PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS
The word ’cosmetics’ covers a wide range of personal care products including moisturisers, cleansers, make-up, nail polish, perfumes, after shaves, body sprays, deodorants or antiperspirants, soaps, shampoos, shower gels, hair dyes and hair treatments.
Humans have been beautifying themselves since time immortal:
- 10,000 BC - early humans used ochre to paint their bodies - Red ochre was certainly used ceremonially to give an impression of life to the corpse during funerary rites. There are many records of ochre staining of skeletons
- 5000 BC - green Copper ore was used as a crude eyeshadow
- 68-30 BC- Cleopatra bathed in assess milk to whiten her skin
Today, the typical woman applies approximately 12 products each day, some women use more than 20 different products as part of their daily beauty routine. The chemical concoction together average a staggering 168 ingredients And it is the the cumulative affect of all the different products and chemicals that can be damaging to health
The skin is the largest organ in the body. It is an impressive physical barrier, several layers thick designed to protect us from the outside hazardous world. Once a cosmetic product has been applied to the skin, absorption begins.
FACT - THE BODY ABSORBS AT LEAST 60% OF WHATEVER IS APPLIED TOPICALLY TO THE SKIN
Trouble for Johnson & Johnson After Another Big Loss in a Talcum Powder-Ovarian Cancer Case
With rising concerns over talcum products and two recent losses at trial, Johnson & Johnson may be facing a tough road ahead as it denies any ovarian cancer risk by women using the powder for feminine hygiene.
A Missouri court ordered the company this week to pay $55 million to a woman who claimed that its talcum powder caused her to develop ovarian cancer. This followed a verdict in February to pay $72 million to the family of a woman who died of ovarian cancer.
The company is facing 1,200 lawsuits with similar claims but denies that the use of its talcum powder on the genital area increases the risk of ovarian cancer. The company has already appealed the February verdict and plans to appeal the latest.
BBC News reports:
Is talc safe?
There have been concerns for years that using talcum powder, particularly on the genitals, may increase the risk of ovarian cancer.
But the evidence is not conclusive. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies talc used on the genitals as “possibly carcinogenic” because of the mixed evidence.
Why is there any debate?
The mineral talc in its natural form does contain asbestos and does cause cancer. However, asbestos-free talc has been used in baby powder and other cosmetics since the 1970s. But the studies on asbestos-free talc give contradictory results.
It has been linked to a cancer risk in some studies, but there are concerns that the research may be biased as the studies often rely on people remembering how much talc they used years ago. Other studies have argued there is no link at all and there is no link between talc in contraceptives such as diaphragms and condoms (which would be close to the ovaries) and cancer.
Also, there does not seem to be a “dose-response” for talc, unlike with known carcinogens like tobacco where the more you smoke, the greater the risk of lung cancer.
—Posted by Donald Kaufman.
Source : TruthDig
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Some sunscreen ingredients may disrupt sperm cell function
Many ultraviolet (UV)-filtering chemicals commonly used in sunscreens interfere with the function of human sperm cells, and some mimic the effect of the female hormone progesterone, a new study finds. Results of the Danish study will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 98th annual meeting in Boston.
"These results are of concern and might explain in part why unexplained infertility is so prevalent," said the study's senior investigator, Niels Skakkebaek, MD, DMSc, a professor at the University of Copenhagen and a researcher at the Copenhagen University Hospital, Rigshospitalet.
Although the purpose of the chemical UV filters is to reduce the amount of the sun's UV rays getting through the skin by absorbing UV, some UV filters are rapidly absorbed through the skin, Skakkebaek said. UV filter chemicals reportedly have been found in human blood samples and in 95 percent of urine samples in the U.S., Denmark and other countries.
Skakkebaek and his colleagues tested 29 of the 31 UV filters allowed in sunscreens in the U.S. or the European Union (EU) on live, healthy human sperm cells, from fresh semen samples obtained from several healthy donors. The sperm cells underwent testing in a buffer solution that resembled the conditions in female fallopian tubes.
Specifically, the investigators evaluated calcium signaling, which is signaling inside the cell brought on by changes in the concentration of calcium ions. Movement of calcium ions within sperm cells, through calcium ion channels, plays a major role on sperm cell function, according to Skakkebaek. CatSper is a sperm-specific calcium ion channel that he said is essential for male fertility. This channel is the main sperm receptor for progesterone, a potent hormone attractant for human sperm cells. Binding of progesterone to CatSper causes a temporary influx, or surge, of calcium ions into the sperm cell, controlling several sperm functions necessary for fertilization.
The researchers found that 13, or 45 percent, of the 29 UV filters tested induced calcium ion influxes in the sperm cells, thus interfering with normal sperm cell function. "This effect began at very low doses of the chemicals, below the levels of some UV filters found in people after whole-body application of sunscreens," Skakkebaek said.
Furthermore, nine of the 13 UV filters seem to induce this calcium ion influx by directly activating the CatSper channel, thereby mimicking the effect of progesterone. This finding suggests that these UV filters are endocrine disruptors, Skakkebaek said. In addition, several of the UV filters affected important sperm functions normally controlled via CatSper, such as sperm motility.
Skakkebaek called for clinical studies to investigate whether chemical UV filters affect human fertility. He added, "Our study suggests that regulatory agencies should have a closer look at the effects of UV filters on fertility before approval."
Eight of the 13 UV filters that disrupted sperm cell function are approved for use in the U.S. They are avobenzone, homosalate, meradimate, octisalate (also known as octyl salicylate), octinoxate (or octyl methoxycinnamate), octocrylene, oxybenzone (also called benzophenone-3 or BP-3) and padimate O. These chemicals are common active ingredients in sunscreens as well as sunscreen-containing personal care products, such as makeup, moisturizers and lip balms.
PhD student and coauthor Anders Rehfeld, MD, will present the study findings
Source : Science Daily
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Pharmaceutical Pollution and Personal Care Products: Silent Killers
Pollution as a result of pharmaceutical production and personal care products (PPCPs), falls under a category of health hazards that are deemed “silent killers.” While attention is often given to loud and vivacious complications such as cancer, “silent killers” like pharmaceutical pollution and water contamination often fly under the radar. However, the lack of attention given to these issues does not, in any way, halt their determination to sit silently among us.
Medication or personal care products--including cosmetics, sunscreen, and menstrual care products--act as pollutants, thus threatening fundamental components of life such as food and water supply. The issue of pharmaceutical pollution can be found in terrestrial and aquatic environments throughout the world; these pollutants can accumulate in the environment, commonly as antibiotics, supplements, personal care products, or steroids, causing havoc to the balance of nature with their toxic metabolites. According to the Environmental News Network in 2013, about 28.66 tons of pharmaceutical pollution enters the environment from disposal down the drain and another 29 tons are disposed in landfills solely in North America. In addition to these methods, pollutants are introduced to the environment through human and animal excretion, agricultural use, manufacturing waste, and disposal of expired medicine. Despite the existence of drug take back programs and guidelines for safe disposal that attempt to mediate the issue of improper disposal of medicine, lack of both publicity and abundance of these programs halts any progress.
A large amount of pharmaceutical pollution also comes from pharmaceutical companies. Unfortunately, when creating new drugs, these companies are more concerned with efficacy than the potential environmental impacts of the drug. An environmentally detrimental new technology is the introduction of pharmacokinetic parameters into antibiotic drugs that modify the chemical structure of drugs to increase the drugs longevity in the body. However, this also has the undesired effect of increasing the drugs’ ability to bioaccumulate in the environment.
This matter is only worsened by the intrinsic nature of pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Because pharmaceutical and personal care products dissolve easily and have high temperatures of evaporation, they are introduced and absorbed readily into the environment by these methods. As reported by the US Geological Survey in 2002, detectable amounts of antibiotics, hormones, and a variety of nonprescription drugs were in 80 percent of the waterways sampled. Although the long term effects of these trace amounts of pollutants on humans has yet to be determined, there are several concerning phenomena that are attributed to PPCPs bioaccumulation.
In 2010, Amy Pruden, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, determined that PPCPs pollution could be a catalyst for antibiotic resistance for which she was given a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. Almost all antibiotics drugs pass through the body without being metabolized or absorbed. In most cases, only 10% of common antibiotic drugs are absorbed and utilized by the body, with the other 90% being introduced into the environment through human excretion. This form of pharmaceutical pollution is cited to be a major cause of antibiotic resistance and the creation of “superbugs.” Not only does this cause treatment with antibiotics to be ineffective in some individuals, it also leads to the creation of bacteria, and thus, bacterial infections that cannot be cured. In addition to this, the impact of PPCPs pollution is manifesting in populations of fish and frogs found in waterways throughout the United States. After conducting a study of fish populations of 164 randomly selected waterways in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency found that there was indeed trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in fish tissue. This proves that these substances are persisting in these aquatic environments and can be passed onto humans through fish consumption. However, a particularly concerning result of PPCPs pollution is that both fish and frog development have been observably altered. The EPA has reported unequal male to female ratio as well as organisms with male and female parts in fish populations around areas in the Potomac. Controlled by very specific hormones, development in frogs is highly susceptible to environmental factors. Due to this fact, when exposed to these pollutants, metamorphosis in frogs has been shown to be dramatically delayed.
While there is no dispute that there is pollution from pharmaceutical and personal care products, the lack of the discovery of long term effects on humans has fostered indifference on the subject. However, the true concern with PPCPs is its potential to create a snowball effect where a small concern can build upon itself to create a situation with disastrous consequences.
If the creation of antibiotic resistance and the negative effects on the development of aquatic organisms is not enough of a source for concern, the potential health hazards of the accumulation and persistence of these substances in the environment should be enough to make someone think twice before flushing their medication down the toilet.
Source : University of Berkley-California
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Doubts Raised About Chemical Stew in Fragrances Used in Consumer Products
For Joyce Miller, one sniff of scented laundry detergent can trigger an asthma attack.
“What happens is I feel like someone is standing on my chest,” says the 57-year-old professor of library science in upstate New York. “It’s almost like a choking feeling – pressure and choking. And then the coughing starts,” she said.
Miller is among the many Americans sensitive to “fragrance,” the cryptic ingredient added to thousands of products, from cleaning supplies to toiletries. The term encompasses thousands of combinations of chemicals that give consumer goods their pleasant odors. But specific chemicals in any given product rarely are disclosed to consumers.
For decades, fragrance makers have insisted on treating their recipes as trade secrets, even as complaints about negative health effects have become more common. A 2009 study, for example, found that more than a quarter of Americans were irritated by the smell of scented products on other people while 19 percent experienced headaches or breathing difficulties from air fresheners.
The industry, with estimated global sales of $40 billion per year, says that it ensures the safety of fragrances through a rigorous system of self-regulation administered by its trade group, the International Fragrance Association. But a tiny women’s advocacy organization in Missoula, Mont., recently outlined what it says are troubling flaws in the industry’s science as well as scores of toxic chemicals used in its mixtures.
The industry association’s North American branch declined to speak to FairWarning about the findings. Chemical giant BASF, an association member, also declined comment. Calls to four other members – Phoenix Aromas & Essential Oils, Premier Specialties, Flavor & Fragrance Specialties Inc., and Bedoukian Research – were not returned.
“There’s a real kind of state of ignorance on the part of scientists, on the part of researchers, on the part of consumers, on what is in fragrance and how safe fragrances are for your health,” said Alexandra Scranton, the director of science and research at Women’s Voices for the Earth, a nonprofit seeking to eliminate toxic chemicals that predominately affect women. “We were trying to pick apart the claim that the industry is making that they are ensuring the safety of fragrance.”
Questions about the safety of fragrances are not new. A 2005 California law, the California Safe Cosmetics Act, requires cosmetics manufacturers to report any products that contain ingredients known or suspected to cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm. The data is posted on a website at safecosmetics.cdph.ca.gov. However, the public database does not list ingredients identified as trade secrets, including fragrances. The program also has met with complaints from experts that some cosmetics firms failed to report their ingredients.
At the federal level, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Products Safety Commission have limited oversight of fragrances. The FDA, which has authority over cosmetics and cosmetic ingredients, doesn’t require cosmetics makers to prove their products or ingredients are safe before putting them on the market. It’s up to the agency to prove harm before a product can be pulled from the shelves. The FDA also requires cosmetics to list their ingredients, but allows a trade secret exemption for chemicals deemed to be fragrance or flavor.
Meanwhile, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has authority over other scented products, such as laundry detergents and air fresheners. The commission, however, does not have an active program to screen fragrances.
“Government has failed to provide a real regulator,” which is a problem, said Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, based in Washington, D.C. “There are plenty of examples of where counting on the good graces of industry has wound up being a mistake,” he said.
In 2008, Women’s Voices began pressing the industry to reveal the specific ingredients. Two years later, the International Fragrance Association posted on its website a list of some 3,000 chemicals used by its members.
Late last year, Women’s Voices published a review of those chemicals, finding that a large number of them appear on official lists of hazardous chemicals, or are banned or restricted in consumer products. For example, a comprehensive classification of chemical hazards adopted by the United Nations tags 1,175 chemicals on the fragrance list with the word “warning” and labels another 190 fragrance chemicals as a “danger,” according to Women’s Voices.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classifies seven fragrance chemicals as possible carcinogens in humans, the organization said. Fifteen chemicals on the fragrance association’s list are barred from use in cosmetics in the European Union, Women’s Voices said.
Scranton, who authored the Women’s Voices study, is careful to note that the industry’s list gives no indication of how much these chemicals are used, making it difficult to know if consumers are in actual danger. “When I see styrene (a possible carcinogen) on the list of chemicals in fragrance, that’s a red flag,” she said. “Is it only used very, very rarely, in very small amounts? Possibly, and maybe it’s not as much of a problem. Is it used in every fragrance that you come across? Then it’s going to be a problem.”
In a brief paper available on its website, the fragrance association touts the industry’s ability, through self regulation, to ensure “the highest levels of safety of fragranced products.” It says the industry can adapt to new scientific findings “more quickly and efficiently through self-regulation as opposed to diverse legislation in different countries on different continents.”
The industry association works with its research arm, the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, to produce standards that it says are based on science. Women’s Voices, however, says there are several shortcomings in the system.
For one, the group maintains that the vast majority of scientific studies exploring fragrance safety are produced by fragrance houses themselves, or the industry’s research institute. Rarely are these studies published or even peer reviewed, the organization says. No one is independently reviewing laboratory practices or levels of significance, or ensuring “that the results of these studies have not been manipulated,” Women’s Voices says.
Over the last year, the European Commission Scientific Committee onConsumer Safety reviewed studies by the research institute and repeatedly noted failings in the institute’s methods, including incomplete data and invalid protocols.
Women’s Voices also says that an independent expert panel that reviews the industry’s research bases its safety opinions on information curated by the fragrance industry itself. The expert panel meets in secret and no transcripts or meeting minutes are publicly available, Women’s Voices said.
“The Research Institute for Fragrance Materials is like a black box,” said Janet Nudelman, the director of program and policy for the Breast Cancer Fund and the director of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. “They attempt to assure the public that they have the safety of fragrance chemicals under control, that they’re looking at all of the safety data regarding fragrance chemicals. But none of their safety studies are publicly available.”
The industry has either banned or restricted the use of 186 substances in fragrance products. But Women’s Voices says the industry does little to ensure that its standards are actually being followed.
The fragrance industry has not commented directly on Women’s Voices’ research, but a few days after the organization released its report in November, the research institute put out a statement saying “the industry is committed to addressing consumers’ interests through a continuous health and environmental safety review.”
The industry, however, remains opposed to greater transparency of its ingredients. In California, the industry association has opposed Assembly Bill 708, by Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles Democrat, which would require cleaning products to disclose their ingredients on their product labels. In a letter, the industry said it was worried about counterfeiters.
“It would be very helpful if companies could list on labels the chemicals that they use for their fragrances,” said Miller, the professor from the Glens Falls area of New York who suffers from fragrance sensitivity. “Fragrance is not just some pretty concept. It actually can be a fairly nasty combination of chemicals,” she said.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story erroneously identified Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer as Reggie Sawyer-Jones.
Source : FairWarning.org
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Tougher Testing Sought to Detect Asbestos in Talc
We use talc in many up close and personal ways: to powder babies’ bottoms, as an ingredient in cosmetics, a filler in capsules and pills–even as a food additive. In a world of ominous, unpronounceable chemicals, could anything be less scary than talc?
Yet talc, the softest known mineral, is dug from the ground, where it can keep bad company. Talc is sometimes interlaced with asbestos, which can cause fatal diseases in those who inhale its microscopic, lung-scarring fibers.
