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ENVIROBLOG VIA EMAIL
A personal response to the President's Cancer Panel Report
Tell Congress: We want a strong chemicals policy (now!)
The (shocking) story behind cosmetics
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FEATURED
Toxins in our Kids' Foods: Where is the FDA?
Why, oh why is there plastic in my aluminum water bottle?
Fluoride in Your Water: How much is too much?
Borax: Not the Green Alternative It's Cracked Up to Be
Test Your Knowledge of Cosmetics Safety: 8 Myths Debunked
EWG's Tips to avoid BPA exposure
EWG on TV
Cutting the Pork from U.S. Farm Bill
Sunscreen safety & DC drinking water
Perchlorate in people, kids' personal care products & plastics, and sunscreen
BPA in baby formula & safe cosmetics
What can I do about fluoride in my water?
What is new carpet treated with? What can I do?
Are stainless steel water bottles safe?
Is mineral-based makeup safer?
PEOPLE TALKING TOXICS
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Monthly Archive
Support the 2010 Safe Cosmetics Act. It's Urgent.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should have the authority it needs to regulate cosmetics and personal care products - so that you can trust that what you're buying is safe for you and your family.
What will the Safe Cosmetics Act DO?
The recently introduced Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 (H.R. 5786 for the wonks) will greatly expand the powers of the FDA to regulate the ingredients in cosmetics. How?
The agency will be able to prohibit the use of certain ingredients, including carcinogens and reproductive and developmental toxins; recall products that fail to meet safety standards; and require product labels to name each ingredient, including fragrance. Yes, it's ludicrous that none of this is happening now.
We need this legislation - urgently.
Currently, manufacturers may use almost any ingredient or raw material in your soap, shampoo or makeup without government review or approval. According to EWG's research, 22 percent of all personal care products, including children's products, may contain a cancer-causing ingredient, 1,4-Dioxane, and 60 percent of sunscreens contain oxybenzone, a potential hormone disruptor. Other studies have raised alarms about lead in lipstick, secret chemicals in fragrance and preservatives in personal care products.
The status quo is simply unacceptable. We need the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 to ensure that we are able to protect ourselves and our families from potentially harmful ingredients.
If this bill becomes law, Americans will be able to go to the store and buy shampoo, moisturizers, body wash and other grooming products with full confidence they aren't laced with chemicals whose effects on health are unknown or downright dangerous. As it should be.
Read more about the bill here and check your own personal care products for safety here.
Don't. Frack. New. York.
Companies that drill for natural gas and oil in the United States are skirting federal law and injecting toxic petroleum distillates (think: kerosene, mineral spirits and a number of other petroleum products that often contain high levels of benzene, a known human carcinogen that is toxic in water at minuscule levels) into thousands of wells, threatening drinking water supplies from Pennsylvania to Wyoming.
Drillers inject these substances into rock under extremely high pressure in a process called hydraulic fracturing that energy companies use to extract natural gas and oil from underground formations.
Private wells and public waterworks are affected
The process, known as "fracking," fractures the rock to allow additional gas and oil to flow to the surface. Fracking is currently used in 90 percent of the nation's oil and natural gas wells and has been instrumental in accessing huge new natural gas deposits trapped in underground shale formations. It's a threat not just for people who have their own wells, but also for major cities such as New York, where everyone is supplied by public waterworks.
They're drilling around the law
Federal and state regulators, meanwhile, have largely looked the other way. See, in 2005 Congress exempted hydraulic fracturing, except fracturing with diesel fuel, from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Yes, exempted.
Get the story in this short video - then send it to every New Yorker you know. Because if New York gets fracked, it won't be pretty. And the water won't be drinkable.
The risks of fracking aren't just theoretical. Drinking water contamination and property damage have been linked to hydraulic fracturing in four states - Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming. In one incident that polluted a Colorado creek, nearby groundwater is still contaminated with benzene - six years later.
