Inside Prevention

Lawmakers pushing to regulate cosmetics (Marketplace, 4/2/2012)

A hearing last week in Congress is pushing cosmetics regulation -- and the Safe Cosmetics Act -- into the spotlight. Breast Cancer Fund Program and Policy Director Janet Nudelman spoke with Marketplace yesterday:

FDA Won't Ban BPA Chemical in Packaging (ABC News, 3/30/12)

As we've been reporting, we've been waiting (and waiting) for the FDA to respond to a 2008 petition from the Natural Resources Defense Council to declare the toxic chemical BPA unsafe and ban it from food packaging. On the eve of the legal deadline, late this Friday afternoon, perhaps when the agency hoped for the least amount of media attention, the FDA announced it has rejected the petition. But the media is alert on this issue, and so are millions of concerned consumers.

This ABC story, which came out minutes after the announcement, explains:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today that it won't ban bisphenol A (BPA), the controversial chemical that is widely used in food packaging.

The agency rejected a petition by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) that called for a ban on BPA as an ingredient in food packaging saying in a statement the council didn't have the scientific data needed for the FDA to change current regulations on the chemical...

BPA has been under fire from advocacy groups including the NRDC and the Breast Cancer Fund. The groups claim there is ample evidence linking the chemical to health problems, particularly among fetuses, infants and young children. (Read the full story.)

Indeed, there is plenty of evidence showing harm--evidence that has been mounting for years and years. The public should be able to count on the FDA to take decisive action to protect everyone. The FDA needs to stop waiting for more and more evidence of harm and get BPA out of our food packaging.

Lawmakers want FDA to regulate cosmetics (Roll Call, 3/29/2012)

A Tuesday Congressional hearing on cosmetic safety shed light on the problem of toxic chemicals in these everyday products. Congress is poised to take action, but will lawmakers favor a bill that protects health or a bill backed by the cosmetics industry? Capitol Hill publication Roll Call explains:

There’s formaldehyde in your Brazilian Blowout, lead in your Grecian Formula hair dye and who knows what in your perfume. Certainly not the government.

For the first time in more than 30 years, lawmakers are preparing to extend the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate cosmetics, setting off a battle between large makeup manufacturers and consumer safety advocates over how far the government should go.

...

“I think there has been undue influence on the Office of Cosmetics and Colors from the cosmetics industry since they started regulating cosmetics 70 years ago,” said Janet Nudelman, the policy director of the Breast Cancer Fund, which sponsors the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a coalition of 150 organizations representing consumers, salon workers and environmentalists. “It’s such an incestuous relationship.” (Read complete article on Roll Call.)

If you haven't already, ask your Representative to support the Safe Cosmetics Act, a bill supported by the Breast Cancer Fund and our Campaign for Safe Cosmetics coalition that would protect our health by getting carcinogens and other chemicals of concern out of cosmetics.

Market shift: hundreds of cosmetics companies fulfill safe-products pledge

Good news! The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a project of the Breast Cancer Fund, announced today that 321 cosmetics companies have met the goals of the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, the Campaign's voluntary pledge to avoid chemicals banned by health agencies outside the U.S. and to fully disclose product ingredients—a pioneering practice in the cosmetics industry. An additional 111 companies made significant progress toward those goals. Read all about it and see the list of companies in the new report, Market Shift: The story of the Compact for Safe Cosmetics and the growth in demand for safe cosmetics.

This is great news for consumers, who can vote with our dollars this holiday season to support companies that are doing the right thing. It's also great news for all of us who are working to pass the Safe Cosmetics Act because these companies are proving that it's possible to make quality products without using the hazardous chemicals that are all too common in conventional personal care products. You can show your support for this legislation by asking your Representative to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Safe Cosmetics Act.

Breast cancer awareness should be a year-round event (Huffington Post, 10/27/2011)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) champions breast cancer prevention and elimination of the environmental causes of this disease in a piece for the Huffington Post. In it she mentions some of our proudest achievements, including our State of the Evidence report on environmental exposures linked to breast cancer, as well as a ban on phthalates in children's toys that Sen. Feinstein authored and we supported through its passage in 2008.

Mounting scientific evidence links exposure to everyday chemicals -- in our food, our products, our air and our water -- to breast cancer. The President's Cancer Panel released a report in 2010 that highlighted how little we know about environmental links to cancer and the need for more research.