In an unsettling reminder, recent tests found stray asbestos from contaminated talc in some Chinese-made toy fingerprint kits and crayon sets. A burst of lawsuits blaming asbestos illnesses on exposure to contaminated talc powder decades ago has also highlighted the issue. Internal records reviewed by FairWarning show that officials of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have long been concerned about potential asbestos contamination of cosmetic talc, but have left it to the industry to monitor itself.
Only the purest grades of talc are supposed to go into cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and food. Manufacturers say they only use talc with no detectable asbestos.
But it’s possible to declare talc asbestos-free simply by not looking hard enough, according to experts. They say the standard tests are outdated and not rigorous enough to detect asbestos at low but potentially hazardous levels. In an email to the FDA back in 2001, a senior executive with Luzenac, a leading talc supplier, said “I think we all recognize’’ that the standard methods still in use today “are simply not sensitive enough to provide complete assurance that the talc is free of detectable asbestos.”
Currently, technical panels from two standards organizations–ASTM International and the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention–are working to tighten test standards to keep asbestos from slipping into consumer products.
“We have found in the past that, yes, indeed, there can be…asbestos in these products,” said Frank Ehrenfeld III, vice president of International Asbestos Testing Laboratories in Mount Laurel, N.J., and chairman of the ASTM panel.
Some suppliers and manufacturers say they go beyond the standard tests to ensure their talc is safe. “If an area sought be mined shows the presence of asbestiform mineral, that area isn’t mined,” said Barretts Minerals, a unit of Minerals Technologies Inc. and a major talc supplier from mines in Montana, in a written statement. Then “more robust and state-of-the-art testing is performed” at the company’s lab.
However, large volumes of imported talc flow into the U.S. from countries not known for safety regulation. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, China and Pakistan are two of the biggest suppliers—together providing, on average, about 150,000 tons per year. As with most other imports, no government agency keeps track of who buys the talc, or how it is used.
Over the years, workplace exposure to contaminated industrial-grade talc has been blamed for cases of mesothelioma — a deadly cancer predominantly caused by asbestos — in some talc miners and factory workers. But recently lawsuits by some mesothelioma victims assert that they contracted the disease from breathing asbestos fibers through regular use of contaminated talc powder, mostly in the 1960s and 1970s.
Lawsuits target Colgate
The main target has been Colgate-Palmolive Co. and the Cashmere Bouquet powder it produced for more than 100 years before selling the brand in 1995.
Laboratory tests in the 1970s found asbestos in samples of Cashmere Bouquet, though Colgate has disputed those results. But a study published last fall reported finding asbestos fibers in about 50 containers of Cashmere Bouquet produced over several decades. Researchers also conducted air tests and concluded that people could have inhaled asbestos when they sprinkled on the powder.
All three of the co-authors—Dr. Ronald Gordon, a research pathologist at Mount Sinai Hospital; environmental scientist James Millette, formerly with the Environmental Protection Agency; and research geologist Sean Fitzgerald–had served as plaintiff experts in talcum powder suits.
Colgate says the powder was harmless, and that mineral particles found in Cashmere Bouquet were mischaracterized as asbestos fibers. In fact, the company contends, the particles were “cleavage fragments,’’ or non-fibrous chunks that are less likely to be inhaled, lodge in the lungs and cause disease. According to a court filing by Colgate, asbestos exposure, if any, “was so minimal as to be insufficient to support any finding that the exposure caused’’ mesothelioma.
But in April, the jury in a Los Angeles case didn’t buy the company’s argument. At Colgate’s request, the judge refused to allow the Cashmere Bouquet test results into evidence, reasoning that there was no assurance the samples, when tested, were in their original condition. Even so, based on evidence of asbestos at three mines that had supplied Colgate’s talc, the jury ordered the company to pay $12.4 million in damages to the 73-year old plaintiff, Judith Winkel.
Cases settled
Before jurors could consider tacking on punitive damages, lawyers for Colgate and Winkel reached a confidential settlement. Since then, the company has quietly settled three more mesothelioma cases in North Carolina and Delaware.
According to Colgate’s July 30 quarterly report, the company faces 23 additional talc-asbestos lawsuits in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland, South Carolina, Delaware, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia. Twenty-one other cases have ended in dismissals or defense judgments. Despite settling some cases, the report said, Colgate and its lawyers “believe these cases are without merit and intend to challenge them vigorously.”
(Talc itself — even without asbestos — also is the focus of litigation. Based on studies showing statistical links between ovarian cancer and use of talc powder for feminine hygiene, Johnson & Johnson is facing hundreds of ovarian cancer lawsuits. The lawsuits do not contend that the talc was tainted by asbestos. Johnson & Johnson has denied the claims.)
The Colgate cases echo an asbestos scare in the 1970s, when researchers at New York University and Mount Sinai Hospital separately found asbestos minerals in many popular powders — triggering alarming news reports and a struggle by cosmetic makers and the Food and Drug Administration to manage the fallout.
The FDA is responsible for regulating cosmetics, but its authority is limited. Cosmetics makers don’t have to prove that products or specific ingredients are safe before putting them on the market. The onus is on the FDA to prove harm to the public before products can be ordered off the shelves.
A March, 1976 FDA memo, among records obtained by FairWarning under the Freedom of information Act, charged that cosmetics makers had been lax in monitoring the safety of talc supplies.
The “situation does not offer much assurance that cosmetic talcs are adequately tested for asbestos,” the memo said. “If this is all that can be expected from the cosmetic industry…, we have not much choice but to move ahead as speedily as possible with a proposal of a regulation on asbestos in talc.”
However, in a quick about-face, the agency decided that the industry could be left to regulate itself. Its top trade group, the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association (now called the Personal Care Products Council), established a screening test that it said could detect most types of asbestos at concentrations as low as 0.5 percent. Council officials did not respond to interview requests.
Concerns persisted within the FDA. Agency records show that in 1994 and again in 2001, FDA officials proposed to test cosmetic talc products for possible asbestos contamination–but for some reason did not follow through. An agency spokesman said information on why the surveys were scrapped was not ‘’immediately available.’’
A wakeup call
The idea was revived in 2009, when South Korean authorities recalled a dozen baby powder products and hundreds of medicines that they said were produced with asbestos-contaminated Chinese talc.
In response, the FDA conducted a survey in 2009 and 2010—buying and testing 34 talc products, including eye shadow, blush and powders, from stores in the Washington, D.C. area. The agency also requested samples of raw talc from nine suppliers. Strikingly, only four complied. Agency officials would not discuss what steps were taken, if any, to get samples from the other five suppliers.
No asbestos was found in any of the products or raw talc, the agency reported. “The results were limited, however, by the fact that only four talc suppliers submitted samples and by the number of products tested,’’ the FDA said.
Accordingly, the agency said, the results “do not prove that most or all talc or talc-containing cosmetic products currently marketed in the United State are likely to be free of asbestos contamination.’’
The FDA then asked the U.S. Pharmacopeail Convention, or USP, to revise its test methods for screening talc for asbestos. Though most people have never heard of USP, the scientific nonprofit sets standards enforceable by the FDA for the quality and purity of drugs, food and dietary supplements.
FDA officials refused to be interviewed about their request for tougher tests. But in a written statement, they said current methods “have insufficient sensitivity to detect asbestos and cannot provide the highest possible level of confidence when used by suppliers of talc to certify ‘absence of asbestos.’”
In an article last year, an expert panel created by USP endorsed the call for tougher screening. One currently used test, called X-ray diffraction, can allow asbestos concentrations as high as 2 percent to go undetected. Yet, the article noted, levels “well below 1 percent asbestos by weight…can generate potentially hazardous exposures.’’
“This issue..may be particularly relevant for the talc used in powders and cosmetics,’’ the article said.
New tests are likely to require use of transmission electron microscopy, a state-of-the-art technique that uses electron beams to produce extremely high magnification of tiny particles.
“There is no safe level of asbestos,’’ said Dr. Kevin Moore, a senior official at USP, “so…we’re identifying methods that give us assurance that we’re controlling it to an adequate extent.’’
However, panel members—who are drawn from industry, public health agencies and testing labs—are volunteers. That, and the need for consensus from disparate groups, means the going is slow. There is no timetable for completing new standards.
Source : FairWarning
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How we are all contributing to the destruction of coral reefs: Sunscreen
The sunscreen that snorkelers, beachgoers and children romping in the waves lather on for protection is killing coral and reefs around the globe. And a new study finds that a single drop in a small area is all it takes for the chemicals in the lotion to mount an attack.
The study, released Tuesday, was conducted in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Hawaii several years after a chance encounter between a group of researchers on one of the Caribbean beaches, Trunk Bay, and a vendor waiting for the day’s invasion of tourists. Just wait to see what they’d leave behind, he told the scientists – “a long oil slick.” His comment sparked the idea for the research.
Not only did the study determine that a tiny amount of sunscreen is all it takes to begin damaging the delicate corals — the equivalent of a drop of water in a half-dozen Olympic-sized swimming pools — it documented three different ways that the ingredient oxybenzone breaks the coral down, robbing it of life-giving nutrients and turning it ghostly white.
Yet beach crowds aren’t the only people who add to the demise of the coral reefs found just off shore. Athletes who slather sunscreen on before a run, mothers who coat their children before outdoor play and people trying to catch some rays in the park all come home and wash it off.
Cities such as Ocean City, Md., and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., have built sewer outfalls that jettison tainted wastewater away from public beaches, sending personal care products with a cocktail of chemicals into the ocean. On top of that, sewer overflows during heavy rains spew millions of tons of waste mixed with stormwater into rivers and streams. Like sunscreen lotions, products like birth-control pills contain chemicals that are endocrine disruptors and alter the way organisms grow. Those are among the main suspects in an investigation into why male fish such as bass are developing female organs.
Research for the new study was conducted only on the two islands. But across the world each year, up to 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotions are discharged into coral reef, and much of it “contains between 1 and 10 percent oxybenzone,” the authors said. They estimate that places at least 10 percent of reefs at risk of high exposure, judging from how reefs are located in popular tourism areas.
“The most direct evidence we have is from beaches with a large amount of people in the water,” said John Fauth, an associate professor of biology at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. “But another way is through the wastewater streams. People come inside and step into the shower. People forget it goes somewhere.”
The study was published Tuesday in the journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Fauth co-authored the study with Craig Downs of the nonprofit Haereticus Environmental Laboratory in Clifford, Va., and Esti Kramarsky-Winter, a researcher in the Department of Zoology at Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Their findings follow a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study two weeks ago that said the world is in the midst of a third global coral bleaching event. It warned that pollution is undermining the health of coral, rendering it unable to resist bleaching or recover from the effects.
“The use of oxybenzone-containing products needs to be seriously deliberated in islands and areas where coral reef conservation is a critical issue,” Downs said. “We have lost at least 80 percent of the coral reefs in the Caribbean. Any small effort to reduce oxybenzone pollution could mean that a coral reef survives a long, hot summer, or that a degraded area recovers.”
Coral reefs are more than just exotic displays of color on the sea bed. The National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the NOAA, placed their value for U.S. fisheries at $100 million. They spawn the fish humans eat and protect miles of coast from storm surge.
“Local economies also receive billions of dollars from visitors to reefs through diving tours, recreational fishing trips, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses based near reef ecosystems,” NOAA said on its Web site. “Globally, coral reefs provide a net benefit of $9.6 billion each year from tourism and recreation revenues, and $5.7 billion per year from fisheries.”
Oxybenzone is mixed in more than 3,500 sunscreen products worldwide, including popular brands such as Coppertone, Baby Blanket Faces, L’Oreal Paris, Hawaiian Tropic and Banana Boat. Adverse effects on coral started on with concentrations as low as 62 parts per trillion. There are alternative sunscreens with no oxybenzone, including a product called Badger Natural Sunscreen and dozens of others on a list provided by the non-profit Environmental Working Group.
Measurements of oxybenzone in seawater within coral reefs in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands found concentrations ranging from 800 parts per trillion to 1.4 parts per million,” according to the authors. That’s 12 times the concentrations needed to harm coral.
“This study raises our awareness of a seldom-realized threat to the health of our reef life … chemicals in the sunscreen products visitors and residents wear are toxic to young corals,” said Pat Lindquist, executive director of the Napili Bay and Beach Foundation in Maui. “This knowledge is critical to us as we consider actions to mitigate threats or improve on current practices.”
Source : The Washington Post
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What Are We Doing to Ourselves? 84,000 Chemicals, and Only 1% Have Been Tested
Women are particularly at risk because they use more personal care products than men.
There are around 84,000 chemicals on the market, and we come into contact with many of them every single day. And if that isn't enough to cause concern, the shocking fact is that only about 1 percent of them have been studied for safety.
In 2010, at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health, Lisa Jackson, then the administrator of the EPA, put our current, hyper-toxic era into sharp perspective: "A child born in America today will grow up exposed to more chemicals than any other generation in our history."
Just consider your morning routine: If you're an average male, you use up to nine personal care products every single day: shampoo, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, hair conditioner, lip balm, sunscreen, body lotion and shaving products — amounting to about 85 different chemicals. Many of the ingredients in these products are harmless, but some are carcinogens, neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors.
Women are particularly at risk because they generally use more personal care products than men: 25 percent of women apply 15 or more products daily, including makeup and anti-aging creams, amounting to an average of 168 chemicals. For a pregnant woman, the risk is multiplied as she can pass on those toxins to her unborn child: 300 contaminants have been detected in the umbilical cord blood of newborns.
Many people don't think twice about the chemicals they put on their bodies, perhaps thinking that the government regulates the personal care products that flood the marketplace. In reality, the government plays a very small role, in part because it doesn't have the legal mandate to protect the public from harmful substances that chemical companies and manufacturers sell in their products. Federal rules designed to ensure product safety haven’t been updated in more than 75 years. New untested chemicals appear on store shelves all the time.
"Under federal law, cosmetics companies don't have to disclose chemicals or gain approval for the 2,000 products that go on the market every year," notes environment writer Jane Kay in Scientific American. "And removing a cosmetic from sale takes a battle in federal court."
It's high time these rules are revisited. Not only have thousands of new chemicals entered the market in the past several decades, there is overwhelming evidence that the public is unnecessarily exposed to health hazards from consumer products. In 2013, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a report that found "robust" evidence linking "toxic environmental agents" — which includes consumer products — to "adverse reproductive and developmental health outcomes."
Formaldehyde is a good example. It is a known carcinogen used as a preservative to kill or inhibit the growth of microorganisms in a wide range of personal care products, from cosmetics, soaps, shampoos and lotions to deodorants, nail polishes and hair gels. It is also used in pressed-wood products, permanent-press fabrics, paper product coatings and insulation, and as a fungicide, germicide, disinfectant and preservative. The general public is also exposed to formaldehyde through automobile tailpipe emissions. Formaldehyde has been linked to spontaneous abortion and low birth weight.
While the main concern about formaldehyde exposure centers around industrial use (e.g., industrial workers, embalmers and salon workers), the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, an independent panel of experts that determines the safety of individual chemical compounds as they are used in cosmetics, recommends that for health and safety reasons cosmetics should not contain formaldehyde at amounts greater than 0.2 percent. It's a small amount, but the problem is that the FDA doesn't regulate the use of formaldehyde in cosmetics (except for nail polish), and companies aren't required by law to follow CIR's recommendations.
Empowering FDA to Protect Consumers
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are trying to bridge this gap in federal oversight. Last month, they introduced the Personal Care Products Safety Act (S. 1014), a bill that seeks to protect consumers from toxins found in personal care products by strengthening the authority of the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the cosmetics industry, to regulate the ingredients in those products.
Specifically, by making significant revisions to the cosmetics chapter of theFederal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), the bill would require the FDA to review chemicals used in personal care products and provide clear guidance on their safety. In addition, S.1014 would require cosmetic manufacturing facilities to register with the FDA, require brand owners to submit ingredient statements every year, require the FDA to assess the safety of cosmetic ingredients at a minimum of five ingredients per year, and give the FDA the authority to recall certain personal care products that threaten consumer safety.
“From shampoo to lotion, the use of personal care products is widespread, however, there are very few protections in place to ensure their safety,” said Sen. Feinstein. "Europe has a robust system, which includes consumer protections like product registration and ingredient reviews. In addition, the legislation has broad support from companies and consumer groups alike."
