A sweet flowery smell drifts over, and suddenly your eyes begin to water. Your breath becomes short. Your lungs are tight. Your vision becomes blurry.

Is it your imagination? Or are you reacting to chemicals?

Recently I watched a film called "Safe," made in 1995, starring Julianne Moore. The film was a glimpse into the world of people who can't handle the pollutants and pesticides the rest of us ingest without a thought.

The horror/mystery movie featured people carrying around oxygen tanks, showing how terrifying allergies can be to people who don't know what food or hair products could cause a complete shutdown of their breathing.

In reality, environmental illnesses are just as mysterious and horrifying. To get a bloody nose or swelling of the throat a few seconds after smelling a new perfume is terrifying.

I have several friends who cannot tolerate any form of makeup, scented hair products, perfume or many household cleaners. Cigarette smoke causes them to have an immediate negative reaction. They have learned to avoid going out to the movies, a nice restaurant or just about any social event - places that might bring on an adverse reaction threatening their lives.

For them, outside activities require much planning or not going at all. They can become prisoners in their homes - the only safe places they can live.

It's difficult to explain repeatedly to friends and strangers why they can't go to the mall or out to the park. The looks of bewilderment turn into nervous tension and eventually isolation from society.

Environmental illnesses have come to the forefront of disability issues during the last 10 years. What was once thought to be a disease of the mind is now recognized as the body rejecting the enormous amounts of chemicals that invade our lives on a daily basis. The human immune system has been through a mine field since the dawn of the Industrial Age.

When chemical illnesses hit the news, the media portrayed people that suffered from them as kooks. People were ostracized for their intolerance to plastics, automobile exhaust, perfumes, soaps and common household cleaning products. Many were told by medical officials that there wasn't anything wrong, and they were quietly shoved into the psychiatric community. Sufferers of environmental illness were given anti-depressants instead of allergy tests.

Environmental illnesses have significant repercussions, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and irritable bowel syndrome. Such debilitating illnesses have no cure, just treatments to attempt to keep them in check.

People who suffer from environmental illnesses are asking to be included in the Americans with Disabilities Act. But environmental illness research is in its infancy. I hope that in the near future more-solid definitions can be agreed upon and that this distressing class of illnesses is accepted for what it is - a physical illness triggered by a person's environment.

For more information about environmental illnesses, visit the Web at: www.ei-resource.org.