Inside Prevention

Congress re-introduces safe cosmetics legislation in attempt to update 1938 law

Today, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., introduced the Safe Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Act of 2013, which would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate the products we use for grooming, primping and beautifying.

Loopholes in current federal law have left the U.S. cosmetics industry basically unregulated. That means that companies can put ingredients linked to breast cancer (or any other other disease), including phthalates, 1,4-dioxane, parabens and ethylene oxide in everything from shampoo to hand soap to lipstick.

Instead of meeting public demand for truly healthier products, the cosmetics industry would prefer to maintain the status quo. In fact, the industry has spent more than $3.5 million lobbying against similar legislation, according to ABC News.

The 1938 law that currently regulates cosmetics companies has created a free-for-all—one in which consumers are the big losers. Companies essentially can put whatever they want in their products and they don’t even have to tell the public about the ingredients they use. To top it off, they can slap an organic, natural or unscented label on a product, with no oversight. As a result, the majority of chemicals in cosmetics have not been assessed for safety, and more than 500 products sold to U.S. consumers contain ingredients banned in cosmetics in Japan, Canada or the European Union, according to the Environmental Working Group.

At the Breast Cancer Fund we believe preventing exposure to environmental risk factors, including exposures to harmful chemicals in personal care products, will enable us to protect women from being diagnosed with breast cancer in the first place.

Tell your member of Congress that it’s time to fix this broken regulatory system. Take action today.

Phthalates and BPA make an unexpected appearance

A new dietary intervention study suggests that an individual may not be able to avoid food packaging chemicals like phthalates (plastic softeners) and BPA (found in canned foods and older hard plastic containers) by cutting out canned and plastic-wrapped foods because these chemicals can—and do—enter the food during processing.

Researchers from the University of Washington replicated the 2011 Breast Cancer Fund and Silent Spring Institute dietary intervention study and found DEHP (a phthalate used in food packaging) levels increased 24-fold during the intervention.

The researchers were puzzled by this finding—our study found phthalate and BPA levels declined during the intervention diet—so they followed up by testing spices and dairy used in the intervention diet. They found high levels of DEHP in spices like coriander, cinnamon and cayenne pepper, as well as in dairy products.

The researchers also found modest increases in BPA during the intervention. This finding may be due to a study population who already ate mostly fresh foods—in fact, only three of the 10 families who participated indicated eating canned foods.

These findings underscore the need for federal reform of food contact laws that can ensure chemicals linked to hormone disruption don't end up in our food supply. The FDA has the authority to regulate chemicals our food touches at all points in the process from field to table: from the type of plastic tubing used in milking equipment, to the containers spices are held in before being divvied up in store-shelf sizes, to the plastic wrap on supermarket cheese.

Our role is to see that the FDA actually uses this power to protect our health.

For more on this study, check out Fast Company (You’re Eating Toxic Chemicals, Even If You Eat Organic And Avoid Plastic) and the NRDC blog (What's for lunch? Likely a few hormone-disrupting chemicals - phthalates and BPA).

Eat like a Mennonite (New York Times, 1/18/2013)

What does it take for a modern American family to lower its BPA levels? Author Florence Williams offers a peek into her stint in the nearly-plastic-free world in an opinion piece for the New York Times:

On the second day of my chemical-detox diet, I was very hungry. I’d been eating like a rabbit, all carrots and greens that I’d gathered, barehanded, from the baskets of the farmer’s market, no gloves or plastic bags allowed. I cooked up some quinoa that I bought packaged in paper from the supermarket sometimes known as Whole Paycheck. I was effectively a vegan because I couldn’t find meat or cheese that wasn’t wrapped in plastic, and I didn’t have access to accommodating livestock.

My 7-year-old daughter and I were participating in a pilot study conducted in 2011 by the Silent Spring Institute and the Breast Cancer Fund (a follow-up study was published later that year in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives). We had urinated into some glass containers a few weeks earlier, back when we were "normal" Americans, and now we were spending three days trying to reduce our exposure to plastics before supplying our urine again.

As Williams notes, the "normal" phase of the study, which allowed for painted toenails and canned beans, was more fun. Yet it's possible to create modern conveniences that don't leave toxic traces in their human consumers.

Says Williams, "It's why we need the government to require testing of commercial chemicals for hormonal effects, and to regulate them in a meaningful way. And it's why we need manufacturers to design products with safer substances in the first place." (Read complete article.)

Now undeniable: Breast cancer that comes with the job (Huffington Post, 11/26/2012)

Our own Jeanne Rizzo published her thoughts about the recent Canadian factory worker study on Huffington Post yesterday. Now we have evidence that women who are exposed to hormone-disrupting chemicals in food canning and plastics factories have a sharply higher risk of breast cancer—so what will we do about it? And who will act on behalf of these women?

Unfortunately for these women workers and for all of us (for we too are exposed to some of these chemicals on a daily basis), many industry and government leaders refuse to act based on biological plausibility. Instead, they prefer plausible deniability, saying we need more and more and more evidence—incontrovertible truth, in fact—before we take action. (Read complete article.)

Related articles

Can certain jobs cause breast cancer? A new study suggests yes (The Daily Beast, 11/21/2012)

Jeanne Rizzo: Now Undeniable: Breast Cancer That Comes With the Job

Study spotlights high breast cancer risk for plastics workers (Center for Public Integrity, 11/19/2012)

Can certain jobs cause breast cancer? A new study suggests yes (The Daily Beast, 11/21/2012)

Florence Williams, author of the acclaimed book, Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History, spoke with Breast Cancer Fund President and CEO Jeanne Rizzo for a piece on The Daily Beast describing a new Canadian study.