The first set of chemicals that would be reviewed under S. 1014 includes:
"While we believe our products are the safest category that FDA regulates, we also believe well-crafted, science-based reforms will enhance industry's ability to innovate and further strengthen consumer confidence in the products they trust and use every day," said the Personal Care Products Council, a national trade association for the cosmetic and personal care products industry, in a statement. "The current patchwork regulatory approach with varying state bills does not achieve this goal."
Overhauling the Toxic Substances Control Act
Like the FDA, the EPA is similarly toothless when it comes to protecting the public from dangerous chemicals. Though it has the power to investigate some consumer chemicals through the Toxic Substances Control Act, the agency can act only if a chemical poses an "unreasonable risk" to public health — and that is difficult to prove. Since the TSCA was passed in 1976, the EPA has only tested around 200 of the 84,000 chemicals on the market. The law hasn't undergone any substantial update since it was enacted.
In a 2011 paper published in the journal Health Affairs, Sarah Vogel, a program officer at the Johnson Family Foundation in New York City, and Jody Roberts, the associate director of the Center for Contemporary History and Policy at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, argue that the TSCA requires an overhaul:
The EPA’s ability to obtain safety information and set regulatory standards as outlined under the Toxic Substances Control Act has fallen far short of expectations. This is due to a combination of limitations in the statute and a series of events over the past thirty-five years, including reductions in the EPA’s budget in the 1980s, changing political leadership and shifting agency priorities, limited oversight by Congress, and successful challenges by the chemical industry to limit the EPA’s authority.In March, senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Tom Udall (D-NM) made an official push for that overhaul when they introduced the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697), a bill that seeks to update the TSCA. The bill would require the EPA to ensure that 25 high- and 25 low-priority substances will be addressed within five years of the bill's enactment, while not conceding all oversight to the federal level: It also permit states to implement requirements that are identical to the federal requirements enacted by the EPA.
Also, before producing a new chemical or manufacturing an existing chemical for "significant new use," the EPA would be required to say officially that the chemical in question would "likely meet the safety standard," rather than simply letting the review period expire — which is the case under the current TSCA. Also known as the “Udall-Vitter” Toxic Substances Control Act reform bill, it is currently pending a vote on the Senate Floor.
We absorb up to 60 percent of what we put on our skin. (Infographic by Natural Healthy Concepts)
"Americans are exposed to a toxic soup of more than 80,000 different chemicals, but we have no idea what the impact of those chemicals is on our bodies — or those of our children," said Sen. Udall. "Current law has failed to protect Americans from dangerous carcinogens like asbestos, and Congress can't afford to stand on the sidelines any longer."
Sen. Vitter noted that "chemicals are used to produce 96 percent of all manufactured goods consumers rely on every day."
Unlike previous unsuccessful attempts to reform the TSCA, S. 697 enjoys strong bipartisan support: 17 Republican senators and 17 Democratic senators have joined Vitter and Udall to co-sponsor the bill. However, it faces a challenge by a similar competing bill, the Alan Reinstein and Trevor Schaefer Toxic Chemical Protection Act (S. 725), introduced two days later by senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA). Unlike S. 697, S. 725 currently has no Republican co-sponsors.
Supporters of S. 725, including the Environmental Working Group, Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization and Safer Chemicals Safer Families, argue that the Udall-Vitter bill is "embraced by the chemical industry" and it "would take more than a century to analyze and regulate the 1,000 chemicals EPA has flagged for review on the grounds they appear to be particularly dangerous to human health."
A stark difference between the two bills is that the Udall-Vitter bill doesn't even mention asbestos, a known carcinogen that kills approximately 10,000 Americans every year and under current law, cannot be banned. The Boxer-Markey bill would require that all forms of asbestos be listed as a high-priority chemical substance, requiring the EPA to complete a safety assessment and determination for asbestos within two years of the bill's enactment.
S. 725 "addresses asbestos, children's cancer and other threats that toxic chemicals pose to our families, including cardiovascular disease, developmental disorders, respiratory disorders, neurological disorders, endocrine disruption and many others," said Sen. Boxer. "Our citizens deserve nothing less than a bill that protects them — not chemical companies."
Senator Markey called the nation's current federal chemical laws "outdated and ineffective," and said their bill would also "preserve vital protections like a state's ability to clamp down on dangerous chemicals."
"The fact that the Vitter-Udall bill will not even restrict, much less ban, the deadly substance that claims 30 lives a day is nothing short of a national travesty," said Linda Reinstein, president and co-founder of Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. "Any senator who supports this industry proposal is in essence supporting the continuation of the toll asbestos has already had on millions of American families."
The current prognosis for these three bills is fairly grim: GovTrack gives S. 697 a 15 percent chance of being enacted, S. 1014 a 3 percent chance and S. 725 a 1 percent chance. Whatever happens, it is clear that the current system in place to protect the public from dangerous chemicals is not working.
As America's lawmakers review these bills, they would do well to consider the prescription of Lynn Goldman, dean of George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health: "It is far wiser and less expensive to prevent exposure to unsafe chemicals ... than to have to treat the serious health problems that they can cause."
Source : Alternet
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99% of Breast Cancer Tissue Contained This Everyday Chemical (NOT Aluminum)
New research examining parabens found in cancerous human breast tissue points the finger at antiperspirants and other cosmetics for increasing your risk of breast cancer.
The research, which is also reviewed in an editorial published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, looked at where breast tumors were appearing, and determined that higher concentrations of parabens were found in the upper quadrants of the breast and axillary area, where antiperspirants are usually appliedii.
Parabens are chemicals that serve as preservatives in antiperspirants and many cosmetics, as well as sun lotions. Previous studies have shown that all parabens have estrogenic activity in human breast cancer cells.
Another component of antiperspirants, aluminum chloride, has been found to act similarly to the way oncogenes work to provide molecular transformations in cancer cells. According to the authors of the editorial review, the research shows "signals of concern that such compounds are not as safe as previously generally considered, and further research is warranted." Furthermore:
"The data from this latest study, the most extensive examination of parabens in human breast so far published, confirms previous work and raises a number of questions on the entire parabens, personal care product and human health debate, particularly relating to the source and toxicological significance of the paraben esters."
Ninety-nine Percent of Breast Cancer Tissue Samples Contain Parabens The featured study by Barr et.al. discovered one or more paraben esters in 99 percent of the 160 tissue samples collected from 40 mastectomiesiii. In 60 percent of the samples, all five paraben esters were present. There were no correlations between paraben concentrations and age, length of breast feeding, tumor location, or tumor estrogen receptor content. The median values in nanograms per tissue for the five chemicals were:
And the sources are many. Parabens can be found in a wide variety of personal care products, cosmetics, as well as drugs. That said, it appears the dermal route is the most significant form of exposure. In the featured editorial, Philip Harvey and David Everett explain why:
"... [T]he dermal route of exposure is considered more plausible when intact esters are detected, and other authors reporting human exposures and body fluid concentrations of paraben esters consider cosmetics of some form or another as the likely sources... This is because the metabolic esterase activity of the gut and liver (relevant to oral exposure) is considered to greatly exceed that of the skin, and oral exposures would result in rapid liver metabolism of the esters to produce the common metabolite p-hydroxybenzoic acid... Paraben esters typically used in cosmetics pass through human skin in vitro/ex vivo, and Ishiwatrai et.al. (2007) has shown persistence of unmetabolized methylparaben in the skin"
Safety of Parabens has NEVER Been Established... As incredible as it sounds, despite the fact that parabens are used in such a wide variety of products, the toxicology of these chemicals has barely been investigated. There is a complete lack of modern toxicology studies on these ingredients, and according to the featured review, not a single study on the chemicals' carcinogenity follow acceptable regulatory standard carcinogenity study protocols.
The authors point out that one rat study from 1956 is still used as "the pivotal evaluation upon which human safety is judged!"
"This may be acceptable for certain chemicals for which there is limited human exposure but not for chemicals such as parabens for which such a large population is exposed, and which show significant tissue concentrations," they write.
Furthermore, virtually all toxicology studies are based on the oral route of exposure, which means that risk assessment, according to Harvey and Everett, is "largely based on assumption, opinion and the technical regulatory instrument of GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe)."
The Estrogenic Activity of Parabens Estrogens, whether synthetic or natural are a primary risk factor for breast cancer. Approximately 20 different studies have established that parabens have estrogenic activity, which makes them relevant when it comes to estrogen-sensitive cancers. A common excuse used to defend the absence of toxicological studies is that parabens are weak in terms of potency. For example, propylparaben and butylparaben are approximately 30,000 and 10,000 less potent than estradiol, respectively.
"However, estradiol occurs in breast tissue in the pictogram per gram of tissue range... but the results reported by Barr et.al. [the featured study] show tissue concentrations of parabens, in the worst cases, in the microgram per gram of breast tissue range, which is one million-fold higher than that of estradiol. Clearly, the magnitude of exposure would seem to more than compensate for the reduction in potency," Harvey and Everett write.
But that's not all. A 2011 study reported that methylparaben promotes cell cycling and makes human breast cells more resistant to apoptosis, which, according to the authors can provide the molecular basis for malignant tumor proliferation. Harvey and Everett also cite another study from 2007, which found that propylparaben and butylparaben cause detectable DNA damage.
Rise in Breast Cancer Likely Linked to Chemical Exposures Harvey and Everett point out that the hypothesis that chemicals in personal care products might be harmful to your health and contribute to breast cancer has a basis in two key observations:
"The tenet that there "is no evidence that personal care products (antiperspirants or deodorants) are related to breast cancer" is technically correct, but only because studies have not been conducted to investigate any relationships. Such arguments provide false assurance by masking the inadequacies of empirical evidence and knowledge."
Aluminum—Another Cancer-Promoting Ingredient in Antiperspirants Antiperspirants work by clogging, closing, or blocking the pores that release sweat under your arms—with the active ingredient being aluminum. (If you are using a deodorant-only product it is unlikely to contain aluminum but might contain other chemicals that could be a concern, such as parabens.) Not only does this block one of your body's routes for detoxification (releasing toxins via your underarm sweat), but it raises concerns about where these metals are going once you roll them (or spray them) on.
Like parabens, aluminum salts can also mimic estrogen, and, just like the featured study, previous research has shown that aluminum is also absorbed and deposited into breast tissueiv. The researchers suggested raised levels of aluminum could even be used as a biomarker for identification of women at increased risk of developing breast cancer.
Aluminum salts can account for 25 percent of the volume of some antiperspirants, and a review of the common sources of aluminum exposure for humans found that antiperspirant use can significantly increase the amount of aluminum absorbed by your body. According to the review, after a single underarm application of antiperspirant, about .012 percent of the aluminum may be absorbedv. This may not sound like much until you multiply it by one or more times a day for a lifetime, which adds up to massive exposure to aluminum—a poison that is not supposed to be in your body, and may be more toxic than mercury. Aside from vaccinations, your antiperspirant may be your largest source of exposure to this poisonous metal!
Be Cautious with Natural Deodorants, Too There are many brands of chemical-free, aluminum-free deodorants on the market, and many of these are safe alternatives. "Crystal" deodorant stones, which are a popular natural deodorant alternative often used by health-conscious shoppers looking to avoid aluminum, often claim to be aluminum-free, but some actually contain a different type of compound known as an alum, the most common form being potassium alum, also known as potassium aluminum sulfate.
Potassium Alum or Ammonium Alum are natural mineral salts made up of molecules that are too large to be absorbed by your skin. They form a protective layer on your skin that inhibits the growth of odor-causing bacteria. These deodorants are recommended by many cancer treatment centers, but while this may be a better alternative to most antiperspirants and deodorants on the market, it is not completely aluminum-free. Also remember to check the remaining ingredients, keeping a watchful eye out for parabens.
For the last few decades I have not used antiperspirants or deodorants--even natural ones. I noticed that they would cause a yellow stain in the armpit of my shirts. At first I thought the stain was due to my sweat but I quickly realized it was the chemicals in the antiperspirants. I routinely substitute soap and water in my armpits and that seems to work. Although last year I noticed that if I sunbathe my axilla regularly, the UV light actually sterilized my armpits in addition to raising my levels of vitamin D. There is no odor even without using soap and water. Essentially you tan your armpits. The effect is not long lasting and the bacteria repopulate in a day or so unless you expose your armpits to sunlight.
What Can You Do to Prevent Breast Cancer? Aside from skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among U.S. women. Unfortunately, while the American Cancer Society widely encourages women to get mammograms, they do not do nearly enough to spread the word about the many ways women can help prevent breast cancer in the first place. The following lifestyle strategies will help to lower your risk of breast cancer:
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Consumer demand pushing parabens out of personal care
New alternative preservation systems for cosmetic products are gaining popularity. In its new Technical Insights report, Organic Monitor finds the move to new alternative preservative systems is driven by high consumer demand for natural and organic cosmetics as well as the growing trend of formulators avoiding parabens.
Parabens are the most widely used preservatives, present in thousands of personal care products that include moisturizers, shampoos, toothpastes, lubricants and gels. However, a growing number of formulators are avoiding them because of possible safety concerns. Although not scientifically proven, parabens are thought to mimic estrogen and have been associated with breast cancer. The French and Danish governments are considering a ban on parabens in cosmetic products because of these possible links. Concerns over a possible ban are leading cosmetic companies to develop paraben-free formulations.
Natural and organic cosmetic products do not use conventional preservatives, such as parabens and phenoxyethanol. Natural and organic products have traditionally used natural preservatives like grapefruit seed extract, however new materials and technologies are gaining acceptance.
According to Judi Beerling at Organic Monitor, “many companies are using preservative systems that comprise multifunctional natural ingredients.” By using such ‘synergistic blends’, the material has antimicrobial properties whilst not having to be registered as a preservative with the respective authorities. Examples of such preservative systems include blended botanical extracts and spice extracts.
Another development is self-preservation techniques, with some methods originating from the food industry. Hurdle technology involves creating hurdles to block growth of micro-organisms in cosmetic formulations; for instance, using materials that reduce the pH of the formulation. Some companies are adding emollients with membrane disrupting properties in cosmetic formulations, whilst others are boosting natural preservative systems by the use of chelating agents or a glycol alternative.
A major finding from the Technical Insights study is that these new alternative preservative systems are usually not as cost-effective as parabens. Most alternative preservatives have prices in multiples of that for parabens. There are also stability and safety issues associated with natural materials. Supply could also be an issue for large-scale production of cosmetic products.
Customization is another major development. Formulators are realizing the ideal preservative system needs to be customized according to the product type, formulation and packaging. Packaging also plays an important role, with many natural and organic cosmetic companies using airless packaging to reduce contamination risks.
As will be shown in the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit, preservation is usually the number one technical issue associated with natural and organic cosmetics. The differing stances of certification agencies add to the complexity of the preservative conundrum. Significant differences remain between standards in terms of permitted and prohibited preservatives. Apart from the use of synthetic chemicals, differences relate to nature-identical and naturally-derived materials. Precise details of the preservative options available to formulators of certified natural and organic cosmetics will be given in a dedicated workshop at the summit.
Source Newhope 360
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Common toothpaste additive triclosan to be deemed toxic to environment
The federal government is set to declare a bacteria killer found in many toothpastes, mouthwashes and anti-bacterial soaps as toxic to the environment, a move which could see the use of the chemical curtailed sharply, Postmedia News has learned.Health Canada has been probing the effects of triclosan on the body's endocrine system and whether the antibacterial agent contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance. Environment Canada has been studying the effect of the widely used chemical on the environment.
The government's draft risk assessment is now complete and it says triclosan is toxic to the environment but there's not enough evidence to say it's hazardous to human health. The formal proposal to list the chemical as toxic to the environment will be published Friday.
A toxic designation under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act triggers a process to find ways to curtail a chemical's use, including a possible ban in a range of personal-care products.
Canada's proposed toxic designation comes as other regulators wrestle with what to do with triclosan.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration already has said existing data raise "valid concerns" about the possible health effects of repetitive daily exposure to triclosan and is expected is unveil its own risk assessment next winter. Currently, the American regulator's position is triclosan "is not known to be hazardous to humans" but "animal studies have shown that triclosan alters hormone regulation" and that it warrants further review.
The Canadian government reviewed the safety of triclosan under the government's Chemicals Management Plan (CMP).
The plan, first announced in 2006 with a startup budget of $300 million, initially identified 200 "high-priority" chemicals to undergo safety assessments over five years. When chemicals are deemed to be toxic to human health or the environment under this program, the government then outlines risk-management steps to be taken to protect people or the environment.
During the first phase of the plan, the federal government banned bisphenol A in baby bottles — an international first that began with listing the hormone-disrupting chemical as toxic to human health. Major companies have since announced they are phasing out the use of BPA in canned foods.
