| The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an unprecedented warning to the cosmetics industry that it was time to inform consumers that most personal care products have not been safety tested.
Where the US goes, the UK inevitably follows.What concerns scientists at the FDA and at environmental health organisations throughout the world is the "cocktail effect" - the daily mixing of many different types of toxins in and on the body - and how this might damage health over the longer term.
Absorbed into the body, they can be stored in fatty tissue or organs such as the liver, kidney, reproductive organs and brain. Cosmetics companies complain of unfounded hysteria, but scientists are finding industrial plasticisers such as phthalates in urine, preservatives known as parabens in breast-tumour tissue, and antibacterials such as Triclosan and fragrance chemicals like the hormone-disrupting musk xylene in human breast milk.
Medical research is proving that fragrances can trigger asthma; that the detergents in shampoos can damage eye tissue; and that hair-dye chemicals can cause bladder cancer |
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FACT: It is a recorgnised fact that up to 60% of what you put on your skin is absorbed into your body.
FACT: Many mass produced skincare products contain cocktails of carcinogens, hormone disrupters, neurotoxins,estrogenic chemicals, and endocrine disrupters.
FACT: There is no testing for the long term health and environmental implications of using such products. |
and lymphoma. An even greater number of substances in personal care products are suspected to present potential risks to human health from this known effect on animals.
If all this sounds like scaremongering, it worth remembering that for example, while only a handful of chemicals are now branded dangerous to neurodevelopment, a very long time was allowed to pass between people first becoming suspicious of them, and someone else imposing controls upon their use. Historically profit and complaceny have overcome caution. Lead is a stunning example of our complacency. According to an article in the Lancet (one of the four leading medical journals in the world.)
"Almost all children born in industrialised countries between 1960 and 1980 were exposed to substantial amounts of lead from petrol that could have reduced the number of children with far above-average intelligence (IQ scores above 130 points) by more than 50% and might likewise have increased the number with IQ scores below 70,".
While scientists continue to argue the merits of the case we feel it is prudent to avoid the ingredients concerned.
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