Beneath the Skin: Hidden Liabilities, Market Risk and Drivers of Change in the Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Industry (PDF; 2.03 MB)
Source: Investor Environmental Health Network
From press release:

Entitled “Beneath the Skin: Hidden Liabilities, Market Risk and Drivers of Change in the Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Industry,” the new IEHN report describes a ticking time bomb scenario of a largely self-policed industry in which regulatory action by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) typically is triggered only by reporting from the companies themselves. “The result is a system that permits significant consumer exposure to occur before sufficiently rigorous safety testing is conducted – ultimately, a game of roulette which places consumers, manufacturers and investors at risk,” said Sanford Lewis, an attorney specializing in corporate accountability and one of the report’s authors.

The U.S. cosmetics industry, which is dominated by 10 large companies, accounts for the use of nearly one in seven of the 75,000 chemicals registered for use in the United States. However, the FDA bans or restricts only nine of those substances, the report states.

Common ingredients found in U.S. personal-care products include phthalates, which have been linked to malformed or underdeveloped reproductive organs in males; formaldehyde, classified as a carcinogen; and parabens, endocrine-active preservatives that have been found in breast tumors. Many ingredients are exempt from labeling requirements because the product formulas are protected as proprietary, the report notes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Business and economics, Consumer issues, Health and healthcare, Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.