The Canadian Medical Association has been calling for a ban on the household use of triclosan since 2009, when the organization raised serious concerns about the potential for increased bacterial resistance and argued the benefits are minimal compared to regular washing with soap.
Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence and co-author of the book Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects our Health, said he wasn't aware of the government's decision on what he calls "modern-day snake oil."
But "like the Canadian Medical Association, we've been concerned about the environmental and human health impacts of triclosan for a while, so we would very much welcome some regulatory action by the Canadian government," Smith said Monday.
Smith, who also said "there's evidence that triclosan is a thyroid toxin," added there's "now a mountain of scientific evidence that triclosan is doing nasty things to aquatic organisms. Because so much of it is being used in our kitchens and bathrooms, it's going down the drain and winding up in lakes and rivers at increasing levels."
Darren Praznik, president of the Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association, said it would be premature to comment on the government decision until "we actually know what it says," but he said his group is "very supportive" of the Chemicals Management Plan.
"What we like about it, generally speaking, is at the end of the day, it really is about the application of sound science and risk assessment to substances. And I think it also adds another level of safety, rather than just product reviews but also substance reviews," said Praznik.
The CMP reviewed another a funding boost last fall when Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and Environment Minister Peter Kent announced the program's renewal with more than $500 million over five years.
At the time, the government said it would be looking at phthalates, flame retardants, boron, selenium, cobalt and other chemicals in the second phase, as well as finalizing its risk assessment of triclosan.
Smith and co-author Bruce Lourie took aim at triclosan for their book, published in 2009.
Smith, who banished triclosan from his home years ago after reading studies identifying the antibacterial agent as a possible endocrine disrupter, saw the levels rise in his body by 2,900 times after using, over a two-day period, brand-name deodorant, toothpaste, anti-bacterial soap and shaving cream containing triclosan.
Source : Edmonton Journal Canada
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Dangerous Beauty: 5 Scariest Beauty Products
Chemicals, heavy metals, bacteria, and other hazardous ingredients are turning up in makeup, skin creams, and hair styling products. Here, the latest and most dangerous beauty alerts, and how to protect yourself without compromising your beauty routine. Mercury in Skin Creams?
That was the headline-grabber last week, when an FDA investigation found imported skin creams may contain toxic levels of mercury and other heavy metals. The risk is serious; people are actually getting sick from mercury contamination from these products.
The list of dangerous skin creams is fairly long, but — so far at least — contains only products you’d purchase from an import store or Latino, Asian or Middle Eastern market, and no American-made brands or products. The creams are intended primarily for “skin lightening” and anti-aging and include Stillman’s skin bleach cream, Diana skin lightening formula, and numerous products with labels in Chinese, Hindi, and other languages.
If you’ve been using a lightening skin cream that’s imported from China, India, Mexico, or some other exotic locale, check the label for mercury. But be aware the ingredient might also be listed as “mercurous chloride,” “calomel,” “mercuric,” or “mercurio.” If there is no list of ingredients, don’t use the product. Symptoms of mercury poisoning include tremors, memory problems, irritability, and changes in vision or hearing. The creams have turned up in seven states so far, and several cases of serious mercury poisoning have been reported.
Lead in Lipstick?
Once considered an “urban legend,” the rumor that some lipsticks contain lead turned out to be deadly true when the FDA tested hundreds of lipsticks following an alert issued by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Two consecutive FDA investigations found lead in 100 percent of the lipsticks tested. And the amounts of lead found aren’t small. The first FDA test revealed lead levels up to 3.06 ppm (parts per million), and the second FDA test — scheduled for publication in the May/June 2012 issue of Cosmetic Science – found lead levels up to 7.19 ppm.
The brands that tested positive for lead levels included well-respected national brands including L’Oreal, Revlon, Avon, and Cover Girl. And high-end brands like Dior and M.A.C. weren’t exempt either. Five of the ten most contaminated lipsticks were manufactured by L’Oreal USA. Perhaps most disturbing, in some ways, is that even the “natural” brand Burt’s Bees had one lip shimmer that tested in the middle range for lead. (Stay away from Toffee if, like me, you love these products.)
I’d like to hear from the chemists at L’Oreal formulating these products as to what purpose the lead serves, and which shades of lipstick are most likely to contain lead. If the lead is getting into the products accidently, for example via dyes, I’d like to know why they can’t make ingredient changes to banish the lead.
Consider that there is no safe level for lead (in other words there needs to be zero lead in order for a product to be considered safe) and you can see we’ve got a serious problem here. Then consider that the FDA issued a consumer Q&A concluding that the lipsticks posed no danger if used correctly and you can see we’ve got another more serious problem here. In other words, gals, don’t lick your lips, eat anything while wearing lipstick, or kiss anyone and everything’s fine.
Bacteria in Mascara?
Yes, this can happen too, but it’s the result of keeping mascara too long. The microbes don’t arrive in the mascara itself. According to a study in Optometry, bacteria that are naturally present in the eyes can be transferred into mascara via the wand. When the researchers tested mascaras, microbes were present in 33 percent of the products tested.
And these weren’t innocent little beasties; in most cases the bacteria were found to be staphylococcus or Streptococcus. Fungi were also found. Mascara contains preservatives that prevent bacteria from breeding. Typically, mascara is considered to be safe for three months, the amount of time the preservatives are designed to last. However, the Optometry study tested mascara samples that were less than three months old.
An additional warning for all of us who keep our mascara in our purses; heat will quickly degrade the preservatives, allowing bacteria to proliferate faster. A few tips for mascara safety:
4. Formaldehyde in Hair Straighteners
Despite label claims of being “formaldehyde-free”, many keratin-based hair straighteners, when tested, were found to contain formaldehyde, a known carcinogen. The levels of formaldehyde found were fairly low, and shouldn’t pose a hazard if you’re only straightening your hair a few times a year, but more often than that isn’t a great idea. And stylists, who use the products on their customers regularly, are at risk.
5. Mineral Makeup
Often considered a natural alternative to makeup, mineral-based products often come in the form of powders. The problem results because the particles of minerals such as mica are so small, they float through the air and can be inhaled into the lungs. (Consider this: When construction workers use spackle and other products containing mica, they wear masks to avoid breathing them in.) There hasn’t been any warning issued for mineral makeup yet, but some experts, such as pulmonologists, are warning women that lung damage could result from frequent use.
Source : Forbes
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Could your Valentine's kiss give you lead poisoning?
If you're going to be on either end of a kiss this Valentine's Day, you might want to consider smooching bare-lipped. Most lipstick contains lead.
Lead has been banned in paint since 1978 because of its toxicity at low levels, but it still shows up in small amounts in some of the best-selling lipstick brands.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which did an analysis of a study of lead in lipstick conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, wants consumers to know that most of the 400 different lipsticks tested were positive for the substance (link.reuters.com/caz56s).
"Recognizing that there is no safe level of lead exposure, we need to be protecting women and children from all levels of exposure," said Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the campaign -- a non-profit coalition of environmental- and cancer-prevention groups.
Malkan's group wants the FDA to set a limit for how much lead lipstick can contain and to study whether there are any dangers to having the substance applied to human lips, particularly the lips of children and pregnant women. "We know that ingestion of lipstick happens. It gets into our bodies," she said, noting that lead accumulates in people.
The group said that five of the nine lipstick brands with the most lead are sold by L'Oreal, the world's largest cosmetics maker.
L'Oreal's "Color Sensational" Pink Petal had the most lead of any lipstick tested at 7.19 parts per million. By comparison, children's products sold in the U.S. are forbidden to have more than 100 parts per million of lead.
"The FDA's independent study, which will be published in the May/June 2012 issue of the Journal of Cosmetic Science, confirms that lipsticks pose no safety concerns for the millions of women who use them daily," L'Oreal said in a statement sent to Reuters. "The lead levels detected by the FDA in the study are also within the limits recommended by global public health authorities for cosmetics, including lipstick."
The FDA, for its part, agreed there is no cause for alarm.
"The FDA did not find high levels of lead in lipstick," FDA spokeswoman Tamara Ward said. "We developed and tested a method for measuring lead in lipstick and did not find levels that would raise health concerns."
Still, Malkan said the government should take some more steps to ensure the safety of those who use lipstick. An advisory committee to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has taken a position that there is no safe level of lead for children. So, why asked Malkan should it be OK for their to be lead in lipstick? And, in particular, for certain brands to have more than others?
"There are no safety standards," Malkan said.
So, if you're still lead conscious, consider how you'll handle your lips and those you'll be sharing them with this Valentine's Day.
Source : Reuters
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TOP FOUR INGREDIENTS TO AVOID
1. Parabens
Parabens are a family of compounds (e.g. methyl-, propyl and butyl paraben. Also known as -hydroxybenzoic acid, such as methyl-para-hydroxybenzoic Acid)
It is widely used as a preservative in shampoos, deodorants, make-up, foundations, cleansing milk, lip sticks.
It supposedly helps the product stay fresher longer, and enhance skin absorption.
Sadly, parabens are also found in baby products.
Studies have found intact parabens in 90% of human breast tumours and although parabens have not been conclusivelylinked as a possible cause of breast cancer evidence suggests that parabens can act as oestrogen mimics
Parabens are used in Anti-Ageing products, ironically researchers in Japan found that parabens actually cause skin ageing. The results indicate that there is a higher rate of wrinkling, dark spots, and diminished skin tone when parabens are applied to the skin.
2. Phthalates (Thalates)
Phthalates are a group of synthetic chemicals (often labelled as
e.g. DEP, DEHP, DBP are classified as Class 2 compounds which are- toxic to reproduction.
Phthalates are found in products such as deodorants, perfume, hair gels, hair sprays and mousses, hand and body lotions. They are also found in hair dye, shampoo, nail polish, tanning lotion and foundation.
Phthalates are plasticizers and are used in cosmetics to add texture and luster, they make the skin feel or look smoother. They make hair sprays and nail polishes flexible, They disperse the fragrance and denature alcohol to make it unpalatable.
Phthalates are also used as softeners in PVC.
– shower curtains, vinyl floors, Plastic tubing, changing mats
They are also found in childrens toys – bendy pvc toys Which is extremely worrying as soft PVC toys bombard themarket.
Certain phthalates have been banned by the European Union in Toys designed for the mouth for children under 3 years of age.
Elevated levels of 2 plastic-softening chemicals found in pregnant women’s urine are linked to less-masculine play behavior by their sons several years later A team of US + British researchers asked parents of 145 preschool age children and ranked the types of play on a scale from most masculine – such as play fighting or using trucks to most feminine An effect was identified – women with higher concentrations of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) in their prenatal urine – on ave. their children scored 8% further away from the masculine end of the scale than other boys also the boys appeared more feminized in their personality while playing. No difference in girls play behaviour was observed.
Phthalates are knicknamed the “Gender Benders” they have the power to disrupt the endocrine system, both in animals and humans. These chemicals are causing the males in many species to become feminized.
Half of all male fish in British Lowland rivers have been found to grow eggs in their testes.
A study lists symptoms found in each of the numerous species tested, which include testicular cancer, hermaphrodites, genital deformations, low sperm counts and infertility
Males are particulary at risk – phthalates have been found in semen resulting in decreased sperm motility and concentration,
Genital abnormalities in baby boys have been linked to these chemicals
Pregnant women especially need to become more health conscious
A study in Journal Environ Health in 2003 found that pregnant women who are exposed to phthalates may be at risk of shortened pregnancy – they gave birth one week earlier than women who were not exposed to phthalates.
The more a pregnant woman is exposed to high levels of phthaltes, the greater the risk her son will have smaller genitals and incomplete testicular descent leading to impaired reproductive development. The chemicals also appears to make the overall genital tracts of boys slightly more feminine.
It is thought phthalates reduce testosterone synthesis by interfering with an enzyme need to produce the male hormone.
Phthalates have also have been shown to stimulate growth ofhuman breast-cancer cells in the laboratory
In animal studies phthalates also have adverse effects on the liver, kidneys, heart, lungs and blood.
3. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) and Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES)
Found in some shampoos and conditioners anything that bubbles. It is used to clean industrial engines.
SLES can be carcinogenic when combined with other chemicals.
It can also harbour the extremely harmful compound 1,4-dioxane, one of the principal components of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange. A couple of months ago I signed a petition to Johnson + Johnson for them to remove this chemical from their baby shampoo
SLES has been found to cause harm to human fibroblast cells—the most numerous cells in the body—inducing “membrane damage” with negative effects on fibroblast protein synthesis
4. TRICLOSAN
TRICLOSAN is a common ingredient in “antibacterial” soaps. It is also found in acne treatments, face and body washes, toothpaste and deodorants. It is used to kill bacteria on the skin and other surfaces. A scientific advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that "antibacterial" soaps were no better than regular soap and water at killing germs or reducing the spread of infection. Furthermore, The American Medical Association reported that use of triclosan in the home may actually encourage bacterial resistance to antibiotics.
Studies report that Triclosan may disrupt the function of the thyroid which is important for growth and development and it may also disrupt hormones namely androgen and estrogen.
Triclosan accumulates in body fat and builds up in both people and animals over time.
Triclosan can also be found in dishwashing detergent, toys, rubbish bags, bedding, bathmats, footwear and even socks.
Consumers have the right to know what chemicals are used n commercial products and how they adversely affect health and the environment. And do not be fooled by companies who call their products “natural” after adding a few herbs or oils as these products are crammed with other harmful ingredients.The European Cosmetics industry is responsible for regulating cosmetics, it regulates itself!!
READ LABELS
1. Use fewer products and use them less frequently
2. don’t trust the claims – check ingredients
3. Choose products with no added fragrance: Read ingredient labels, because even products advertised as “fragrance-free” may contain a masking fragrance.
4. Less is better: If you are very attached to your fragrance, consider eliminating other fragranced products from your routine, and using fragrance less often.
5. Boycott products that contain harmful ingredients and write to the companies asking why they choose to use these harmful ingredients when safer ingredients are readily available.
Informational Websites
Environmental working group www.ewg.org
Safe Cosmetics www.safecosmeticsguide.org
Cosmetics Data base www.cosmeticsdatabase.com
Bodycare & Cosmetics Websights
Earthbound Orangics www.earthbound.co.uk
Akamuti Natural,Organic & Ethical skincare www.akamuti.co.uk
Mybeingwell www.mybeingwell.com
Dr. Hauschka Natural Skin Care www.drhauschka.co.uk
The Organic Pharmacy www.theorganicpharmacy.com
Weleda have great cosmetic products and are very reasonably priced they can be found in good health food shops.
Make your own cosmetics:
Do it Yourself Pure Plant Skin Care - Carolyn Stubbin ISBN 0646 38318 3
Jeanne Rose’s Herbal Body Book - Jeanne Rose ISBN 0 399 50790 6
Aromantics www.aromantic.co.uk
Cosmetics at Home www.cosmeticsathome.co.uk
The Soap Tub www.meltsandpoursupplies.com
New Directions www.newdirectionsuk.com
Humans have been beautifying themselves since time immortal:
- 10,000 BC - early humans used ochre to paint their bodies - Red ochre was certainly used ceremonially to give an impression of life to the corpse during funerary rites. There are many records of ochre staining of skeletons
- 5000 BC - green Copper ore was used as a crude eyeshadow
- 68-30 BC- Cleopatra bathed in assess milk to whiten her skin
Today, the typical woman applies approximately 12 products each day, some women use more than 20 different products as part of their daily beauty routine. The chemical concoction together average a staggering 168 ingredients And it is the the cumulative affect of all the different products and chemicals that can be damaging to health
The skin is the largest organ in the body. It is an impressive physical barrier, several layers thick designed to protect us from the outside hazardous world. Once a cosmetic product has been applied to the skin, absorption begins.
FACT - THE BODY ABSORBS AT LEAST 60% OF WHATEVER IS APPLIED TOPICALLY TO THE SKIN
Trouble for Johnson & Johnson After Another Big Loss in a Talcum Powder-Ovarian Cancer Case
With rising concerns over talcum products and two recent losses at trial, Johnson & Johnson may be facing a tough road ahead as it denies any ovarian cancer risk by women using the powder for feminine hygiene.
A Missouri court ordered the company this week to pay $55 million to a woman who claimed that its talcum powder caused her to develop ovarian cancer. This followed a verdict in February to pay $72 million to the family of a woman who died of ovarian cancer.
