Blaming her feelings of nausea and disorientation on her colleagues' use of deodorants, soaps, and perfumes, Carol S. Petzold asked her 141 fellow members of the Maryland House of Delegates to respect her allergies by observing a "fragrance free zone" around her. In a letter to her colleagues, Petzold insisted that a fragrance free zone was as important to her "as a wheelchair is to one without legs."

†