Scented products cause indoor air pollution on par with car exhaust

The challenge with any article like this is that the correlated impact on health outcomes is always implied in the article but is rarely studied as part of the research cited. Just because a is bad and b has a property similar to a that doesn't imply b has the same harmful impacts as a. I really wish articles would limit big headlines like this unless the research cited was directly comparing mortality and health outcomes directly. If the study this article was based on came to the conclusion that 'average household aerosol use has a similar associated mortality risk as average city car pollution' then the title could have been warranted but instead we got a bit of click-bait. A slightly better title could have been 'Scented products cause unexpected levels of indoor air pollution'. I'd even argue 'Scented products cause concerning levels of indoor air pollution' is a reasonable title since it is worth our concern and further study.

Not much to add here other than as someone with terrible allergies and asthma, the constant need for plugin air fresheners, scented candles, scented laundry detergent, and scented lotions, perfumes, febreeze, and scented deodorant drives me crazy. I don't think normal folks realize how they're breathing in straight chemicals all day.

I hate all that stuff too, but I have to nit-pick the last sentence. Everything you breathe is chemicals. Everything that is good for you and bad for you is chemicals.

This in particular bothers me because I end up having this discussion with family members all the time who are convinced that "chemicals" are bad for you, and they only eat food without "chemicals".

Of course this is technically correct (almost a cliche really), but I think we all realize that "chemicals" in this context means "novel untested synthetic chemicals." That's a mouthful, so we use shorthand.

> so we use shorthand

Which is fine until the shorthand breaks containment, the nuance is lost, and the masses generalize it far beyond what was originally intended.

Science communication is a challenge and this particular discussion is a key part of that challenge. The goal is to be able to get a child to understand the issue at hand while not harming their ability to continue to learn further. The words 'chemical' when referring to 'bad' and 'natural' when referring to 'good', I think, have been abused because of exactly your points. These words have been used to get a quick win on understanding a point, usually about some form of pollution, but generally lead to long term harm in deeper understanding later.

Having said all that, arguing these terms are bad just tells people they are wrong without giving clear direction to improve. The question that matters is what should be said instead? I think pollution is closer to a good word but when it is used the right meaning should be emphasized. The argument is not that chemicals are bad, the argument is that compounds not native to an environment have untested effects and therefore should be carefully studied especially if they are rapidly becoming abundant. Articles like this skip right to 'pollution = bad' instead of 'pollution = we should try to understand the effects quickly to make informed decisions'