The conclusion is inescapable: the petroleum distillates used in hydraulic fracturing pose a serious threat to the nation's water supplies, but those risks have been largely ignored by federal and state regulators, including New York.
Being Clean and Pretty Has Toxic Costs
Special to Enviroblog by Nena Baker, author of "The Body Toxic: How the Hazardous Chemistry of Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Wellbeing"
This morning I relied on a dozen grooming and beauty products to help me face the day.
I used soap, shampoo and conditioner in the shower, and gel and mousse when I dried my hair. I slathered on moisturizer and dabbed my face with sunscreen. I applied foundation, blush and eye shadow. I rolled on deodorant. And I used toothpaste, of course, when I brushed my teeth.
Adults in the United States use an average of 10 personal-care products a day. That translates to exposures to more than 126 unique chemicals, not counting the untold number of chemicals used in any "fragrance" listed on a label, according to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.
While some of these chemicals are perfectly safe, others may cause cancer, and problems with brain development and reproduction. This worrisome situation is why three Congressional Democrats -- Reps. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin -- introduced on the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 on July 21.
The bill aims to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to ensure cosmetics and personal-care products are free from harmful ingredients -- authority most Americans probably believe the agency already has.
Yet, under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, the FDA can't require cosmetics and personal-care companies to substantiate product safety and performance claims. In fact, the FDA can't even require beauty-products makers to register their operations or products, though some do it voluntarily. Indeed, the FDA's legal authority over cosmetics is different from other products it regulates, such as drugs and medical devices, in that cosmetic products and ingredients are not subject to pre-market approval (with the exception of color additives).
While the FDA's mandate when it comes to cosmetics and personal-care products is to ensure that these products are safe, it does not have the statutory power or the resources to complete this important public-health mission.
I was shocked when I learned, through a Freedom of Information Act request submitted while I was writing The Body Toxic, that only 30 employees worked in the FDA's Office of Cosmetics and Colors, which oversees the $60 billion annual U.S. cosmetics business. The office's annual budget of $3.4 million had not increased in some two decades, and did not include funding for safety assessments.
"From lipstick to lotion, our medicine cabinets are filled with cosmetics that may contain potentially dangerous chemicals," said Sen. Markey. "This important bill closes a gaping hole in our federal laws that allows potentially dangerous chemicals to remain in the cosmetic products we use every day."
Even the Personal Care Products Council, the industry's leading trade association and lobbying group, acknowledges the regulatory landscape needs updating. It has lobbied for the last several years to obtain additional funding for FDA's Office of Cosmetics and Colors, said Lezlee Westine, president and CEO.
Predictably, though, the industry does not support the Safe Cosmetics Act as written. And if history is an indicator, it can be expected to fight -- gleaming tooth and polished nail -- against regulatory reforms that would truly give the FDA the broader authority it needs to protect the public.
Nevertheless, as we learn about cancer-causing chemicals in baby shampoo, hormone disruptors in fragrance and lead in lipstick, it becomes hard to accept the lack of safety requirements that gives manufacturers leeway to put harmful ingredients into beauty and personal-care products.
If the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 becomes law, we won't have to.
This post originally appeared on Huffington Post.
You can get a copy of The Body Toxic on Amazon. It's a very worthwhile read.
Test your knowledge of cosmetics safety: 8 myths debunked
The new Story of Cosmetics video explains why personal care products in the United States contain untested and downright dangerous ingredients.
The (very) good news is the U.S. House of Representatives just introduced a bill to fix all that. But in the meantime (until they pass it!), make sure you don't fall prey to these common myths:
1. Myth: If products are for sale at a supermarket, drugstore, or department store cosmetics counter, they must be safe.
Fact: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has no authority to require companies to assess ingredients or products for safety. FDA does not review or approve the vast majority of cosmetic products or ingredients before they go on the market. The agency conducts pre-market reviews only for certain color additives and active ingredients in cosmetics classified as over-the-counter drugs.
