Sludge Watch ==> Cancer and Cosmetics - and it all goes into sewage

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:
This story is well worth the read....coming as it does on the heels of some 
new legislation to require labelling of ingredients in personal care 
products.

All these lotions and potions end up in the sewers...ending up in the  
sludge or effluent  discharged from the sewage treatment plant.

........................................


Sat 14 Apr 2007

The Globe and Mail

HEALTH Cancer and cosmetics Sure, you exercise in the fresh air. And eat
pesticide-free food. But could your body lotion, shampoo and makeup be
putting you at risk for cancer and other frightening side effects?
MARGARET PHILP reports on the ugly side of the beauty business

by Margaret Philp

Amy Robertson is about as natural as a Canadian can be.

Without a trace of makeup, her blond hair usually cinched in a ponytail,
the former organic farmer and health-food store clerk from Vancouver
scrupulously avoids preservatives and pesticides in her food. She was
also tested last year by researchers collecting proof of toxic chemicals
in the body.

But what she discovered shocked her -- her clean-living body was
distressingly polluted with heavy metals and PCBs. If the 43-year-old is
disciplined about what goes into her mouth, she is anything but when it
comes to what she puts on her skin. Inspecting her herbal shampoo label
for the first time, she finds cocamidopropyl hydroxysultaine and methyl
cocoyl taurate, the stuff of chemistry labs.

"I've always said to the kids, 'If you can't pronounce an ingredient, we
won't buy it,' " Ms. Robertson says. "But I have obviously not been that
good with cosmetics."

Few have. While Canadians have become savvy about chemicals in their
food -- scanning package labels and paying premium prices for organic
produce -- little mention has been made of the chemicals that clean our
hair and moisturize our skin day in and day out.

Yet some of the 10,000 ingredients in beauty products are suspected or
confirmed carcinogens, hormone-mimicking chemicals or substances linked
to birth defects. And in an age of increasing fear over chemical
exposures, the $5.3-billion cosmetics industry is poised to become the
new frontier for health and eco-minded consumers.

Under new federal rules that came into force late last year, cosmetics
companies selling products in Canada are compelled to list ingredients
on their packages -- a move that has brought this country closer into
line with Europe and the United States, where, for some, checking the
label on a lipstick is as routine as reading a cereal box.

Some cosmetics ingredients will also go under the microscope when Ottawa
begins a massive safety review of thousands of chemicals in widespread
use that was announced last winter.

And later this month hearings will begin in Ontario on a private
member's bill tabled by NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns that would
slap warnings on all cosmetics and other products containing known and
suspected carcinogens.

Outside Canada, a law just passed in California placing the onus on
cosmetics companies to disclose to health authorities the details of
toxic ingredients linked to cancer or reproductive problems.

"The fact is, we're using so many different cosmetics and we're putting
them directly onto our skin," says Madeleine Bird, a Montreal health
researcher who founded a Canadian counterpart to the Campaign for Safe
Cosmetics, a U.S. coalition of health and environmental activists, last
year. "We use them on our babies. It's a very intimate part of our daily
lives and we want that to be as safe as possible."

But while even those in the Canadian cosmetics industry laud the move to
list contents on packaging, many consumers are discovering that these
labels are hardly founts of information. Ingredients are listed by
unfamiliar Latin names that obscure even benign substances -- shea
butter becomes butyrospermum parkii.

Unless shoppers splurge on an $1,100 dictionary to cross-reference
ingredients, they are left no wiser than they were before the new rules.
This is why the Canadian Cancer Society is tossing around the idea of a
colour-coded logo that would flag possible carcinogens. The Canadian
Strategy for Cancer Control committee also has product labelling on
their agenda.

"When you pick up something at the grocery store, it should immediately
tell you something about what's in that substance [so] you can make an
informed decision," says Heather Logan, the director of cancer control
policy at the Canadian Cancer Society. "We don't have that yet."

Aside from labelling, Health Canada does maintain a hot list of more
than 500 banned and restricted chemicals. Companies selling cosmetics
here are also required to disclose the ingredients contained in their
products to Ottawa.

In the United States, ingredients have been listed on cosmetics for
years. But there are loopholes that allow companies to conceal some
suspect chemicals under the vague title of "fragrance" or refuse to name
ingredients that are claimed to be trade secrets.

