Take Action!
Ask Congress to
Clean Up Cosmetics
Babies across America are sitting in bubbles tainted with cancer-causing chemicals and other toxins linked to serious health effects, according to a report released today by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Many of the contaminated products are advertised as "gentle," "pure" or "naturally refreshing."
Read the new report, No More Toxic Tub for all the details, but this is the quick and dirty version:
The Campaign sent unopened bubble bath, baby lotion and other products intended for babies and children, purchased in cities across the U.S., to an independent lab to be tested for 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde. Both chemicals are contaminants that do not appear on product labels, and both are carcinogenic; formaldehyde can also trigger rashes in those with sensitive skin.
The lab tested 48 kids' products for 1,4-dioxane and found it in 67 percent of the products. Of the 28 products tested for formaldehyde, 82 percent were positive. Seventeen products were contaminated with both 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde.
Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea baby wash, Sesame Street Bubble Bath, American Girl Real Beauty Inside and Out Shower Gel, and even the iconic Johnson's Baby Shampoo were among the products that contained both of these toxic contaminants.
We know that cosmetics can be made without hazardous ingredients and contaminants. So what's going on? How is it legal for companies to sell baby and kids' skincare products that contain toxic chemicals used in embalming fluid, fumigants and automotive coolant? Worse yet, these chemicals aren't even on the label, so even the most ingredient-conscious parents wouldn't know whether the product is safe.
Take action right now: Ask your legislators to clean up cosmetics.
Some industry representatives say that a little bit of formaldehyde or 1,4-dioxane isn't going to harm anyone. But these bath products are regularly used on children in combination with numerous other products. Because our air, water and food can contain harmful chemicals, too, our total daily exposure to toxic chemicals can be significant and can add up to harm.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, several factors contribute to children's special vulnerability to the harmful effects of chemicals:
• A child's chemical exposures are greater pound-for-pound than those of an adult.
• Children are less able than adults to detoxify and excrete chemicals.
• Children's developing organ systems are more vulnerable to damage from chemical exposures.
• Children have more years of future life in which to develop disease triggered by early exposure.
The widespread presence of contaminants and other harmful ingredients in children's bath products is just one symptom of a self-regulated cosmetics industry badly in need of reform. We deserve better!
What Can You Do?
Ask your legislators to give the FDA the authority it needs to ensure that all cosmetics, from baby shampoo to lipstick to body lotion, are truly safe.
Spread the word to friends and family.
Download the report, check the list of products we tested and find safer alternatives at www.safecosmetics.org/toxictub.
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
3 comments:
This has been a hot topic on television and in the news recently for children as well as adults. If anyone is interested in shopping for safer products through a store that guarantees never to put any harmful or toxic ingredients in their products, see my website for more information.
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Gretchen
Earl's sister, stop scaring people. When I was a baby, I got this horrible rash everytime I got in the tub, so the doc told my mom to use only Ivory soap and she did for years until I started washing myself at about 4-5 yrs old. Since then, I've been using everything that smells good and my kids use it too. Why am I saying this? Because I'm 38 yrs old and haven't had a rash since. I use shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and makeup on a daily basis, I'm still alive and considerably healthy. My kids are considered healthy and except for some occasional dandruff (dare I say a different shampoo) have no skin conditions from these products because the ingredients are created by using other combined chemicals. My kids run the range of 17 yrs old down to 1 yr old-and if Johnson's baby shampoo and baby wash didn't hurt their eyes, it isn't going to cause a rash. These cancer causing ingredients may be scary, but we are all going to die when it's our time, and it might be cancer which has many ways of creeping into your body. If we worried about our baby shampoo or our plastic water bottles every 2 seconds, we might as well be dead.
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a special interest group, out for money like the rest. You plastic bubble people amaze me, that computer you are sitting in front of is putting off more toxins, than that bottle of J and J baby shampoo will ever put out. I am 44 years old and was exposed stuff as a child in Washington DC streets that would make your head spin (and I ate lead paint). According to the paranoid plastic bubble people I should be a veggie brain and have 3 arms. Get over it, yes children (God bless them all) get sick but just because we don't know why and some special interest group sees a way to make money you guys begin a witch hunt to ban everything, wake up your being used.
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