Are Chemicals Hiding In Your Makeup?

(LOS ANGELES) — Most makeup and cosmetics and other personal care products sold in the U.S. contain chemicals that have never been assessed for safety, according to a computer-assisted investigation by the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

Today EWG released the results of a study of 7,500 brand-name products on a free website (www.ewg.org) that for the first time lets consumers learn what chemicals are in their soap, shampoo, toothpaste and other products. The website provides product rankings of known and probable health hazards associated with ingredients in each of the 7,500 products assessed, including information on ingredients linked to cancer and reproductive harms.

The overwhelming majority of ingredients in personal care products have not been assessed for safety. But of those that have been studied, some are listed by government agencies as known or probable carcinogens or reproductive toxins. Today EWG is petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to assess the safety of scores of products that may be adulterated, and to declare as misbranded hundreds of products containing ingredients the industry's own self-policing safety panel has found lack sufficient data to be considered safe.

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 Kids & Chemicals-A MUST READ!

  In 2005 Belinda and her newborn baby participated in a study which investigated the burden of chemicals on the human body. Throughout Belinda’s pregnancy she was tested for 290 chemicals that she may have ingested, absorbed or inhaled over the course of her lifetime. Her breast milk that she was now passing on to her baby was also tested. When her baby was born, his blood, placenta and umbilical cord were similarly tested.
What the researchers found in Belinda’s body was a chemical cocktail dating back from her time in the womb-from the breast milk she consumed from her mother, chemicals from the photography lab she played in as a child as her father developed his prints, and the now banned polychlorinated biphenyl from the plasticizers in the paint plant which leaked into the drinking water downstream from where she went to university. The tests also found perflourinated chemical (PFCs), a group of chemicals used as surfactants and stain protectors contained in sticky tape, carpet protectors, non-stick pans, household cleaners, and flame retardants’; Bisphenol A , found in plastic used in water bottles, including baby bottles, Tupperware, and computers; phthalates found in cosmetics, shampoos, personal care products such as soap, creams, lotions, sunscreens and fragrances; lead and dioxins; and chemicals such as mercury which the researchers traced back from the time she was vaccinated as a child. Her blood also contained chemicals now banned or restricted around the world due to their accumulative and harmful effects, including the pesticide DDT.
Her newborn baby already harbored most of the same chemicals that were in Belinda’s body. These included pesticides, including DDT, chemicals from the same personal care products, plastics, and waste chemicals. These chemicals entered her baby in the same way they originally entered Belinda- via the placenta, umbilical cord and breast milk. The key point here is that there is no such thing as a "barrier” that so many people assume exists. As her baby continues to develop he will then continue to ingest, absorb or inhale chemicals via the food and drink he consumes, the personal care, cleaning products or drugs he is exposed to, and the environment where he learns and plays.
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 Cosmetic Industry On Notice

FDA Issues Warning on Untested Products

FDA calls industry's bluff on product safety. Acting on a petition filed June 14, 2004 by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) [view document], on February 3, 2005 the Food and Drug Administration issued an unprecedented warning to the cosmetics industry [view document] stating that the Agency is serious about enforcing the law requiring companies to inform consumers that personal care products have not been safety tested.

Such an enforcement action could ultimately require companies to issue consumer warnings for the more than 99 percent of personal care products on the market that have not been publicly assessed for safety, as documented in a 2004 EWG assessment of ingredients in nearly 7,500 products (EWG 2004a).

The implications of this warning penetrate deep into an industry that has for years hidden behind the findings of their internally-funded safety panel, the Cosmetic Ingredient Review, or CIR. Despite industry's control of the panel, the FDA regards the CIR's yearly series of ingredient safety reviews as a core component of the public health safety net, and calls CIR assessments an "important element in ensuring the safety of the cosmetic supply in the United States" (Brackett 2005).

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Allergies: The Threshold of Reactivity

 WHAT ARE ALLERGIES?

Your friend looks at your bloodshot eyes, hears your stuffed-up voice, and accepts the explanation "It's my allergies," as though the symptoms he observes were the disease itself. This word game is no accident. We are conditioned by a thousand commercials a day to equate all diseases with their symptoms. Headache, backache, arthritis, tinnitus, high blood pressure, on and on - are not diseases themselves, but rather the signs of disease. The illusion is that by covering up the signs, we have now cured the disease. The illusion is that by naming the signs, we have identified the disease. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You have a headache. Solution, programmed every five minutes on TV: Tylenol, Advil, whatever, that will do what? That's right: take the pain away. But wait - the pain wasn't the cause of the problem. The headache had a reason; it was a sign of something else. Neck spasm, intoxication, emotional stress, sinus allergies, trauma, spine misalignment, drugs, chemical sensitivity, overwork, hunger - the pain can come from many sources. The pill didn't solve anything, didn't cure anything. Soon as it wears off, guess what? Right - the pain returns. So then what are we taught to do? Right - more pills.

Same with allergies. Allergies are not watery eyes and stuffed up noses. Allergies are reactions to irritants. Something foreign is triggering the body's cleansing responses. Like walking behind a smoky bus when it starts up. You breathe in the fumes and start coughing and choking, with your eyes watering. That's an allergic response. Humans are allergic to bus exhaust. Eyes water to clear the eyes. Coughing reflex kicks in to forcibly expel the toxic fumes before they get inhaled. Happens in an instant.

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