The company is facing 1,200 lawsuits with similar claims but denies that the use of its talcum powder on the genital area increases the risk of ovarian cancer. The company has already appealed the February verdict and plans to appeal the latest.
BBC News reports:
Is talc safe?
There have been concerns for years that using talcum powder, particularly on the genitals, may increase the risk of ovarian cancer.
But the evidence is not conclusive. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies talc used on the genitals as “possibly carcinogenic” because of the mixed evidence.
Why is there any debate?
The mineral talc in its natural form does contain asbestos and does cause cancer. However, asbestos-free talc has been used in baby powder and other cosmetics since the 1970s. But the studies on asbestos-free talc give contradictory results.
It has been linked to a cancer risk in some studies, but there are concerns that the research may be biased as the studies often rely on people remembering how much talc they used years ago. Other studies have argued there is no link at all and there is no link between talc in contraceptives such as diaphragms and condoms (which would be close to the ovaries) and cancer.
Also, there does not seem to be a “dose-response” for talc, unlike with known carcinogens like tobacco where the more you smoke, the greater the risk of lung cancer.
—Posted by Donald Kaufman.
Source : TruthDig
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Some sunscreen ingredients may disrupt sperm cell function
Many ultraviolet (UV)-filtering chemicals commonly used in sunscreens interfere with the function of human sperm cells, and some mimic the effect of the female hormone progesterone, a new study finds. Results of the Danish study will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 98th annual meeting in Boston.
"These results are of concern and might explain in part why unexplained infertility is so prevalent," said the study's senior investigator, Niels Skakkebaek, MD, DMSc, a professor at the University of Copenhagen and a researcher at the Copenhagen University Hospital, Rigshospitalet.
Although the purpose of the chemical UV filters is to reduce the amount of the sun's UV rays getting through the skin by absorbing UV, some UV filters are rapidly absorbed through the skin, Skakkebaek said. UV filter chemicals reportedly have been found in human blood samples and in 95 percent of urine samples in the U.S., Denmark and other countries.
Skakkebaek and his colleagues tested 29 of the 31 UV filters allowed in sunscreens in the U.S. or the European Union (EU) on live, healthy human sperm cells, from fresh semen samples obtained from several healthy donors. The sperm cells underwent testing in a buffer solution that resembled the conditions in female fallopian tubes.
Specifically, the investigators evaluated calcium signaling, which is signaling inside the cell brought on by changes in the concentration of calcium ions. Movement of calcium ions within sperm cells, through calcium ion channels, plays a major role on sperm cell function, according to Skakkebaek. CatSper is a sperm-specific calcium ion channel that he said is essential for male fertility. This channel is the main sperm receptor for progesterone, a potent hormone attractant for human sperm cells. Binding of progesterone to CatSper causes a temporary influx, or surge, of calcium ions into the sperm cell, controlling several sperm functions necessary for fertilization.
The researchers found that 13, or 45 percent, of the 29 UV filters tested induced calcium ion influxes in the sperm cells, thus interfering with normal sperm cell function. "This effect began at very low doses of the chemicals, below the levels of some UV filters found in people after whole-body application of sunscreens," Skakkebaek said.
Furthermore, nine of the 13 UV filters seem to induce this calcium ion influx by directly activating the CatSper channel, thereby mimicking the effect of progesterone. This finding suggests that these UV filters are endocrine disruptors, Skakkebaek said. In addition, several of the UV filters affected important sperm functions normally controlled via CatSper, such as sperm motility.
Skakkebaek called for clinical studies to investigate whether chemical UV filters affect human fertility. He added, "Our study suggests that regulatory agencies should have a closer look at the effects of UV filters on fertility before approval."
Eight of the 13 UV filters that disrupted sperm cell function are approved for use in the U.S. They are avobenzone, homosalate, meradimate, octisalate (also known as octyl salicylate), octinoxate (or octyl methoxycinnamate), octocrylene, oxybenzone (also called benzophenone-3 or BP-3) and padimate O. These chemicals are common active ingredients in sunscreens as well as sunscreen-containing personal care products, such as makeup, moisturizers and lip balms.
PhD student and coauthor Anders Rehfeld, MD, will present the study findings
Source : Science Daily
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Pharmaceutical Pollution and Personal Care Products: Silent Killers
Pollution as a result of pharmaceutical production and personal care products (PPCPs), falls under a category of health hazards that are deemed “silent killers.” While attention is often given to loud and vivacious complications such as cancer, “silent killers” like pharmaceutical pollution and water contamination often fly under the radar. However, the lack of attention given to these issues does not, in any way, halt their determination to sit silently among us.
Medication or personal care products--including cosmetics, sunscreen, and menstrual care products--act as pollutants, thus threatening fundamental components of life such as food and water supply. The issue of pharmaceutical pollution can be found in terrestrial and aquatic environments throughout the world; these pollutants can accumulate in the environment, commonly as antibiotics, supplements, personal care products, or steroids, causing havoc to the balance of nature with their toxic metabolites. According to the Environmental News Network in 2013, about 28.66 tons of pharmaceutical pollution enters the environment from disposal down the drain and another 29 tons are disposed in landfills solely in North America. In addition to these methods, pollutants are introduced to the environment through human and animal excretion, agricultural use, manufacturing waste, and disposal of expired medicine. Despite the existence of drug take back programs and guidelines for safe disposal that attempt to mediate the issue of improper disposal of medicine, lack of both publicity and abundance of these programs halts any progress.
A large amount of pharmaceutical pollution also comes from pharmaceutical companies. Unfortunately, when creating new drugs, these companies are more concerned with efficacy than the potential environmental impacts of the drug. An environmentally detrimental new technology is the introduction of pharmacokinetic parameters into antibiotic drugs that modify the chemical structure of drugs to increase the drugs longevity in the body. However, this also has the undesired effect of increasing the drugs’ ability to bioaccumulate in the environment.
This matter is only worsened by the intrinsic nature of pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Because pharmaceutical and personal care products dissolve easily and have high temperatures of evaporation, they are introduced and absorbed readily into the environment by these methods. As reported by the US Geological Survey in 2002, detectable amounts of antibiotics, hormones, and a variety of nonprescription drugs were in 80 percent of the waterways sampled. Although the long term effects of these trace amounts of pollutants on humans has yet to be determined, there are several concerning phenomena that are attributed to PPCPs bioaccumulation.
In 2010, Amy Pruden, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, determined that PPCPs pollution could be a catalyst for antibiotic resistance for which she was given a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. Almost all antibiotics drugs pass through the body without being metabolized or absorbed. In most cases, only 10% of common antibiotic drugs are absorbed and utilized by the body, with the other 90% being introduced into the environment through human excretion. This form of pharmaceutical pollution is cited to be a major cause of antibiotic resistance and the creation of “superbugs.” Not only does this cause treatment with antibiotics to be ineffective in some individuals, it also leads to the creation of bacteria, and thus, bacterial infections that cannot be cured. In addition to this, the impact of PPCPs pollution is manifesting in populations of fish and frogs found in waterways throughout the United States. After conducting a study of fish populations of 164 randomly selected waterways in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency found that there was indeed trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in fish tissue. This proves that these substances are persisting in these aquatic environments and can be passed onto humans through fish consumption. However, a particularly concerning result of PPCPs pollution is that both fish and frog development have been observably altered. The EPA has reported unequal male to female ratio as well as organisms with male and female parts in fish populations around areas in the Potomac. Controlled by very specific hormones, development in frogs is highly susceptible to environmental factors. Due to this fact, when exposed to these pollutants, metamorphosis in frogs has been shown to be dramatically delayed.
While there is no dispute that there is pollution from pharmaceutical and personal care products, the lack of the discovery of long term effects on humans has fostered indifference on the subject. However, the true concern with PPCPs is its potential to create a snowball effect where a small concern can build upon itself to create a situation with disastrous consequences.
If the creation of antibiotic resistance and the negative effects on the development of aquatic organisms is not enough of a source for concern, the potential health hazards of the accumulation and persistence of these substances in the environment should be enough to make someone think twice before flushing their medication down the toilet.
Source : University of Berkley-California
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Doubts Raised About Chemical Stew in Fragrances Used in Consumer Products
For Joyce Miller, one sniff of scented laundry detergent can trigger an asthma attack.
“What happens is I feel like someone is standing on my chest,” says the 57-year-old professor of library science in upstate New York. “It’s almost like a choking feeling – pressure and choking. And then the coughing starts,” she said.
Miller is among the many Americans sensitive to “fragrance,” the cryptic ingredient added to thousands of products, from cleaning supplies to toiletries. The term encompasses thousands of combinations of chemicals that give consumer goods their pleasant odors. But specific chemicals in any given product rarely are disclosed to consumers.
For decades, fragrance makers have insisted on treating their recipes as trade secrets, even as complaints about negative health effects have become more common. A 2009 study, for example, found that more than a quarter of Americans were irritated by the smell of scented products on other people while 19 percent experienced headaches or breathing difficulties from air fresheners.
The industry, with estimated global sales of $40 billion per year, says that it ensures the safety of fragrances through a rigorous system of self-regulation administered by its trade group, the International Fragrance Association. But a tiny women’s advocacy organization in Missoula, Mont., recently outlined what it says are troubling flaws in the industry’s science as well as scores of toxic chemicals used in its mixtures.
The industry association’s North American branch declined to speak to FairWarning about the findings. Chemical giant BASF, an association member, also declined comment. Calls to four other members – Phoenix Aromas & Essential Oils, Premier Specialties, Flavor & Fragrance Specialties Inc., and Bedoukian Research – were not returned.
“There’s a real kind of state of ignorance on the part of scientists, on the part of researchers, on the part of consumers, on what is in fragrance and how safe fragrances are for your health,” said Alexandra Scranton, the director of science and research at Women’s Voices for the Earth, a nonprofit seeking to eliminate toxic chemicals that predominately affect women. “We were trying to pick apart the claim that the industry is making that they are ensuring the safety of fragrance.”
Questions about the safety of fragrances are not new. A 2005 California law, the California Safe Cosmetics Act, requires cosmetics manufacturers to report any products that contain ingredients known or suspected to cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm. The data is posted on a website at safecosmetics.cdph.ca.gov. However, the public database does not list ingredients identified as trade secrets, including fragrances. The program also has met with complaints from experts that some cosmetics firms failed to report their ingredients.
At the federal level, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Products Safety Commission have limited oversight of fragrances. The FDA, which has authority over cosmetics and cosmetic ingredients, doesn’t require cosmetics makers to prove their products or ingredients are safe before putting them on the market. It’s up to the agency to prove harm before a product can be pulled from the shelves. The FDA also requires cosmetics to list their ingredients, but allows a trade secret exemption for chemicals deemed to be fragrance or flavor.
Meanwhile, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has authority over other scented products, such as laundry detergents and air fresheners. The commission, however, does not have an active program to screen fragrances.
“Government has failed to provide a real regulator,” which is a problem, said Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, based in Washington, D.C. “There are plenty of examples of where counting on the good graces of industry has wound up being a mistake,” he said.
In 2008, Women’s Voices began pressing the industry to reveal the specific ingredients. Two years later, the International Fragrance Association posted on its website a list of some 3,000 chemicals used by its members.
Late last year, Women’s Voices published a review of those chemicals, finding that a large number of them appear on official lists of hazardous chemicals, or are banned or restricted in consumer products. For example, a comprehensive classification of chemical hazards adopted by the United Nations tags 1,175 chemicals on the fragrance list with the word “warning” and labels another 190 fragrance chemicals as a “danger,” according to Women’s Voices.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classifies seven fragrance chemicals as possible carcinogens in humans, the organization said. Fifteen chemicals on the fragrance association’s list are barred from use in cosmetics in the European Union, Women’s Voices said.
Scranton, who authored the Women’s Voices study, is careful to note that the industry’s list gives no indication of how much these chemicals are used, making it difficult to know if consumers are in actual danger. “When I see styrene (a possible carcinogen) on the list of chemicals in fragrance, that’s a red flag,” she said. “Is it only used very, very rarely, in very small amounts? Possibly, and maybe it’s not as much of a problem. Is it used in every fragrance that you come across? Then it’s going to be a problem.”
In a brief paper available on its website, the fragrance association touts the industry’s ability, through self regulation, to ensure “the highest levels of safety of fragranced products.” It says the industry can adapt to new scientific findings “more quickly and efficiently through self-regulation as opposed to diverse legislation in different countries on different continents.”
The industry association works with its research arm, the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, to produce standards that it says are based on science. Women’s Voices, however, says there are several shortcomings in the system.
For one, the group maintains that the vast majority of scientific studies exploring fragrance safety are produced by fragrance houses themselves, or the industry’s research institute. Rarely are these studies published or even peer reviewed, the organization says. No one is independently reviewing laboratory practices or levels of significance, or ensuring “that the results of these studies have not been manipulated,” Women’s Voices says.
Over the last year, the European Commission Scientific Committee onConsumer Safety reviewed studies by the research institute and repeatedly noted failings in the institute’s methods, including incomplete data and invalid protocols.
Women’s Voices also says that an independent expert panel that reviews the industry’s research bases its safety opinions on information curated by the fragrance industry itself. The expert panel meets in secret and no transcripts or meeting minutes are publicly available, Women’s Voices said.
“The Research Institute for Fragrance Materials is like a black box,” said Janet Nudelman, the director of program and policy for the Breast Cancer Fund and the director of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. “They attempt to assure the public that they have the safety of fragrance chemicals under control, that they’re looking at all of the safety data regarding fragrance chemicals. But none of their safety studies are publicly available.”
The industry has either banned or restricted the use of 186 substances in fragrance products. But Women’s Voices says the industry does little to ensure that its standards are actually being followed.
The fragrance industry has not commented directly on Women’s Voices’ research, but a few days after the organization released its report in November, the research institute put out a statement saying “the industry is committed to addressing consumers’ interests through a continuous health and environmental safety review.”
The industry, however, remains opposed to greater transparency of its ingredients. In California, the industry association has opposed Assembly Bill 708, by Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles Democrat, which would require cleaning products to disclose their ingredients on their product labels. In a letter, the industry said it was worried about counterfeiters.
“It would be very helpful if companies could list on labels the chemicals that they use for their fragrances,” said Miller, the professor from the Glens Falls area of New York who suffers from fragrance sensitivity. “Fragrance is not just some pretty concept. It actually can be a fairly nasty combination of chemicals,” she said.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story erroneously identified Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer as Reggie Sawyer-Jones.
Source : FairWarning.org
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Tougher Testing Sought to Detect Asbestos in Talc
We use talc in many up close and personal ways: to powder babies’ bottoms, as an ingredient in cosmetics, a filler in capsules and pills–even as a food additive. In a world of ominous, unpronounceable chemicals, could anything be less scary than talc?
Yet talc, the softest known mineral, is dug from the ground, where it can keep bad company. Talc is sometimes interlaced with asbestos, which can cause fatal diseases in those who inhale its microscopic, lung-scarring fibers.
In an unsettling reminder, recent tests found stray asbestos from contaminated talc in some Chinese-made toy fingerprint kits and crayon sets. A burst of lawsuits blaming asbestos illnesses on exposure to contaminated talc powder decades ago has also highlighted the issue. Internal records reviewed by FairWarning show that officials of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have long been concerned about potential asbestos contamination of cosmetic talc, but have left it to the industry to monitor itself.
Only the purest grades of talc are supposed to go into cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and food. Manufacturers say they only use talc with no detectable asbestos.
But it’s possible to declare talc asbestos-free simply by not looking hard enough, according to experts. They say the standard tests are outdated and not rigorous enough to detect asbestos at low but potentially hazardous levels. In an email to the FDA back in 2001, a senior executive with Luzenac, a leading talc supplier, said “I think we all recognize’’ that the standard methods still in use today “are simply not sensitive enough to provide complete assurance that the talc is free of detectable asbestos.”
Currently, technical panels from two standards organizations–ASTM International and the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention–are working to tighten test standards to keep asbestos from slipping into consumer products.
“We have found in the past that, yes, indeed, there can be…asbestos in these products,” said Frank Ehrenfeld III, vice president of International Asbestos Testing Laboratories in Mount Laurel, N.J., and chairman of the ASTM panel.
Some suppliers and manufacturers say they go beyond the standard tests to ensure their talc is safe. “If an area sought be mined shows the presence of asbestiform mineral, that area isn’t mined,” said Barretts Minerals, a unit of Minerals Technologies Inc. and a major talc supplier from mines in Montana, in a written statement. Then “more robust and state-of-the-art testing is performed” at the company’s lab.
