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Thread: Scented products are hazardous to my health!

  1. #11
    Senior Member
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    I don't think you are being unreasonable, and there have been a lot of great options share by the previous posts you may want to explore. I would post a sign outside the classroom saying it's a fragrance-free zone due to a health condition. Teachers have rights, too.....

    One of the biggest day-to-day toxins we encounter are from fabric softeners. I can't be outside when the neighbor is drying laundry due to the bilge coming from the dryer vent, and they do laundry seemingly constantly.... Not only from the scents in them, but people with skin issues can't have them near their skin. My sister-in-law loves to hug everyone when we all get together, but she breaks out in a severe rash on the side of her face from what people wear on their skin and the toxins left on the clothing from fabric softener. Her doctor told her the fragrance-free varieties are even worse due to the chemicals they use to make them without a fragrance.

  2. #12
    Senior Member
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    that is very serious. i know that there are limited things you can do since it takes so much to get an entire classroom of families to understand and comply. i have also found that people don't understand or believe all this. my daughter is very sensitive to things like fragrance, animals with fur, peanuts, and anything that blooms. Mostly it is an excema reaction and so she can't shower daily, has to spend about 30 minutes after bathing using lotions to get back to some moisture, and works at this all the time. there are times she still has broken open skin and goes on steroids. still it took a ridiculous 16 years for my mom to understand i wasn't making up the peanut allergy. Crazy!!we had a huge fight over this actually and she finally stopped sending things like peanut MM's at holidays.

    i hope they can work with you and get the fragrances out, it is not okay to lose a teacher. Does California have resource teachers who do things like small group instruction? i thought that may be a safer environment than having a classroom where kids bring all their stuff. i don't recall resource teachers when i lived in California and was a sub however.

  3. #13
    rodeosweetheart
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    "Meanwhile, I had breathed enough of it that my bronchial tubes were "burned" according to my PCP. I developed bronchitis."
    See, I am thinking you have a workman's comp claim there. Do you have union representation by any chance? You would need to document what you just said, and that should help you get the accommodation, I would think.

    And Iris is quite right, you need documentation of the disability and accomodation requests. Asking them to honor the a no-fragrance policy with children seems pretty reasonable, as does an air purifier.

    I had to take off work when they painted the classrooms, and if someone comes at me to clean the tables with windex when I am at the coffee shop, I have to shoo them away.

    But I can' walk through certain aisles at the hardware store, can;'t be in Lowe's for more than about 5 minutes, etc.

    The thing is, you couldn't get accommodations if you worked there, but you should be able to get reasonable accommodations in your own classroom.

  4. #14
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Radicchio View Post
    Sadly, many people either think that the person with severe reactions to scents are too demanding.
    Unfortunately, people with other motives have helped poison that well. Eater recently had an article about why people in a restaurant who really don't like a particular food ingredient should not avoid it by claiming they're "allergic" to it. Those customers just use their "allergy" as a tool ("If I tell the guy behind the McDonald's counter that I'm allergic to onions they'll have to make my burger fresh!"). But they throw into action a chain of steps that really are complicated trivialized by their dislike for an ingredient.

    I'm not saying that's the case here. But I'm sure many people who claim to be "allergic" to a particular scent really just don't like it. I really dislike the smell of most scented laundry detergents and fabric softeners. But I'd never claim to be allergic to them -- unless I was. The end result, though, is that more and more people stop taking true allergies seriously.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

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