupational Health Center at Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital.
''The uproar is fascinating from a cultural view. But [the ban on
fragrances] isn't good medicine, it's folly - political pandering to a few
rather strident activists,'' he said. ''Sadly, the whole business leaves
Halifax looking more crackpot than compassionate.''
In a case that made world headlines, a 17-year-old student named Gary
Falkenham last month was handed over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
by officials at a Halifax area high school after showing up in class
wearing Dippity Do hair gel and Aqua Velva deodorant. His scent-sensitive
teacher, Tanya MacDonald, demanded that he be charged with criminal
assault for supposedly jeopardizing her health.
''This is insanity,'' said Charles Low, president of the Canadian
Cosmetic Toiletry and Fragrance Association. ''This teenager was
threatened not only with expulsion but a criminal record for wearing
deodorant.''
The RCMP dutifully investigated but finally declined to bring charges.
''We can't ignore complaints, but maybe this kind of thing is better
resolved with dialogue,'' said Sgt.Sergeant Wayne Noonan.
The school backed away from demands that Falkenham be prosecuted, and
instead suspended him for two days.
Nancy Radcliffe, columnist for the Halifax Daily News and one of the
few Haligonians to raise a public voice against the fragrance ban, said
Canada's famously civil society has lately become far too credulous when
confronted by anyone claiming to be a victim.
''Our problem is, we're too darn polite,'' she wrote recently. ''We
don't want to inconvenience anyone, so we're constantly giving up our
rights because somebody claims it's offending them.''
Manufacturers of scented products are stunned by events unfurling in
Halifax, where sales of scented products have plunged 25 percent,
according to local retailers. They are most appalled that their industry
is being cast as a ''merchant of death,'' in a league with Big Tobacco and
gunmakers.
But cosmetics makers and perfumers may be in for a long battle. The
anti-scent movement appears to enjoy some support beyond the hard-core
activists.
''The rest of the country may think we are a bunch of crackpots, but I
believe some people are canaries in a coal mine,'' Stephanie Domet, an
editor at The Coast, a Nova Scotia weekly, told the Toronto-based Globe
and Mail newspaper. ''We've created a world where some people are overly
sensitive to chemicals. So is it really such a hardship for you not to be
able to pour on the Charlie?''