However, large volumes of imported talc flow into the U.S. from countries not known for safety regulation. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, China and Pakistan are two of the biggest suppliers—together providing, on average, about 150,000 tons per year. As with most other imports, no government agency keeps track of who buys the talc, or how it is used.
Over the years, workplace exposure to contaminated industrial-grade talc has been blamed for cases of mesothelioma — a deadly cancer predominantly caused by asbestos — in some talc miners and factory workers. But recently lawsuits by some mesothelioma victims assert that they contracted the disease from breathing asbestos fibers through regular use of contaminated talc powder, mostly in the 1960s and 1970s.
Lawsuits target Colgate
The main target has been Colgate-Palmolive Co. and the Cashmere Bouquet powder it produced for more than 100 years before selling the brand in 1995.
Laboratory tests in the 1970s found asbestos in samples of Cashmere Bouquet, though Colgate has disputed those results. But a study published last fall reported finding asbestos fibers in about 50 containers of Cashmere Bouquet produced over several decades. Researchers also conducted air tests and concluded that people could have inhaled asbestos when they sprinkled on the powder.
All three of the co-authors—Dr. Ronald Gordon, a research pathologist at Mount Sinai Hospital; environmental scientist James Millette, formerly with the Environmental Protection Agency; and research geologist Sean Fitzgerald–had served as plaintiff experts in talcum powder suits.
Colgate says the powder was harmless, and that mineral particles found in Cashmere Bouquet were mischaracterized as asbestos fibers. In fact, the company contends, the particles were “cleavage fragments,’’ or non-fibrous chunks that are less likely to be inhaled, lodge in the lungs and cause disease. According to a court filing by Colgate, asbestos exposure, if any, “was so minimal as to be insufficient to support any finding that the exposure caused’’ mesothelioma.
But in April, the jury in a Los Angeles case didn’t buy the company’s argument. At Colgate’s request, the judge refused to allow the Cashmere Bouquet test results into evidence, reasoning that there was no assurance the samples, when tested, were in their original condition. Even so, based on evidence of asbestos at three mines that had supplied Colgate’s talc, the jury ordered the company to pay $12.4 million in damages to the 73-year old plaintiff, Judith Winkel.
Cases settled
Before jurors could consider tacking on punitive damages, lawyers for Colgate and Winkel reached a confidential settlement. Since then, the company has quietly settled three more mesothelioma cases in North Carolina and Delaware.
According to Colgate’s July 30 quarterly report, the company faces 23 additional talc-asbestos lawsuits in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland, South Carolina, Delaware, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia. Twenty-one other cases have ended in dismissals or defense judgments. Despite settling some cases, the report said, Colgate and its lawyers “believe these cases are without merit and intend to challenge them vigorously.”
(Talc itself — even without asbestos — also is the focus of litigation. Based on studies showing statistical links between ovarian cancer and use of talc powder for feminine hygiene, Johnson & Johnson is facing hundreds of ovarian cancer lawsuits. The lawsuits do not contend that the talc was tainted by asbestos. Johnson & Johnson has denied the claims.)
The Colgate cases echo an asbestos scare in the 1970s, when researchers at New York University and Mount Sinai Hospital separately found asbestos minerals in many popular powders — triggering alarming news reports and a struggle by cosmetic makers and the Food and Drug Administration to manage the fallout.
The FDA is responsible for regulating cosmetics, but its authority is limited. Cosmetics makers don’t have to prove that products or specific ingredients are safe before putting them on the market. The onus is on the FDA to prove harm to the public before products can be ordered off the shelves.
A March, 1976 FDA memo, among records obtained by FairWarning under the Freedom of information Act, charged that cosmetics makers had been lax in monitoring the safety of talc supplies.
The “situation does not offer much assurance that cosmetic talcs are adequately tested for asbestos,” the memo said. “If this is all that can be expected from the cosmetic industry…, we have not much choice but to move ahead as speedily as possible with a proposal of a regulation on asbestos in talc.”
However, in a quick about-face, the agency decided that the industry could be left to regulate itself. Its top trade group, the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association (now called the Personal Care Products Council), established a screening test that it said could detect most types of asbestos at concentrations as low as 0.5 percent. Council officials did not respond to interview requests.
Concerns persisted within the FDA. Agency records show that in 1994 and again in 2001, FDA officials proposed to test cosmetic talc products for possible asbestos contamination–but for some reason did not follow through. An agency spokesman said information on why the surveys were scrapped was not ‘’immediately available.’’
A wakeup call
The idea was revived in 2009, when South Korean authorities recalled a dozen baby powder products and hundreds of medicines that they said were produced with asbestos-contaminated Chinese talc.
In response, the FDA conducted a survey in 2009 and 2010—buying and testing 34 talc products, including eye shadow, blush and powders, from stores in the Washington, D.C. area. The agency also requested samples of raw talc from nine suppliers. Strikingly, only four complied. Agency officials would not discuss what steps were taken, if any, to get samples from the other five suppliers.
No asbestos was found in any of the products or raw talc, the agency reported. “The results were limited, however, by the fact that only four talc suppliers submitted samples and by the number of products tested,’’ the FDA said.
Accordingly, the agency said, the results “do not prove that most or all talc or talc-containing cosmetic products currently marketed in the United State are likely to be free of asbestos contamination.’’
The FDA then asked the U.S. Pharmacopeail Convention, or USP, to revise its test methods for screening talc for asbestos. Though most people have never heard of USP, the scientific nonprofit sets standards enforceable by the FDA for the quality and purity of drugs, food and dietary supplements.
FDA officials refused to be interviewed about their request for tougher tests. But in a written statement, they said current methods “have insufficient sensitivity to detect asbestos and cannot provide the highest possible level of confidence when used by suppliers of talc to certify ‘absence of asbestos.’”
In an article last year, an expert panel created by USP endorsed the call for tougher screening. One currently used test, called X-ray diffraction, can allow asbestos concentrations as high as 2 percent to go undetected. Yet, the article noted, levels “well below 1 percent asbestos by weight…can generate potentially hazardous exposures.’’
“This issue..may be particularly relevant for the talc used in powders and cosmetics,’’ the article said.
New tests are likely to require use of transmission electron microscopy, a state-of-the-art technique that uses electron beams to produce extremely high magnification of tiny particles.
“There is no safe level of asbestos,’’ said Dr. Kevin Moore, a senior official at USP, “so…we’re identifying methods that give us assurance that we’re controlling it to an adequate extent.’’
However, panel members—who are drawn from industry, public health agencies and testing labs—are volunteers. That, and the need for consensus from disparate groups, means the going is slow. There is no timetable for completing new standards.
Source : FairWarning
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How we are all contributing to the destruction of coral reefs: Sunscreen
The sunscreen that snorkelers, beachgoers and children romping in the waves lather on for protection is killing coral and reefs around the globe. And a new study finds that a single drop in a small area is all it takes for the chemicals in the lotion to mount an attack.
The study, released Tuesday, was conducted in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Hawaii several years after a chance encounter between a group of researchers on one of the Caribbean beaches, Trunk Bay, and a vendor waiting for the day’s invasion of tourists. Just wait to see what they’d leave behind, he told the scientists – “a long oil slick.” His comment sparked the idea for the research.
Not only did the study determine that a tiny amount of sunscreen is all it takes to begin damaging the delicate corals — the equivalent of a drop of water in a half-dozen Olympic-sized swimming pools — it documented three different ways that the ingredient oxybenzone breaks the coral down, robbing it of life-giving nutrients and turning it ghostly white.
Yet beach crowds aren’t the only people who add to the demise of the coral reefs found just off shore. Athletes who slather sunscreen on before a run, mothers who coat their children before outdoor play and people trying to catch some rays in the park all come home and wash it off.
Cities such as Ocean City, Md., and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., have built sewer outfalls that jettison tainted wastewater away from public beaches, sending personal care products with a cocktail of chemicals into the ocean. On top of that, sewer overflows during heavy rains spew millions of tons of waste mixed with stormwater into rivers and streams. Like sunscreen lotions, products like birth-control pills contain chemicals that are endocrine disruptors and alter the way organisms grow. Those are among the main suspects in an investigation into why male fish such as bass are developing female organs.
Research for the new study was conducted only on the two islands. But across the world each year, up to 14,000 tons of sunscreen lotions are discharged into coral reef, and much of it “contains between 1 and 10 percent oxybenzone,” the authors said. They estimate that places at least 10 percent of reefs at risk of high exposure, judging from how reefs are located in popular tourism areas.
“The most direct evidence we have is from beaches with a large amount of people in the water,” said John Fauth, an associate professor of biology at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. “But another way is through the wastewater streams. People come inside and step into the shower. People forget it goes somewhere.”
The study was published Tuesday in the journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Fauth co-authored the study with Craig Downs of the nonprofit Haereticus Environmental Laboratory in Clifford, Va., and Esti Kramarsky-Winter, a researcher in the Department of Zoology at Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Their findings follow a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study two weeks ago that said the world is in the midst of a third global coral bleaching event. It warned that pollution is undermining the health of coral, rendering it unable to resist bleaching or recover from the effects.
“The use of oxybenzone-containing products needs to be seriously deliberated in islands and areas where coral reef conservation is a critical issue,” Downs said. “We have lost at least 80 percent of the coral reefs in the Caribbean. Any small effort to reduce oxybenzone pollution could mean that a coral reef survives a long, hot summer, or that a degraded area recovers.”
Coral reefs are more than just exotic displays of color on the sea bed. The National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the NOAA, placed their value for U.S. fisheries at $100 million. They spawn the fish humans eat and protect miles of coast from storm surge.
“Local economies also receive billions of dollars from visitors to reefs through diving tours, recreational fishing trips, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses based near reef ecosystems,” NOAA said on its Web site. “Globally, coral reefs provide a net benefit of $9.6 billion each year from tourism and recreation revenues, and $5.7 billion per year from fisheries.”
Oxybenzone is mixed in more than 3,500 sunscreen products worldwide, including popular brands such as Coppertone, Baby Blanket Faces, L’Oreal Paris, Hawaiian Tropic and Banana Boat. Adverse effects on coral started on with concentrations as low as 62 parts per trillion. There are alternative sunscreens with no oxybenzone, including a product called Badger Natural Sunscreen and dozens of others on a list provided by the non-profit Environmental Working Group.
Measurements of oxybenzone in seawater within coral reefs in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands found concentrations ranging from 800 parts per trillion to 1.4 parts per million,” according to the authors. That’s 12 times the concentrations needed to harm coral.
“This study raises our awareness of a seldom-realized threat to the health of our reef life … chemicals in the sunscreen products visitors and residents wear are toxic to young corals,” said Pat Lindquist, executive director of the Napili Bay and Beach Foundation in Maui. “This knowledge is critical to us as we consider actions to mitigate threats or improve on current practices.”
Source : The Washington Post
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What Are We Doing to Ourselves? 84,000 Chemicals, and Only 1% Have Been Tested
Women are particularly at risk because they use more personal care products than men.
There are around 84,000 chemicals on the market, and we come into contact with many of them every single day. And if that isn't enough to cause concern, the shocking fact is that only about 1 percent of them have been studied for safety.
In 2010, at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health, Lisa Jackson, then the administrator of the EPA, put our current, hyper-toxic era into sharp perspective: "A child born in America today will grow up exposed to more chemicals than any other generation in our history."
Just consider your morning routine: If you're an average male, you use up to nine personal care products every single day: shampoo, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, hair conditioner, lip balm, sunscreen, body lotion and shaving products — amounting to about 85 different chemicals. Many of the ingredients in these products are harmless, but some are carcinogens, neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors.
Women are particularly at risk because they generally use more personal care products than men: 25 percent of women apply 15 or more products daily, including makeup and anti-aging creams, amounting to an average of 168 chemicals. For a pregnant woman, the risk is multiplied as she can pass on those toxins to her unborn child: 300 contaminants have been detected in the umbilical cord blood of newborns.
Many people don't think twice about the chemicals they put on their bodies, perhaps thinking that the government regulates the personal care products that flood the marketplace. In reality, the government plays a very small role, in part because it doesn't have the legal mandate to protect the public from harmful substances that chemical companies and manufacturers sell in their products. Federal rules designed to ensure product safety haven’t been updated in more than 75 years. New untested chemicals appear on store shelves all the time.
"Under federal law, cosmetics companies don't have to disclose chemicals or gain approval for the 2,000 products that go on the market every year," notes environment writer Jane Kay in Scientific American. "And removing a cosmetic from sale takes a battle in federal court."
It's high time these rules are revisited. Not only have thousands of new chemicals entered the market in the past several decades, there is overwhelming evidence that the public is unnecessarily exposed to health hazards from consumer products. In 2013, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a report that found "robust" evidence linking "toxic environmental agents" — which includes consumer products — to "adverse reproductive and developmental health outcomes."
Formaldehyde is a good example. It is a known carcinogen used as a preservative to kill or inhibit the growth of microorganisms in a wide range of personal care products, from cosmetics, soaps, shampoos and lotions to deodorants, nail polishes and hair gels. It is also used in pressed-wood products, permanent-press fabrics, paper product coatings and insulation, and as a fungicide, germicide, disinfectant and preservative. The general public is also exposed to formaldehyde through automobile tailpipe emissions. Formaldehyde has been linked to spontaneous abortion and low birth weight.
While the main concern about formaldehyde exposure centers around industrial use (e.g., industrial workers, embalmers and salon workers), the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, an independent panel of experts that determines the safety of individual chemical compounds as they are used in cosmetics, recommends that for health and safety reasons cosmetics should not contain formaldehyde at amounts greater than 0.2 percent. It's a small amount, but the problem is that the FDA doesn't regulate the use of formaldehyde in cosmetics (except for nail polish), and companies aren't required by law to follow CIR's recommendations.
Empowering FDA to Protect Consumers
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are trying to bridge this gap in federal oversight. Last month, they introduced the Personal Care Products Safety Act (S. 1014), a bill that seeks to protect consumers from toxins found in personal care products by strengthening the authority of the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the cosmetics industry, to regulate the ingredients in those products.
Specifically, by making significant revisions to the cosmetics chapter of theFederal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), the bill would require the FDA to review chemicals used in personal care products and provide clear guidance on their safety. In addition, S.1014 would require cosmetic manufacturing facilities to register with the FDA, require brand owners to submit ingredient statements every year, require the FDA to assess the safety of cosmetic ingredients at a minimum of five ingredients per year, and give the FDA the authority to recall certain personal care products that threaten consumer safety.
“From shampoo to lotion, the use of personal care products is widespread, however, there are very few protections in place to ensure their safety,” said Sen. Feinstein. "Europe has a robust system, which includes consumer protections like product registration and ingredient reviews. In addition, the legislation has broad support from companies and consumer groups alike."
The first set of chemicals that would be reviewed under S. 1014 includes:
- Diazolidinyl urea (used in deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, bubble bath and lotion)
- Lead acetate (used as a color additive in hair dyes)
- Methylene glycol/formaldehyde (used in hair treatments)
- Propylparaben (used in shampoo, conditioner and lotion)
- Quaternium-15 (used in shampoo, shaving cream, skin cream and cleanser)
"While we believe our products are the safest category that FDA regulates, we also believe well-crafted, science-based reforms will enhance industry's ability to innovate and further strengthen consumer confidence in the products they trust and use every day," said the Personal Care Products Council, a national trade association for the cosmetic and personal care products industry, in a statement. "The current patchwork regulatory approach with varying state bills does not achieve this goal."
Overhauling the Toxic Substances Control Act
Like the FDA, the EPA is similarly toothless when it comes to protecting the public from dangerous chemicals. Though it has the power to investigate some consumer chemicals through the Toxic Substances Control Act, the agency can act only if a chemical poses an "unreasonable risk" to public health — and that is difficult to prove. Since the TSCA was passed in 1976, the EPA has only tested around 200 of the 84,000 chemicals on the market. The law hasn't undergone any substantial update since it was enacted.
In a 2011 paper published in the journal Health Affairs, Sarah Vogel, a program officer at the Johnson Family Foundation in New York City, and Jody Roberts, the associate director of the Center for Contemporary History and Policy at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, argue that the TSCA requires an overhaul:
The EPA’s ability to obtain safety information and set regulatory standards as outlined under the Toxic Substances Control Act has fallen far short of expectations. This is due to a combination of limitations in the statute and a series of events over the past thirty-five years, including reductions in the EPA’s budget in the 1980s, changing political leadership and shifting agency priorities, limited oversight by Congress, and successful challenges by the chemical industry to limit the EPA’s authority.In March, senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Tom Udall (D-NM) made an official push for that overhaul when they introduced the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697), a bill that seeks to update the TSCA. The bill would require the EPA to ensure that 25 high- and 25 low-priority substances will be addressed within five years of the bill's enactment, while not conceding all oversight to the federal level: It also permit states to implement requirements that are identical to the federal requirements enacted by the EPA.