"There are some ingredients that have benefits and some risk as well,"
says Carl Carter, director of the Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and
Fragrance Association. "But our feeling is that under the Canadian
regulatory system, we are very confident about the safety of the
substances that are used."

Some health and environmental activists don't agree. They want Health
Canada to use warning labels to protect Canadians from questionable
chemicals -- or to follow the aggressive stance of the European Union,
where more than 1,100 chemicals in cosmetics have been banned outright.

The battle comes back to science. Research on chemicals in cosmetics is
spotty. Many compounds have never been studied. Others are linked to
cancer or birth defects in animals but not people -- or show a link to
cancer, but at far higher doses than the levels present in cosmetics. In
fact, the studies making the airtight case connecting compounds to
cancer are few.

To the industry, these studies suggest that their products are safe. To
activists, the science overlooks the fact these minute chemical
exposures in cosmetics are repeated with successive products -- soap,
deodorant, makeup -- every day.

But even where conclusive scientific evidence exists, it has not swayed
health authorities in Canada or the United States to ban the substances
from widespread use.

In the face of this, the Washington-based Environmental Working Group
started an online listing called Skin Deep that ranks the safety of
14,000 cosmetics -- about half of those on the market -- according to
their safety as determined by the research available.

And for the past four years, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics in the U.S.
has been pushing 500 companies -- most of them small "green" producers
-- to sign a pact to substitute toxic ingredients with safe
alternatives. The Body Shop, recently purchased by L'Oreal, is the
biggest convert to date.

Meanwhile, growing unease about cosmetics is boosting sales of
alternative products -- both at health-food stores and grocery chains.
Some of these products have simply disguised suspect ingredients in
earthy-looking packaging touting "natural" or "herbal" properties. But a
growing number of companies are starting to sell chemical-free
cosmetics. And a U.S. financial research firm recently published a
report suggesting that those who ignore the push for healthier products
risk a backlash.

New cosmetics brands are also emerging. Alain Menard and his wife, Karen
Clark, started the Green Beaver Company in Hawkesbury, near Ottawa,
after the birth of their first child three years ago. At the time, he
worked as a microbiologist in pharmaceuticals and she was a biochemist
with a pesticide company. But neither wanted their son exposed to the
chemicals in cosmetics and both saw a market niche for an all-natural
Canadian cosmetics company.

Mr. Menard welcomes the new labelling law in Canada, sure it will expose
the pretenders marketing supposedly natural and organic products that
are neither.

But he, too, worries about the confounding Latin names, fearing that
customers will feel threatened by natural ingredients that sound like
chemicals. "There may be some confusion about what these terms mean," he
says.

Take Ms. Robertson. As she reads through the label on her shampoo, the
names grow longer and more complicated. As hair-care products go, it
ranks among the more benign. Still, it does contain methyl, ethyl,
propyl and butyl parabens. In the bottle are ingredients considered to
be toxic, endocrine disruptors and harmful to wildlife -- a rude shock
to the Vancouverite, who buys her cosmetics at a health-food store.

"To be quite honest, I'd never read down that whole ingredient list
until now," she says. "I don't know what all the parabens are."

Margaret Philp is a feature writer with The Globe and Mail.

Pretty dangerous

Some compounds in personal-care products are worth watching out for.

Lead acetate: A known reproductive toxin banned in the European Union
but found in some hair dyes and cleansers in North America.

Formaldehyde: A known carcinogen found in some nail products.

Toluene: A possible reproductive or developmental toxin found in some
nail polishes.

Petroleum distillates: Possible carcinogen prohibited in the EU, but
found in some mascara, perfume and lipstick in North America.

Ethyl acrylate: A possible carcinogen found in some mascara.

Coal tar: A known carcinogen found in dandruff shampoos, anti- itch
creams and hair dyes.

Dibutyl phthalate: An endocrine disruptor and possible reproductive or
developmental toxin found in some nail polish, perfume and hair spray.

Sodium lauryl sulfate: A skin irritant prone to contamination by a
probable carcinogen called 1,4-dioxane used in many soaps and shampoos
for its foaming properties.

Methyl, propyl, butyl and ethyl paraben: Endocrine disruptors and
possible breast carcinogens used as a preservative in cosmetics such as
lotions and shampoos.

-- Margaret Philp

Source: Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, Environmental Working Group