2. Myth: The cosmetics industry effectively polices itself, making sure all ingredients meet a strict standard of safety.
Fact: In its more than 30-year history, the industry's safety panel (the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, or CIR) has assessed fewer than 20 percent of cosmetics ingredients and found only a handful of ingredients or chemical groups to be unsafe. Its recommendations are not binding on companies.
3. Myth: The government prohibits dangerous chemicals in personal care products, and companies wouldn't risk using them.
Fact: Cosmetics companies may use any ingredient or raw material, except for color additives and a few prohibited substances (such as vinyl chloride and cow parts), without government review or approval.
- More than 500 products sold in the U.S. contain ingredients banned in cosmetics in Japan, Canada or the European Union.
- Nearly 100 products contain ingredients considered unsafe by the International Fragrance Association.
- A wide range of nanomaterials whose safety is in question may be common in personal care products.
- 22% of all personal care products may be contaminated with the cancer-causing impurity
- 1,4-dioxane, including many children's products.
- 60% of sunscreens contain the potential hormone disruptor oxybenzone that readily penetrates the skin and contaminates the bodies of 97% of Americans.
- 61% of tested lipstick brands contain residues of lead.
4. Myth: Cosmetic ingredients are applied to the skin and rarely get into the body. When they do, levels are too low to matter.
Fact: People are exposed by breathing in sprays and powders, swallowing chemicals on the lips or hands or absorbing them through the skin. Studies find evidence of health risks. Biomonitoring studies have found cosmetics ingredients - like phthalate plasticizers, paraben preservatives, the pesticide triclosan, synthetic musks, and sunscreens - inside the bodily fluids of men, women, children and even the cord blood of newborn babies.
Many of these chemicals are potential hormone disruptors that may increase cancer risk. Products commonly contain penetration enhancers to drive ingredients deeper into the skin. Studies find health problems in people exposed to common fragrance and sunscreen ingredients, including elevated risk for sperm damage, feminization of the male reproductive system, and low birth weight in girls.
5. Myth: Products made for children or bearing claims like "hypoallergenic" are safer choices.
Fact: Most cosmetic marketing claims are unregulated, and companies are rarely if ever required to back them up, even for children's products. A company can use a claim like "hypoallergenic" or "natural" "to mean anything or nothing at all," and while "[m]ost of the terms have considerable market value in promoting cosmetic products to consumers, dermatologists say they have very little medical meaning."
An investigation of more than 1,700 children's body care products found that 81 percent of those marked "gentle" or "hypoallergenic" contained allergens or skin and eye irritants.
6. Myth: FDA would promptly recall any product that injures people.
Fact: FDA has no authority to require recalls of harmful cosmetics. Furthermore, manufacturers are not required to report cosmetics-related injuries to the agency. FDA relies on companies to report injuries voluntarily.
7. Myth: Consumers can read ingredient labels and avoid products with hazardous chemicals.
Fact: Federal law allows companies to leave many chemicals off labels, including nanomaterials, contaminants, and components of fragrance. Fragrance may include any of 3,163 different chemicals, none of which are required to be listed on labels. Fragrance tests reveal an average of 14 hidden compounds per formulation, including potential hormone disruptors and diethyl phthalate, a compound linked to sperm damage.
8. Myth: Cosmetics safety is a concern for women only.
Fact: Surveys show that on average, women use 12 products containing 168 ingredients every day, men use 6 products with 85 ingredients, 35 and children are exposed to an average of 61 ingredients daily. The large majority of these chemicals have not been assessed for safety by the industry-funded CIR safety panel.
References are available when you download the pdf here.
A personal response to the President's Cancer Panel Report
Special to Enviroblog by Heidi Hutner, Associate Professor of English and Women's Studies at SUNY Stony Brook.
The 2009 President's Cancer Panel report, "Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk, What We Can Do Now," confirms what Rachel Carson articulated in Silent Spring and what Sandra Steingraber argued in her book, Living Downstream.