I could not agree more with the report's recommendation that "a precautionary, prevention-oriented approach should replace current reactionary approaches to environmental contaminants."

Similarly, the Breast Cancer Fund's 2010 report, the State of the Evidence: The Connection Between Breast Cancer and the Environment, linked breast cancer to synthetic hormones in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and meat, pesticides in food, solvents in household cleaning products; bisphenol A (BPA) in food containers and flame retardants in furniture, to name a few.

In our daily lives, we can take steps to reduce exposure to some chemicals, such as buying BPA-free products. But we need more than personal action; we need policies that ensure the public is protected. And we need to understand the chemicals we interact with every day and what they are doing to our bodies. (Read complete article.)

Thank you, Sen. Feinstein, for standing up for environmental health. Human health depends on it.

Feinstein thanks the Breast Cancer Fund for BPA work

Last week, after the American Chemistry Council reversed its position on BPA in baby bottles, the Breast Cancer Fund received a very special thank-you letter from Sen. Dianne Feinstein for our hard work in the fight against BPA. In the letter, the Senator says:

Your efforts have paid off; the chemical industry is listening… At both the state and federal level, the chemical industry has spent millions lobbying against any restriction on the use of BPA. You helped lead the way in California, and now the chemical industry has realized that consumers, advocates, and legislators will not stand down against a chemical that could harm their health… My sincere thanks.

We're honored by the Senator's recognition, and we're thankful for her strong leadership in Congress on critical environmental health issues including BPA. Last November, after the chemical industry successfully blocked her amendment to the food safety bill that would have instituted a federal ban on BPA in baby bottles, Sen. Feinstein said so eloquently:

One day our children will look back and wonder why we willingly risked our health by exposing ourselves to harmful chemicals like bisphenol A (BPA)... Unfortunately, chemical industry lobbyists wish to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. Just as the tobacco industry once told us it was safe to smoke cigarettes, the chemical industry is trying to tell us it's OK to ingest harmful chemicals. It's not OK.

Thank you, Senator, for using your clear and compelling voice to amplify the message that BPA has no place in our food packaging.

Chemical industry shifts on BPA after spending millions to fight legislation (New York Times, 10/12/2011)

Days after California passed a ban on BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups, the American Chemistry Council—trade group for the chemical industry—declared that it was petitioning the FDA to ban the chemical from these products nationwide. It's an intriguing reversal in the ACC's history of lobbying against state and federal BPA bills (including the California ban) over the last several years.

Despite the move, the ACC still maintains that BPA is of no concern for health. We disagree.

As reported by the New York Times yesterday:

The trade group's announcement came after [Gretchen Lee] Salter, the policy manager of the Breast Cancer Fund, had spent the past six years on the frontlines of a major battle over California legislation to ban BPA from those products.

Salter's group and others were able to declare victory when Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed A.B. 1319 into law last week -- only to see ACC say three days later that the problem does not exist.

To Salter, something didn't ring true.

"The amount of resources they poured into states trying to regulate baby bottles and sippy cups and the amount of resources they poured into California," Salter said, then paused. "To all of the sudden say, 'Folks, there is no problem here, we don't use BPA anyway.' It's this weird, almost Orwellian double speak."

ACC had doggedly insisted that BPA is safe, and the group has fought fiercely against federal and state legislative proposals to ban the chemical, which public health advocates have linked to a hormonal disruption and other developmental problems in children.

Disclosure forms shows that ACC has invested heavily in lobbying in California since 2005, when the first bill limiting BPA was introduced in the state Legislature. (Read complete article.)

Neither the California law nor the ACC petition to the FDA include canned foods or other products known to contain BPA. The Breast Cancer Fund continues to push for safe alternatives to BPA in canned foods through our Cans Not Cancer campaign and support of Rep. Ed Markey's (D, Mass.) Ban Poisonous Additives Act, currently in the U.S. House.

Industry spin zone of bad science on BPA

Last week, the Atlantic published a great piece outlining how industry lobbyists and trade groups are using bad science to make consumers question the toxicity of BPA. The day after the Breast Cancer Fund released our report, BPA in Kids' Canned Food, the lobbying arm of the canned food industry was spinning science in their own press release touting the safety of BPA in consumer goods. These lobbyists claim that BPA is flushed through our bodies so fast that it can't do any harm.

