r/ableism

Scented really is the new cigarette. Same chemicals, same harm. Same corporate defensiveness from giant companies profiting from their chemicals, at the cost of human health.

Secondhand scent is as toxic as secondhand smoke. As for me, I'm grateful to this firm for standing up for clean air rights.

Speaking as a person with disabilities, anyone (like the companies in the article) who says the ADA has been "weaponized" doesn't understand disability at all and has no empathy for the strength a person with disabilities needs just to get through the day. To me, saying the ADA is nothing more than a "weapon against companies" is extremely ableist.

Excerpts from the article:

The conflict highlights an emerging debate about synthetic scents: Many hotels use them, but some sensitive guests consider those aromas as welcome as secondhand smoke.

In general, the lawsuits allege that artificial fragrances used in many hotel public rooms violate the federal Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, because those fragrances make it dangerous or impossible for some people to share the space.

In court filings, Cole’s firm asserts that 26.8% of adults suffer from asthma or asthma-like conditions and 27.5% suffer from chemical sensitivity. He contends that when hotels circulate synthetic fragrances through scent dispersion machines, they may be spreading toxic chemicals, potentially causing respiratory problems, headaches, skin irritation and gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and cognitive problems among vulnerable guests.

Many of the companies that supply hotel fragrances belong to the Switzerland-based International Fragrance Assn. (IFRA), which sets voluntary guidelines for ingredients. But the U.S. government frequently doesn’t require disclosure of fragrance ingredients because blends are often trade secrets.

“It’s outside of the [Food and Drug Administration’s] domain and so the regulatory framework becomes much less stringent,” said Alexander M. Spokoyny, professor and chair of UCLA’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Yet among skeptics, questions and doubts remain on the safety of chemical entities, fragrances included.

“Even if something might be natural, if you aerosolize it and spread it across buildings, it’s not necessarily great,” UCLA’s Spokoyny said. “I do think it requires more thorough public scrutiny. ... You just don’t know what you don’t know.”

And this nasty bit:
Representatives for Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Intercontinental Hotels Group and Loews hotel chains, all targeted in the first volley of lawsuits, did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did the American Hotel & Lodging Assn., the industry’s leading trade group.

But the association’s website asserts that the Americans With Disabilities Act “has been used as a weapon by scheming lawyers seeking to extort easy settlements ... after alleging ambiguous violations of the law.”

I’m venting and going based off of my life experiences. I know it’s always been bad. I grew up in the early 2000’s and teachers would openly mock disabled students and openly be racist and not face any repercussions unless they were publicly shamed on the news.

With all the ableism and racism that happened to me and being a mild to severe chronically ill person in today’s time where I still get ableism from other disabled people, I still would not want to be a child growing up in today’s environment and personally think it’s getting back to the level we have to fight harder against laws being passed against disabled people and that we still need more protection laws.

I’m the most afraid I’ve been in my 30 years of life because people are not only getting bolder and not only because there a protections being removed in western governments, but people are getting caught up in online community “witch” hunts against disabled people who need SSI or SSDI including people who claim they are pro liberation.

There are droves of doctors and nurses getting online mocking their patients who need certain medications, treatments and care and they have to be called out by their peers and they still have a job and clock in and interact with their patients.

It is rampant in even disability communities and most of the disability communities that I have joined always love to randomly bring up black people and compare themselves to what it’s like to being black, so I always leave them and do not feel safe in them because of ableism towards other disabled people or racism.

Humanity is a total shit fire of hatred and the people who are the most vulnerable are being openly attacked and many of the people who are doing it are facing less and less repercussions because it’s being normalized more and more. I was also abused in institutions 2018-2020, and I’m more afraid in 2026 than I was in 2019, it’s probably my tolerance being filled down by CPTSD too.

I’m still looking for communities and people to engage with about this because I am who I am today because the of what the people who lived before me did.