Also, before producing a new chemical or manufacturing an existing chemical for "significant new use," the EPA would be required to say officially that the chemical in question would "likely meet the safety standard," rather than simply letting the review period expire — which is the case under the current TSCA. Also known as the “Udall-Vitter” Toxic Substances Control Act reform bill, it is currently pending a vote on the Senate Floor.
We absorb up to 60 percent of what we put on our skin. (Infographic by Natural Healthy Concepts)
"Americans are exposed to a toxic soup of more than 80,000 different chemicals, but we have no idea what the impact of those chemicals is on our bodies — or those of our children," said Sen. Udall. "Current law has failed to protect Americans from dangerous carcinogens like asbestos, and Congress can't afford to stand on the sidelines any longer."
Sen. Vitter noted that "chemicals are used to produce 96 percent of all manufactured goods consumers rely on every day."
Unlike previous unsuccessful attempts to reform the TSCA, S. 697 enjoys strong bipartisan support: 17 Republican senators and 17 Democratic senators have joined Vitter and Udall to co-sponsor the bill. However, it faces a challenge by a similar competing bill, the Alan Reinstein and Trevor Schaefer Toxic Chemical Protection Act (S. 725), introduced two days later by senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA). Unlike S. 697, S. 725 currently has no Republican co-sponsors.
Supporters of S. 725, including the Environmental Working Group, Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization and Safer Chemicals Safer Families, argue that the Udall-Vitter bill is "embraced by the chemical industry" and it "would take more than a century to analyze and regulate the 1,000 chemicals EPA has flagged for review on the grounds they appear to be particularly dangerous to human health."
A stark difference between the two bills is that the Udall-Vitter bill doesn't even mention asbestos, a known carcinogen that kills approximately 10,000 Americans every year and under current law, cannot be banned. The Boxer-Markey bill would require that all forms of asbestos be listed as a high-priority chemical substance, requiring the EPA to complete a safety assessment and determination for asbestos within two years of the bill's enactment.
S. 725 "addresses asbestos, children's cancer and other threats that toxic chemicals pose to our families, including cardiovascular disease, developmental disorders, respiratory disorders, neurological disorders, endocrine disruption and many others," said Sen. Boxer. "Our citizens deserve nothing less than a bill that protects them — not chemical companies."
Senator Markey called the nation's current federal chemical laws "outdated and ineffective," and said their bill would also "preserve vital protections like a state's ability to clamp down on dangerous chemicals."
"The fact that the Vitter-Udall bill will not even restrict, much less ban, the deadly substance that claims 30 lives a day is nothing short of a national travesty," said Linda Reinstein, president and co-founder of Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. "Any senator who supports this industry proposal is in essence supporting the continuation of the toll asbestos has already had on millions of American families."
The current prognosis for these three bills is fairly grim: GovTrack gives S. 697 a 15 percent chance of being enacted, S. 1014 a 3 percent chance and S. 725 a 1 percent chance. Whatever happens, it is clear that the current system in place to protect the public from dangerous chemicals is not working.
As America's lawmakers review these bills, they would do well to consider the prescription of Lynn Goldman, dean of George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health: "It is far wiser and less expensive to prevent exposure to unsafe chemicals ... than to have to treat the serious health problems that they can cause."
Source : Alternet
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99% of Breast Cancer Tissue Contained This Everyday Chemical (NOT Aluminum)
New research examining parabens found in cancerous human breast tissue points the finger at antiperspirants and other cosmetics for increasing your risk of breast cancer.
The research, which is also reviewed in an editorial published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, looked at where breast tumors were appearing, and determined that higher concentrations of parabens were found in the upper quadrants of the breast and axillary area, where antiperspirants are usually appliedii.
Parabens are chemicals that serve as preservatives in antiperspirants and many cosmetics, as well as sun lotions. Previous studies have shown that all parabens have estrogenic activity in human breast cancer cells.
Another component of antiperspirants, aluminum chloride, has been found to act similarly to the way oncogenes work to provide molecular transformations in cancer cells. According to the authors of the editorial review, the research shows "signals of concern that such compounds are not as safe as previously generally considered, and further research is warranted." Furthermore:
"The data from this latest study, the most extensive examination of parabens in human breast so far published, confirms previous work and raises a number of questions on the entire parabens, personal care product and human health debate, particularly relating to the source and toxicological significance of the paraben esters."
Ninety-nine Percent of Breast Cancer Tissue Samples Contain Parabens The featured study by Barr et.al. discovered one or more paraben esters in 99 percent of the 160 tissue samples collected from 40 mastectomiesiii. In 60 percent of the samples, all five paraben esters were present. There were no correlations between paraben concentrations and age, length of breast feeding, tumor location, or tumor estrogen receptor content. The median values in nanograms per tissue for the five chemicals were:
- n-propylparaben 16.8
- methylparaben 16.6
- n-butylparaben 5.8
- ethylparaben 3.4
- isobutylparaben 2.1
And the sources are many. Parabens can be found in a wide variety of personal care products, cosmetics, as well as drugs. That said, it appears the dermal route is the most significant form of exposure. In the featured editorial, Philip Harvey and David Everett explain why:
"... [T]he dermal route of exposure is considered more plausible when intact esters are detected, and other authors reporting human exposures and body fluid concentrations of paraben esters consider cosmetics of some form or another as the likely sources... This is because the metabolic esterase activity of the gut and liver (relevant to oral exposure) is considered to greatly exceed that of the skin, and oral exposures would result in rapid liver metabolism of the esters to produce the common metabolite p-hydroxybenzoic acid... Paraben esters typically used in cosmetics pass through human skin in vitro/ex vivo, and Ishiwatrai et.al. (2007) has shown persistence of unmetabolized methylparaben in the skin"
Safety of Parabens has NEVER Been Established... As incredible as it sounds, despite the fact that parabens are used in such a wide variety of products, the toxicology of these chemicals has barely been investigated. There is a complete lack of modern toxicology studies on these ingredients, and according to the featured review, not a single study on the chemicals' carcinogenity follow acceptable regulatory standard carcinogenity study protocols.
The authors point out that one rat study from 1956 is still used as "the pivotal evaluation upon which human safety is judged!"
"This may be acceptable for certain chemicals for which there is limited human exposure but not for chemicals such as parabens for which such a large population is exposed, and which show significant tissue concentrations," they write.
Furthermore, virtually all toxicology studies are based on the oral route of exposure, which means that risk assessment, according to Harvey and Everett, is "largely based on assumption, opinion and the technical regulatory instrument of GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe)."
The Estrogenic Activity of Parabens Estrogens, whether synthetic or natural are a primary risk factor for breast cancer. Approximately 20 different studies have established that parabens have estrogenic activity, which makes them relevant when it comes to estrogen-sensitive cancers. A common excuse used to defend the absence of toxicological studies is that parabens are weak in terms of potency. For example, propylparaben and butylparaben are approximately 30,000 and 10,000 less potent than estradiol, respectively.
"However, estradiol occurs in breast tissue in the pictogram per gram of tissue range... but the results reported by Barr et.al. [the featured study] show tissue concentrations of parabens, in the worst cases, in the microgram per gram of breast tissue range, which is one million-fold higher than that of estradiol. Clearly, the magnitude of exposure would seem to more than compensate for the reduction in potency," Harvey and Everett write.
But that's not all. A 2011 study reported that methylparaben promotes cell cycling and makes human breast cells more resistant to apoptosis, which, according to the authors can provide the molecular basis for malignant tumor proliferation. Harvey and Everett also cite another study from 2007, which found that propylparaben and butylparaben cause detectable DNA damage.
Rise in Breast Cancer Likely Linked to Chemical Exposures Harvey and Everett point out that the hypothesis that chemicals in personal care products might be harmful to your health and contribute to breast cancer has a basis in two key observations:
- Breast cancer rates have increased in recent decades, which correlates with many lifestyle factors that have undergone significant change during that same time, such as diet, obesity, and use of personal care products containing untested chemicals
- Tumors are disproportionately located in the upper, outer quadrant of the breast, and more tumors are found in the left breast than the right, suggesting it may be related to products applied topically to those areas (most people are right-handed, which could make you a bit more heavy-handed when applying products under your left arm than your right)
"The tenet that there "is no evidence that personal care products (antiperspirants or deodorants) are related to breast cancer" is technically correct, but only because studies have not been conducted to investigate any relationships. Such arguments provide false assurance by masking the inadequacies of empirical evidence and knowledge."
Aluminum—Another Cancer-Promoting Ingredient in Antiperspirants Antiperspirants work by clogging, closing, or blocking the pores that release sweat under your arms—with the active ingredient being aluminum. (If you are using a deodorant-only product it is unlikely to contain aluminum but might contain other chemicals that could be a concern, such as parabens.) Not only does this block one of your body's routes for detoxification (releasing toxins via your underarm sweat), but it raises concerns about where these metals are going once you roll them (or spray them) on.
Like parabens, aluminum salts can also mimic estrogen, and, just like the featured study, previous research has shown that aluminum is also absorbed and deposited into breast tissueiv. The researchers suggested raised levels of aluminum could even be used as a biomarker for identification of women at increased risk of developing breast cancer.
Aluminum salts can account for 25 percent of the volume of some antiperspirants, and a review of the common sources of aluminum exposure for humans found that antiperspirant use can significantly increase the amount of aluminum absorbed by your body. According to the review, after a single underarm application of antiperspirant, about .012 percent of the aluminum may be absorbedv. This may not sound like much until you multiply it by one or more times a day for a lifetime, which adds up to massive exposure to aluminum—a poison that is not supposed to be in your body, and may be more toxic than mercury. Aside from vaccinations, your antiperspirant may be your largest source of exposure to this poisonous metal!
Be Cautious with Natural Deodorants, Too There are many brands of chemical-free, aluminum-free deodorants on the market, and many of these are safe alternatives. "Crystal" deodorant stones, which are a popular natural deodorant alternative often used by health-conscious shoppers looking to avoid aluminum, often claim to be aluminum-free, but some actually contain a different type of compound known as an alum, the most common form being potassium alum, also known as potassium aluminum sulfate.
Potassium Alum or Ammonium Alum are natural mineral salts made up of molecules that are too large to be absorbed by your skin. They form a protective layer on your skin that inhibits the growth of odor-causing bacteria. These deodorants are recommended by many cancer treatment centers, but while this may be a better alternative to most antiperspirants and deodorants on the market, it is not completely aluminum-free. Also remember to check the remaining ingredients, keeping a watchful eye out for parabens.
For the last few decades I have not used antiperspirants or deodorants--even natural ones. I noticed that they would cause a yellow stain in the armpit of my shirts. At first I thought the stain was due to my sweat but I quickly realized it was the chemicals in the antiperspirants. I routinely substitute soap and water in my armpits and that seems to work. Although last year I noticed that if I sunbathe my axilla regularly, the UV light actually sterilized my armpits in addition to raising my levels of vitamin D. There is no odor even without using soap and water. Essentially you tan your armpits. The effect is not long lasting and the bacteria repopulate in a day or so unless you expose your armpits to sunlight.
What Can You Do to Prevent Breast Cancer? Aside from skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among U.S. women. Unfortunately, while the American Cancer Society widely encourages women to get mammograms, they do not do nearly enough to spread the word about the many ways women can help prevent breast cancer in the first place. The following lifestyle strategies will help to lower your risk of breast cancer:
- Radically reduce your sugar/fructose intake. Normalizing your insulin levels by avoiding sugar and fructose is one of the most powerful physical actions you can take to lower your risk of cancer. Unfortunately, very few oncologists appreciate or apply this knowledge today. The Cancer Centers of America is one of the few exceptions, where strict dietary measures are included in their cancer treatment program. Fructose is especially dangerous, as research shows it actually speeds up cancer growth.
- Optimize your vitamin D level. Ideally it should be over 50 ng/ml, but levels from 70-100 ng/ml will radically reduce your cancer risk. Safe sun exposure is the most effective way to increase your levels, followed by safe tanning beds and then oral vitamin D3 supplementation as a last resort if no other option is available.
- Maintain a healthy body weight. This will come naturally when you begin eating right for your nutritional type and exercising using high-intensity burst-type activities, which are part of my Peak Fitness program. It's important to lose excess weight because estrogen is produced in fat tissue.
- Get plenty of high quality animal-based omega-3 fats, such as those from krill oil. Omega-3 deficiency is a common underlying factor for cancer.
- Avoid drinking alcohol, or limit your drinks to one a day for women.
- Breastfeed exclusively for up to six months. Research shows this will reduce your breast cancer risk.
- Watch out for excessive iron levels. This is actually very common once women stop menstruating. The extra iron actually works as a powerful oxidant, increasing free radicals and raising your risk of cancer. So if you are a post-menopausal woman or have breast cancer you will certainly want to have your Ferritin level drawn. Ferritin is the iron transport protein and should not be above 80. If it is elevated you can simply donate your blood to reduce it.
- i Journal of Applied Toxicology January 12, 2012: 32(3); 219-232
- ii Journal of Applied Toxicology February 1, 2012: 32(5); 305-309
- iii Journal of Applied Toxicology January 12, 2012: 32(3); 219-232
- iv Journal of Applied Toxicology April 2011: 31(3):262-9.
- v Pharmacology and Toxicology April 2001: 88(4):159-67
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Consumer demand pushing parabens out of personal care
New alternative preservation systems for cosmetic products are gaining popularity. In its new Technical Insights report, Organic Monitor finds the move to new alternative preservative systems is driven by high consumer demand for natural and organic cosmetics as well as the growing trend of formulators avoiding parabens.
Parabens are the most widely used preservatives, present in thousands of personal care products that include moisturizers, shampoos, toothpastes, lubricants and gels. However, a growing number of formulators are avoiding them because of possible safety concerns. Although not scientifically proven, parabens are thought to mimic estrogen and have been associated with breast cancer. The French and Danish governments are considering a ban on parabens in cosmetic products because of these possible links. Concerns over a possible ban are leading cosmetic companies to develop paraben-free formulations.
Natural and organic cosmetic products do not use conventional preservatives, such as parabens and phenoxyethanol. Natural and organic products have traditionally used natural preservatives like grapefruit seed extract, however new materials and technologies are gaining acceptance.
According to Judi Beerling at Organic Monitor, “many companies are using preservative systems that comprise multifunctional natural ingredients.” By using such ‘synergistic blends’, the material has antimicrobial properties whilst not having to be registered as a preservative with the respective authorities. Examples of such preservative systems include blended botanical extracts and spice extracts.
Another development is self-preservation techniques, with some methods originating from the food industry. Hurdle technology involves creating hurdles to block growth of micro-organisms in cosmetic formulations; for instance, using materials that reduce the pH of the formulation. Some companies are adding emollients with membrane disrupting properties in cosmetic formulations, whilst others are boosting natural preservative systems by the use of chelating agents or a glycol alternative.
A major finding from the Technical Insights study is that these new alternative preservative systems are usually not as cost-effective as parabens. Most alternative preservatives have prices in multiples of that for parabens. There are also stability and safety issues associated with natural materials. Supply could also be an issue for large-scale production of cosmetic products.
Customization is another major development. Formulators are realizing the ideal preservative system needs to be customized according to the product type, formulation and packaging. Packaging also plays an important role, with many natural and organic cosmetic companies using airless packaging to reduce contamination risks.
As will be shown in the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit, preservation is usually the number one technical issue associated with natural and organic cosmetics. The differing stances of certification agencies add to the complexity of the preservative conundrum. Significant differences remain between standards in terms of permitted and prohibited preservatives. Apart from the use of synthetic chemicals, differences relate to nature-identical and naturally-derived materials. Precise details of the preservative options available to formulators of certified natural and organic cosmetics will be given in a dedicated workshop at the summit.
Source Newhope 360
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Common toothpaste additive triclosan to be deemed toxic to environment
The federal government is set to declare a bacteria killer found in many toothpastes, mouthwashes and anti-bacterial soaps as toxic to the environment, a move which could see the use of the chemical curtailed sharply, Postmedia News has learned.Health Canada has been probing the effects of triclosan on the body's endocrine system and whether the antibacterial agent contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance. Environment Canada has been studying the effect of the widely used chemical on the environment.