Don't we wish it were that simple! Independent, academic scientists are furious over this "spin zone" of bad science. It turns out that a single study is prompting canned food lobbyists to claim a slam-dunk victory on the safety of BPA, while leading researchers in the field say the study design is fatally flawed for a litany of reasons.

Here's the bottom line, though: we shouldn’t have to be scientists or toxicologists to go to the grocery store and be confident that the food we are buying doesn't contain toxic chemicals that have been shown in over 250 laboratory studies to cause harm. As a consumer, I want to know that companies are protecting my health before their bottom line and I also want to know that my concerns as a purchaser of products are being heard by companies.

After we released our report last week, we watched social networking sites, blogs and media stories light up with canned food manufacturers responding to consumer outrage. While some companies responded openly and honestly, others continue to stand behind old science and outdated regulations to argue the safety of BPA in canned foods.

In reality, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains a list of more than 3,000 chemicals and other substances that are approved for use in food packaging. More than two-thirds of them were approved under a process that began in 1958, including known or suspected reproductive toxins and carcinogens like BPA and formaldehyde. That's why countries including France, China, Denmark, Sweden and 10 states in the U.S. aren't basing their decisions to regulate BPA on current regulations, but instead are using the 200-plus independent lab studies that have come out in the past 10 years showing the negative health consequences of BPA exposure.

It's time for corporations to stop hiding behind legal speak and own up to the fact that the way our regulatory system allows chemicals to get into consumer goods is broken. That's why on top of consumer actions to tell companies that we think BPA needs to be out of their products, we need to support legislation like Rep. Edward Markey's (D, Mass.) bill, the Ban Poisonous Additives Act, which would overhaul the way the FDA approves chemicals used in food containers.

As we say at the Breast Cancer Fund, we need to stop this disease before it starts. Changing the way we regulate toxic chemicals in our food supply is a great step in achieving that goal.

New and improved Safe Cosmetics Act could boost green chemistry (Forbes, 6/27/2011)

The Safe Cosmetics Act of 2011, federal legislation strongly supported by the Breast Cancer Fund and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (a project of ours), was introduced in the U.S. House on Friday, June 24, 2011.

This is excellent news for consumers left scratching their heads about which shampoo to buy; many cosmetics contain harmful chemicals, a legal practice under current law. But as a new piece on Forbes' blog points out, it's also a boon for cosmetics companies that want to make safe, healthy products but don't currently get all the information they need from ingredient suppliers.

The Breast Cancer Fund's Program and Policy Director Janet Nudelman explains some of the benefits for small businesses, including supplier transparency:

Nudelman says other companies are pleased with this part of the Act as well. "We call this the Producer Right-to-Know, and the companies we're working with are quite pleased with it," she says. "We always talk about consumers' right-to-know, but producers have a right to know as well—they are the ones that will be held liable if a harmful ingredient sneaks into their product." (Read complete article.)

Convenience at what cost: The connection between chemicals and breast cancer (Environmental Health Policy Institute, 6/16/2011)

Our colleagues at Physicians for Social Responsibility posed to top researchers, physicians and advocates the question, "What are we learning about the relationship between environmental toxicants and cancer? How should our regulatory system respond to this information?"

Of course this is a topic the Breast Cancer Fund is keenly interested—and deeply involved—in. Our staff Nancy Buermeyer and Connie Engel responded with a piece that focuses on breast cancer, of course, but also hones in on endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs):

One of the most disconcerting set of chemicals linked to diseases, including breast cancer, are those termed endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), including BPA, phthalates and other chemicals found in our everyday products. EDCs disrupt the body’s hormone systems, which regulate nearly every aspect of the intricate and exquisite process of life—from the awe-inspiring process of fetal development to the dramatic changes in puberty to the everyday processes of turning food into energy. Since one of the known risk factors for breast cancer is increased exposure to estrogen, it stands to reason, and the research bears out, that exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals that look like estrogen to our cells would increase the risk of developing the disease.

EDCs are a perfect example of why the “dose makes the poison” logic is flawed. EDCs can sometimes exert their most significant effects at exquisitely small doses. This is no surprise, since the hormones normally affect physical processes at very low doses. (Read complete article.)

Their essay stands alongside essays from top experts in environmental health, which we highly recommend reading. You can view them all on PSR's website.