Toxic chemicals in our bodies, in random combinations based on exposures starting before we're born, are "linked to genetic, immune and endocrine dysfunction that can lead to cancer and other diseases."
Translation: many toxics cause cancer. The authors of the latest President's Cancel Panel Annual Report cannot say this outright because of the way scientific studies work and because our country has not invested nearly enough money in studying the relationship of toxics to human health (cancer specifically). We don't yet have complete enough national databases and precise enough methods of measurement to draw definitive conclusions.
But the authors of the President's Cancer Panel report certainly come up with a clear case, and they offer many examples of how and where we exposed to dangerous toxics and what needs to be changed. We do know enough, they suggest, we've studied enough, to be able to say that the evidence all points to the fact that our bodies are full of toxic junk that can cause cancer and, often, premature death.
Women's bodies tend to have larger amounts of these toxins, and they are passed to their unborn children through the placenta and later through breast milk. Children are born with their bodies already full of toxics. Their umbilical cord blood tells us this. Their little bodies are at special risk because of their smaller body mass and rapid physical growth, both of which make them more vulnerable to carcinogens.
I have waited for this official report for years.
There is a whole lot of cancer in my family on both sides. None of it seems to make sense. In 1994, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. I was 35. My mother was diagnosed with lymphoma when I was 32, and my father died from melanoma when I was 28. My paternal first cousin, who never smoked, died from lung cancer at 45. Two of my maternal first cousins have had early stage melanomas. My mother's younger sister died from breast cancer.
Recently, I was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma. The latter is a minor cancer, but it is cancer nonetheless, and with my father's fatal melanoma history, I don't go outside much in the daylight anymore. These cancers seem unrelated and random, and thus potentially a result of environmental rather than genetic history: melanoma is on opposite sides of my family (father and maternal cousins), and lung cancer is on opposite sides of my family as well (paternal cousin, maternal aunt)--so there does not appear to be a genetic connection there, and in my own immediate nuclear family--my mother, father, and I had three different types of cancer.
To top it all off, I am at high risk for secondary cancers because I have had more than 11 CAT scans as part of my Hodgkin's treatment and follow-up. The President's Cancer Panel report tells us:
"People who receive multiple scans or other tests that require radiation may accumulate doses equal to or exceeding that of Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors. It is believed that a single large dose of ionizing radiation and numerous low doses equal to the single large dose have much the same effect on the body over time."
Let me repeat, I have had 11 of these tests. Did the benefits of that many tests outweigh the dangers posed? Was I informed about the dangers of such tests at the time they were given to me? Would I have had so many CAT scans had I known what I know now?
No, no and no.
Unfortunately, I'm not the only one -- that's for sure. Forty-one percent of all Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Twenty-one percent will die from it. My neighbor across the street -- a 40-something father of two -- is dying of lung cancer. I used to hear him playing basketball with his 12-year-old daughter. He has tried every cancer treatment available, including experimental protocols, but the prognosis is grim. I don't hear the sounds of basketball anymore.
Two women in my immediate neighborhood have had their breasts removed. Several other immediate neighbors have passed away from breast and other cancers. These people are all in their mid-40s and younger. The story of my neighborhood is the story of every neighborhood, and cancer doesn't just strike adults. I know several children who have had it. Some survived, some did not. Today, this is everyone's story.
So the report is out. It comes from on high. We can fight the invasion of the body-snatcher toxins and radiation as individuals to some degree -- if we have the knowledge and economic means -- by eating organic food, using nontoxic cosmetics and cleaning products, avoiding unnecessary X-rays and CAT scans and working in relatively safe environments. Still, private and individual acts of prevention are not enough.
The authors of the President's Cancer Panel report argue that our nation needs a comprehensive strategy for eliminating cancer-causing environmental exposures. Poison often knows no borders -- it can travel and bio-accumulate -- wreaking havoc on the health of all species. Cancer strikes people of all genders, classes, ethnicities, and races. The poor, people working and living in environments with toxic and hazardous materials, and women and children are the hardest it, but we are all vulnerable to carcinogenic pollution.