The government's draft risk assessment is now complete and it says triclosan is toxic to the environment but there's not enough evidence to say it's hazardous to human health. The formal proposal to list the chemical as toxic to the environment will be published Friday.
A toxic designation under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act triggers a process to find ways to curtail a chemical's use, including a possible ban in a range of personal-care products.
Canada's proposed toxic designation comes as other regulators wrestle with what to do with triclosan.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration already has said existing data raise "valid concerns" about the possible health effects of repetitive daily exposure to triclosan and is expected is unveil its own risk assessment next winter. Currently, the American regulator's position is triclosan "is not known to be hazardous to humans" but "animal studies have shown that triclosan alters hormone regulation" and that it warrants further review.
The Canadian government reviewed the safety of triclosan under the government's Chemicals Management Plan (CMP).
The plan, first announced in 2006 with a startup budget of $300 million, initially identified 200 "high-priority" chemicals to undergo safety assessments over five years. When chemicals are deemed to be toxic to human health or the environment under this program, the government then outlines risk-management steps to be taken to protect people or the environment.
During the first phase of the plan, the federal government banned bisphenol A in baby bottles — an international first that began with listing the hormone-disrupting chemical as toxic to human health. Major companies have since announced they are phasing out the use of BPA in canned foods.
The Canadian Medical Association has been calling for a ban on the household use of triclosan since 2009, when the organization raised serious concerns about the potential for increased bacterial resistance and argued the benefits are minimal compared to regular washing with soap.
Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence and co-author of the book Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects our Health, said he wasn't aware of the government's decision on what he calls "modern-day snake oil."
But "like the Canadian Medical Association, we've been concerned about the environmental and human health impacts of triclosan for a while, so we would very much welcome some regulatory action by the Canadian government," Smith said Monday.
Smith, who also said "there's evidence that triclosan is a thyroid toxin," added there's "now a mountain of scientific evidence that triclosan is doing nasty things to aquatic organisms. Because so much of it is being used in our kitchens and bathrooms, it's going down the drain and winding up in lakes and rivers at increasing levels."
Darren Praznik, president of the Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association, said it would be premature to comment on the government decision until "we actually know what it says," but he said his group is "very supportive" of the Chemicals Management Plan.
"What we like about it, generally speaking, is at the end of the day, it really is about the application of sound science and risk assessment to substances. And I think it also adds another level of safety, rather than just product reviews but also substance reviews," said Praznik.
The CMP reviewed another a funding boost last fall when Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and Environment Minister Peter Kent announced the program's renewal with more than $500 million over five years.
At the time, the government said it would be looking at phthalates, flame retardants, boron, selenium, cobalt and other chemicals in the second phase, as well as finalizing its risk assessment of triclosan.
Smith and co-author Bruce Lourie took aim at triclosan for their book, published in 2009.
Smith, who banished triclosan from his home years ago after reading studies identifying the antibacterial agent as a possible endocrine disrupter, saw the levels rise in his body by 2,900 times after using, over a two-day period, brand-name deodorant, toothpaste, anti-bacterial soap and shaving cream containing triclosan.
Source : Edmonton Journal Canada
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Dangerous Beauty: 5 Scariest Beauty Products
Chemicals, heavy metals, bacteria, and other hazardous ingredients are turning up in makeup, skin creams, and hair styling products. Here, the latest and most dangerous beauty alerts, and how to protect yourself without compromising your beauty routine. Mercury in Skin Creams?
That was the headline-grabber last week, when an FDA investigation found imported skin creams may contain toxic levels of mercury and other heavy metals. The risk is serious; people are actually getting sick from mercury contamination from these products.
The list of dangerous skin creams is fairly long, but — so far at least — contains only products you’d purchase from an import store or Latino, Asian or Middle Eastern market, and no American-made brands or products. The creams are intended primarily for “skin lightening” and anti-aging and include Stillman’s skin bleach cream, Diana skin lightening formula, and numerous products with labels in Chinese, Hindi, and other languages.
If you’ve been using a lightening skin cream that’s imported from China, India, Mexico, or some other exotic locale, check the label for mercury. But be aware the ingredient might also be listed as “mercurous chloride,” “calomel,” “mercuric,” or “mercurio.” If there is no list of ingredients, don’t use the product. Symptoms of mercury poisoning include tremors, memory problems, irritability, and changes in vision or hearing. The creams have turned up in seven states so far, and several cases of serious mercury poisoning have been reported.
Lead in Lipstick?
Once considered an “urban legend,” the rumor that some lipsticks contain lead turned out to be deadly true when the FDA tested hundreds of lipsticks following an alert issued by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Two consecutive FDA investigations found lead in 100 percent of the lipsticks tested. And the amounts of lead found aren’t small. The first FDA test revealed lead levels up to 3.06 ppm (parts per million), and the second FDA test — scheduled for publication in the May/June 2012 issue of Cosmetic Science – found lead levels up to 7.19 ppm.
The brands that tested positive for lead levels included well-respected national brands including L’Oreal, Revlon, Avon, and Cover Girl. And high-end brands like Dior and M.A.C. weren’t exempt either. Five of the ten most contaminated lipsticks were manufactured by L’Oreal USA. Perhaps most disturbing, in some ways, is that even the “natural” brand Burt’s Bees had one lip shimmer that tested in the middle range for lead. (Stay away from Toffee if, like me, you love these products.)
I’d like to hear from the chemists at L’Oreal formulating these products as to what purpose the lead serves, and which shades of lipstick are most likely to contain lead. If the lead is getting into the products accidently, for example via dyes, I’d like to know why they can’t make ingredient changes to banish the lead.
Consider that there is no safe level for lead (in other words there needs to be zero lead in order for a product to be considered safe) and you can see we’ve got a serious problem here. Then consider that the FDA issued a consumer Q&A concluding that the lipsticks posed no danger if used correctly and you can see we’ve got another more serious problem here. In other words, gals, don’t lick your lips, eat anything while wearing lipstick, or kiss anyone and everything’s fine.
Bacteria in Mascara?
Yes, this can happen too, but it’s the result of keeping mascara too long. The microbes don’t arrive in the mascara itself. According to a study in Optometry, bacteria that are naturally present in the eyes can be transferred into mascara via the wand. When the researchers tested mascaras, microbes were present in 33 percent of the products tested.
And these weren’t innocent little beasties; in most cases the bacteria were found to be staphylococcus or Streptococcus. Fungi were also found. Mascara contains preservatives that prevent bacteria from breeding. Typically, mascara is considered to be safe for three months, the amount of time the preservatives are designed to last. However, the Optometry study tested mascara samples that were less than three months old.
An additional warning for all of us who keep our mascara in our purses; heat will quickly degrade the preservatives, allowing bacteria to proliferate faster. A few tips for mascara safety:
- Store mascara in a cool place.
- Toss mascara after a few months and replace.
- When applying mascara, stop at two coats. (Multiple layers can plug the oil glands along the edge of eyelids, causing sties.
- Don’t ever apply mascara in the car; according to opthalmologists, you’d be surprised how many women arrive in their offices with scratched (and possibly infected) corneas from poking themselves in the eye.
4. Formaldehyde in Hair Straighteners
Despite label claims of being “formaldehyde-free”, many keratin-based hair straighteners, when tested, were found to contain formaldehyde, a known carcinogen. The levels of formaldehyde found were fairly low, and shouldn’t pose a hazard if you’re only straightening your hair a few times a year, but more often than that isn’t a great idea. And stylists, who use the products on their customers regularly, are at risk.
5. Mineral Makeup
Often considered a natural alternative to makeup, mineral-based products often come in the form of powders. The problem results because the particles of minerals such as mica are so small, they float through the air and can be inhaled into the lungs. (Consider this: When construction workers use spackle and other products containing mica, they wear masks to avoid breathing them in.) There hasn’t been any warning issued for mineral makeup yet, but some experts, such as pulmonologists, are warning women that lung damage could result from frequent use.
Source : Forbes
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Could your Valentine's kiss give you lead poisoning?
If you're going to be on either end of a kiss this Valentine's Day, you might want to consider smooching bare-lipped. Most lipstick contains lead.
Lead has been banned in paint since 1978 because of its toxicity at low levels, but it still shows up in small amounts in some of the best-selling lipstick brands.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which did an analysis of a study of lead in lipstick conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, wants consumers to know that most of the 400 different lipsticks tested were positive for the substance (link.reuters.com/caz56s).
"Recognizing that there is no safe level of lead exposure, we need to be protecting women and children from all levels of exposure," said Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the campaign -- a non-profit coalition of environmental- and cancer-prevention groups.
Malkan's group wants the FDA to set a limit for how much lead lipstick can contain and to study whether there are any dangers to having the substance applied to human lips, particularly the lips of children and pregnant women. "We know that ingestion of lipstick happens. It gets into our bodies," she said, noting that lead accumulates in people.
The group said that five of the nine lipstick brands with the most lead are sold by L'Oreal, the world's largest cosmetics maker.
L'Oreal's "Color Sensational" Pink Petal had the most lead of any lipstick tested at 7.19 parts per million. By comparison, children's products sold in the U.S. are forbidden to have more than 100 parts per million of lead.
"The FDA's independent study, which will be published in the May/June 2012 issue of the Journal of Cosmetic Science, confirms that lipsticks pose no safety concerns for the millions of women who use them daily," L'Oreal said in a statement sent to Reuters. "The lead levels detected by the FDA in the study are also within the limits recommended by global public health authorities for cosmetics, including lipstick."
The FDA, for its part, agreed there is no cause for alarm.
"The FDA did not find high levels of lead in lipstick," FDA spokeswoman Tamara Ward said. "We developed and tested a method for measuring lead in lipstick and did not find levels that would raise health concerns."
Still, Malkan said the government should take some more steps to ensure the safety of those who use lipstick. An advisory committee to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has taken a position that there is no safe level of lead for children. So, why asked Malkan should it be OK for their to be lead in lipstick? And, in particular, for certain brands to have more than others?
"There are no safety standards," Malkan said.
So, if you're still lead conscious, consider how you'll handle your lips and those you'll be sharing them with this Valentine's Day.
Source : Reuters
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TOP FOUR INGREDIENTS TO AVOID
1. Parabens
Parabens are a family of compounds (e.g. methyl-, propyl and butyl paraben. Also known as -hydroxybenzoic acid, such as methyl-para-hydroxybenzoic Acid)
It is widely used as a preservative in shampoos, deodorants, make-up, foundations, cleansing milk, lip sticks.
It supposedly helps the product stay fresher longer, and enhance skin absorption.
Sadly, parabens are also found in baby products.
Studies have found intact parabens in 90% of human breast tumours and although parabens have not been conclusivelylinked as a possible cause of breast cancer evidence suggests that parabens can act as oestrogen mimics
Parabens are used in Anti-Ageing products, ironically researchers in Japan found that parabens actually cause skin ageing. The results indicate that there is a higher rate of wrinkling, dark spots, and diminished skin tone when parabens are applied to the skin.
2. Phthalates (Thalates)
Phthalates are a group of synthetic chemicals (often labelled as
e.g. DEP, DEHP, DBP are classified as Class 2 compounds which are- toxic to reproduction.
Phthalates are found in products such as deodorants, perfume, hair gels, hair sprays and mousses, hand and body lotions. They are also found in hair dye, shampoo, nail polish, tanning lotion and foundation.
Phthalates are plasticizers and are used in cosmetics to add texture and luster, they make the skin feel or look smoother. They make hair sprays and nail polishes flexible, They disperse the fragrance and denature alcohol to make it unpalatable.
Phthalates are also used as softeners in PVC.
– shower curtains, vinyl floors, Plastic tubing, changing mats
They are also found in childrens toys – bendy pvc toys Which is extremely worrying as soft PVC toys bombard themarket.
Certain phthalates have been banned by the European Union in Toys designed for the mouth for children under 3 years of age.
Elevated levels of 2 plastic-softening chemicals found in pregnant women’s urine are linked to less-masculine play behavior by their sons several years later A team of US + British researchers asked parents of 145 preschool age children and ranked the types of play on a scale from most masculine – such as play fighting or using trucks to most feminine An effect was identified – women with higher concentrations of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) in their prenatal urine – on ave. their children scored 8% further away from the masculine end of the scale than other boys also the boys appeared more feminized in their personality while playing. No difference in girls play behaviour was observed.
Phthalates are knicknamed the “Gender Benders” they have the power to disrupt the endocrine system, both in animals and humans. These chemicals are causing the males in many species to become feminized.
Half of all male fish in British Lowland rivers have been found to grow eggs in their testes.
A study lists symptoms found in each of the numerous species tested, which include testicular cancer, hermaphrodites, genital deformations, low sperm counts and infertility
Males are particulary at risk – phthalates have been found in semen resulting in decreased sperm motility and concentration,
Genital abnormalities in baby boys have been linked to these chemicals
Pregnant women especially need to become more health conscious
A study in Journal Environ Health in 2003 found that pregnant women who are exposed to phthalates may be at risk of shortened pregnancy – they gave birth one week earlier than women who were not exposed to phthalates.
The more a pregnant woman is exposed to high levels of phthaltes, the greater the risk her son will have smaller genitals and incomplete testicular descent leading to impaired reproductive development. The chemicals also appears to make the overall genital tracts of boys slightly more feminine.
It is thought phthalates reduce testosterone synthesis by interfering with an enzyme need to produce the male hormone.
Phthalates have also have been shown to stimulate growth ofhuman breast-cancer cells in the laboratory
In animal studies phthalates also have adverse effects on the liver, kidneys, heart, lungs and blood.
3. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) and Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES)
Found in some shampoos and conditioners anything that bubbles. It is used to clean industrial engines.
SLES can be carcinogenic when combined with other chemicals.
It can also harbour the extremely harmful compound 1,4-dioxane, one of the principal components of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange. A couple of months ago I signed a petition to Johnson + Johnson for them to remove this chemical from their baby shampoo
SLES has been found to cause harm to human fibroblast cells—the most numerous cells in the body—inducing “membrane damage” with negative effects on fibroblast protein synthesis
4. TRICLOSAN
TRICLOSAN is a common ingredient in “antibacterial” soaps. It is also found in acne treatments, face and body washes, toothpaste and deodorants. It is used to kill bacteria on the skin and other surfaces. A scientific advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that "antibacterial" soaps were no better than regular soap and water at killing germs or reducing the spread of infection. Furthermore, The American Medical Association reported that use of triclosan in the home may actually encourage bacterial resistance to antibiotics.
Studies report that Triclosan may disrupt the function of the thyroid which is important for growth and development and it may also disrupt hormones namely androgen and estrogen.
Triclosan accumulates in body fat and builds up in both people and animals over time.
Triclosan can also be found in dishwashing detergent, toys, rubbish bags, bedding, bathmats, footwear and even socks.
Consumers have the right to know what chemicals are used n commercial products and how they adversely affect health and the environment. And do not be fooled by companies who call their products “natural” after adding a few herbs or oils as these products are crammed with other harmful ingredients.The European Cosmetics industry is responsible for regulating cosmetics, it regulates itself!!
READ LABELS
1. Use fewer products and use them less frequently
2. don’t trust the claims – check ingredients
3. Choose products with no added fragrance: Read ingredient labels, because even products advertised as “fragrance-free” may contain a masking fragrance.
4. Less is better: If you are very attached to your fragrance, consider eliminating other fragranced products from your routine, and using fragrance less often.
5. Boycott products that contain harmful ingredients and write to the companies asking why they choose to use these harmful ingredients when safer ingredients are readily available.
Informational Websites
Environmental working group www.ewg.org
Safe Cosmetics www.safecosmeticsguide.org
Cosmetics Data base www.cosmeticsdatabase.com
Bodycare & Cosmetics Websights
Earthbound Orangics www.earthbound.co.uk
Akamuti Natural,Organic & Ethical skincare www.akamuti.co.uk
Mybeingwell www.mybeingwell.com
Dr. Hauschka Natural Skin Care www.drhauschka.co.uk
The Organic Pharmacy www.theorganicpharmacy.com
Weleda have great cosmetic products and are very reasonably priced they can be found in good health food shops.
Make your own cosmetics:
Do it Yourself Pure Plant Skin Care - Carolyn Stubbin ISBN 0646 38318 3
Jeanne Rose’s Herbal Body Book - Jeanne Rose ISBN 0 399 50790 6
Aromantics www.aromantic.co.uk
Cosmetics at Home www.cosmeticsathome.co.uk
The Soap Tub www.meltsandpoursupplies.com
New Directions www.newdirectionsuk.com