Category Archives: Accessibility

A Universally Recognized Accessibility Symbol for Environmental Sensitivities?

 

We need an easily recognizable accessibility symbol for non-toxic, wireless, VOC, scent, and fragrance-free places that show they are accessible to people with MCS/ES, asthma, COPD, migraines, and others who need healthy environments in order to remain functional and not become physically or cognitively impaired.

These signs would be used only in places that actually enforce the policies.

The standard accessibility signs have white symbols on blue backgrounds like these:


I’ve never seen anything like this to signify healthy wireless, scent, and fragrance-free indoor air, but these are some others I have found or assembled that might give a designer ideas to run with:

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Song: “I’m a prisoner because of fabric softener”

A song by Jonathan Richman

I had never heard of Jonathan Richman before this song about not being able to walk outside at night because of dryer sheets, fabric softener, air “fresheners”,   and having to close doors and windows because of them,  so I looked him up and found he had done a song about cell phones too. Here they are:
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Bubbled People

 

I ran across some striking photos by Alex Kisilevich (you can see them in the banner above if you squint) and I shared the link with  the intro “Food for thought… what’s outside the bubble preventing access?”  Someone responded with  “tell me about it”, so I wrote a short story before seeing what the photographer’s intent was, if it was indeed as a writer wrote, to say:

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Endangered Human Art Project: Bringing Awareness to Chemical Sensitivity

WHO Says We Need Fresh Air?!

Guest Post from Marie LeBlanc

Bringing awareness to chemical sensitivity
Marie LeBlanc at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg. May 12th 2017.

I am an artist  in Winnipeg who lives with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and environmental illness caused by mold exposure. My art has been in relation to multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS)/Environmental Illness (EI) and toxic environments.

“WHO says we need fresh air?!” is a series of quotes from sufferers of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Environmental Illness, Mold Exposure, Electrohypersensitivity Syndrome, Lyme Disease and other conditions related to Chronic/Complex Immunological Neurological Diseases.

The art installation was on display during the evening of Fri. May 12, on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)/Environmental Sensitivities Awareness Day,  outside the Centennial Concert Hall (with a few quotes displayed on the indoor screens), and is dedicated to my friend Eliana from Mexico.

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Profile Pictures for Awareness Month

These images are available on facebook. Feel free to download the appropriate one and use for Awareness Month, or at least for May 12th Awareness Day!

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MCS Mask Challenge for Family, Friends, and You!

Here’s an easy way for everyone to show some support!

And maybe, just maybe, wearing a mask for an hour or a day will spread some understanding of  why the people who fought for smoke free policies did that instead of expecting all non-smokers to just wear masks always and everywhere.

The Mask Challenge is brought to you by

Memes For Inconvenient Disabilities

Help us make May 2017 the last time that we ever hear or read the words:

“MCS? #NeverHeardOfIt!!”

#MaskChallenge! Do it! Grow #MCSAwareness!

Watch the video and read the transcript below:

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Video: Fragrance Free Workplace: TRAILER

Alison Johnson has a new video coming out about the need for fragrance-free policies.

From her website:

Card available from Alison Johnson

Fragrance-Free Workplaces

A Video Produced / Written / Directed by Alison Johnson
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“This film covers not only fragrance issues but also presents an overview of multiple chemical sensitivity. It features Dr. L. Christine Oliver, an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former Co-Director of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. The film also contains footage of an interview with the former Commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Dr. Ronald R. Blanck. People with MCS in the film include Gulf War veterans and survivors of the 9/11 WTC attacks, as well as people from all walks of life.”

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You can watch the trailer here:

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Fragranced Products: Risk to People and Profits

From Dr Anne Steinemann’s latest research
“Fragranced consumer products: exposures and effects from emissions”

“Basically, if it contained a fragrance, it posed problems for people” 

 

fragranced-risks

“This is a huge problem; it’s an epidemic”
says Professor Steinemann.

She is especially concerned with involuntary exposure to fragranced products, or what she calls “secondhand scents.

“Over 22% of Americans surveyed can’t go somewhere because exposure to a fragranced product would make them sick.”

“These findings have enormous implications for businesses, workplaces, care facilities, schools, homes, and other private and public places,” said Professor Steinemann. For instance, a growing number of lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act concern involuntary and disabling exposure to fragranced products.”

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Why I LOVE Having Environmental “Sensitivities”

Guest post

In all of this I don’t have a permanent place to stay and paid rent to a landlord who won’t fix anything, my apartment insurance cut me off and won’t help with my possessions, my medicare health insurance is not covering the health aspect and my one doctor wants me to see a doctor out of province which is not covered, and my social assistance did not pay me my disability this month, and family does not understand any of this….At this point I have nothing to lose and everything to gain….I AM MOVING FORWARD!

~ Marie LeBlanc, Manitoba, Canada

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How Big Is Your World?

How Big Is Your World?

The following questions are to help us think about how much space we have to enjoy, and what if it were to be taken away.

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