Will our government (and all governments) make the radical changes called for in this study? Senator Frank Lautenberg's proposed Safe Chemicals Act of 2010 is an important first step.
As Americans, we need to ensure this act passes, and many more like it. It is time for us to follow the wise precautionary principle that has been adopted by the European Union.
As citizens, we must mobilize to ensure that our government enacts preventative measures to protect the health of our children and all living beings.
Will we do so? We must.
Ms. Hutner teaches and writes about ecofeminism, environmentalism, women writers and film. She is a mother and a cancer survivor who blogs here.
Watch the Story of Cosmetics
Annie Leonard does it again. This time she tells us about all those products in the cosmetics aisle that we use so many of every day (12 for women, 6 for men, on average).
If you're familiar with her wildly successful Story of Stuff, you know what you'll get in this 8-minute video: the startling facts, delivered in a way that makes sense to all of us.
So if you've ever read a label in the cosmetics aisle and, brow furrowed, wondered whether anyone out there (like the government, perhaps) is making sure all those ingredients are good for you, this short video is for you.
Cause, by the way, they're not. Check it out:
Now that you're in the know, you'll probably want to take a little action. We suggest you:
- Check EWG's Cosmetics Database to find safer products.
- Host a screening party to spread the word.
- Get the story about the new cosmetics safety bill in Congress.
Tell Congress: We want a strong chemicals policy (now!)
Ever wonder if you can really, truly make a difference in an effort for national policy reform? I mean, it's a big country, right?
Do policy makers really care that you fervently believe that chemicals should be kid-safe, not hazardous to their health?
YES. YES. YES.
And when we speak together, we're even more effective.
Tell Congress to put toxics on its "to do" list NOW
Join 90,000 other concerned Americans who have already signed this historic petition.
Let's make it crystal clear that you want an effective national chemicals policy that protects human health, especially our children who are most affected by toxic chemicals. We know you're frustrated by the current system. So let's change it.
Numbers talk: 100,000 signatures is our goal
We will tell key lawmakers on Capitol Hill that 100,000 of their constituents - including you - want reform now because we've waited too long already. We must show them how BIG and PASSIONATE this kid-safe movement has become. Can you help us reach our goal in the next two weeks? It's easy to sign and share - and extremely important to our success.
The time is right now
There is a political window of opportunity to move chemicals policy reform forward in 2010, but in the current political climate, windows close quickly and unpredictably. We must give it our absolute all NOW, to maintain that political momentum. Or we may lose this chance.
Sign it, share it
This issue is far too important to let Congress do nothing. We need your help - by signing and sharing the petition - to get chemicals policy reform on the Congressional "to-do" list. Preferably at the top.
The (shocking) story behind cosmetics
Have you ever counted how many cosmetics or personal care products you use in a day? Chances are it's nearly 10.
And chances are good that they include shampoo, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, hair conditioner, lip balm, sunscreen, body lotion, shaving products if you're a man, and cosmetics if you are a woman.
And what about your children? On any given day you might rub, spray, or pour some combination of sunscreen, diaper cream, shampoo, lotion, and maybe even insect repellent on their skin.
Most people use these products without a second thought, and believe that the government must certainly be policing the safety of the mixtures in these myriad containers. But they're wrong.
The government does not require health studies or pre-market testing for these products before they are sold. And as people apply an average of 126 unique ingredients on their skin daily, these chemicals, whether they seep through the skin, rinse down the drain, or flush down the toilet in human excretions, are causing concerns for human health, and for the impacts they may have to wildlife, rivers and streams.
So go ahead, take 2 minutes and 29 seconds to get the story behind cosmetics. Then take the important step to find out what's lurking in YOUR cosmetics, and find safer options in EWG's Cosmetics Database - it's easy to search.
PS - Grab the embed code and post it on your site.