The study authors found a higher risk of premenopausal breast cancer among women working in factories that make canned foods and plastic parts for automobiles:

Both the automotive and canning industries are known to use chemicals that affect hormone systems in lab animals, such as BPA, phthalates, and flame-retardants. Phthalates, which are used to make plastic malleable for molding car interiors, have been associated with lower sperm counts in men. BPA, used in the lining of food cans, has been banned from some products in Canada.

“The U.S. has not conducted this kind of workplace study,” said Jeanne Rizzo, president of the Breast Cancer Fund, a California-based nonprofit. “Federal agencies should immediately look into similar occupations in this country and take this seriously.” (Read complete article.)

If the food's in plastic, what's in the food? (Washington Post, 4/16/2012)

A new article in the Washington Post about chemicals used in food packaging leads with a study published by the Breast Cancer Fund and Silent Spring Institute that demonstrated a significant dip in families' BPA and phthalate levels when they cut packaged food from their diets for just a few days. How common are these chemicals and what can be done to protect people from exposure?:

[S]cientists are beginning to piece together data about the ubiquity of chemicals in the food supply and the cumulative impact of chemicals at minute doses. What they’re finding has some health advocates worried.

This is “a huge issue, and no [regulator] is paying attention,” says Janet Nudelman, program and policy director at the Breast Cancer Fund, a nonprofit that focuses on the environmental causes of the disease. “It doesn’t make sense to regulate the safety of food and then put the food in an unsafe package.”

How common are these chemicals? Researchers have found traces of styrene, a likely carcinogen, in instant noodles sold in polystyrene cups. They’ve detected nonylphenol — an estrogen-mimicking chemical produced by the breakdown of antioxidants used in plastics — in apple juice and baby formula. They’ve found traces of other hormone-disrupting chemicals in various foods: fire retardants in butter, Teflon components in microwave popcorn, and dibutyltin — a heat stabilizer for polyvinyl chloride — in beer, margarine, mayonnaise, processed cheese and wine. They’ve found unidentified estrogenic substances leaching from plastic water bottles. (Read complete article.)

Learn more about chemicals linked to breast cancer that are found in food and food packaging.

Even nail polishes labeled "natural" may not be (Daily Green, 4/11/2012)

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control has found "toxic trio" chemicals toluene and dibutyl phthalate in most samples of salon nail products tested -- even those that claim to be free of the harmful substances.

The state agency selected 25 products, 12 of which were labeled as not containing one or more of the toxic trio (the third chemical in the trio is formaldehyde). In fact, lab analysis revealed that most samples, whether they made "three-free" claims or not, contained toluene, DBP or both. As reported by the Daily Green:

"Consumers have had it with the current system that tolerates cosmetics companies outright lying to consumers, putting dangerous chemicals in our products, and getting away with it," said Lisa Archer, director of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics at the Breast Cancer Fund. (Read complete article.)

For more information about the findings, visit DTSC's website.

Kaiser Permanente detoxes AND saves money

Great news! Yesterday, health-care giant Kaiser Permanente announced it would stop using IV medical equipment made with the toxic chemicals PVC and DEHP.

 

When PVC is made, vinyl chloride—a known human carcinogen— is released, so any move to reduce the use of PVC plastic decreases our exposure to these toxic pollutants linked to cancer. DEHP is one of a group of endocrine-disrupting chemicals called phthalates that have complex effects on several hormonal systems. DEHP has been shown in lab studies to increase breast cancer cell proliferation and to interfere with breast cancer treatment.

 A Washington Post story notes that this switchover affects nearly 100 tons of medical equipment — 4.9 million IV tubing sets and 9.2 million solution bags — each year. Great, right? But it gets better: the change is also expected to save Kaiser almost $5 million a year.

Way to go, Kaiser, for showing that you can do the right thing to reduce toxic exposures and even save money along the way.

Johnson & Johnson, amid activists' push, steadily removing toxic chemicals from baby products (Associated Press, 11/16/2011)

Iconic baby shampoo maker Johnson & Johnson has committed to a two-year timeline to remove formaldehyde-releasing preservatives 
from its baby products worldwide, under pressure from the Breast Cancer Fund's Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen. The Associated Press broke the news late yesterday, based on a letter from J&J to the Campaign. (Read the letter and the Campaign press release.)

Also included in the letter is confirmation from J&J that it is actively working to strip the carcinogen 1,4-dioxane from its baby products, and it has already removed phthalates (hormone-disrupting chemicals) from all baby products worldwide, including phthalates found in fragrance.

The letter and transparent public commitment follow the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics' Nov. 1 release of an analysis, Baby's Tub Is Still Toxic, that found different formulations of Johnson's Baby Shampoo in different countries--some of which were already using safer formulations.

From the Associated Press:

Amid pressure from activists, Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday that it is continuing efforts to remove traces of two harmful chemicals from its baby products around the world.

An international coalition of consumer and environmental groups has been pressing J&J since May 2009 to remove two potentially cancer-causing chemicals from products including its signature Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, long advertised under the slogan “No More Tears.”

...

The New Brunswick, N.J., company generally still has a Teflon reputation, but questions about the safety of its baby products led to a rebuke from the Chinese government earlier this month and thousands of consumers writing the company that they would no longer buy those products, according to the campaign. (Read complete article.)

This is a monumental victory for children's health and safety, and for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. At the Breast Cancer Fund, we're incredibly proud to have been part of this win. Today we celebrate the tireless work by our staff and partner organizations; together over the last two and a half years we moved a corporate giant to make lasting global change in the name of health.

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.