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Philadelphia Inquirer - Concern for Peril of Personal-Care ProductsPosted on Mon, Jul. 26, 2010 GreenSpace: Concern for the peril of personal-care products By Sandy Bauers
Inquirer GreenSpace Columnist
The wrinkles are here, and more are surely coming. Time for potion intervention. But trying to figure out not only which cosmetics work, but also which ones are good for me and the planet is so complicated that it's just producing more wrinkles.
I thought all I had to do was find products not tested on animals. Now I realize that many products are, in effect, being tested on me. And on my surroundings. Traces of personal care products are being detected in waterways.
All those products to make our hair shinier, lashes longer, cheeks pinker, and underarms sweeter may be more trouble than they're worth.
Lead, a neurotoxin, is in many lipsticks. Formaldehyde, a probable carcinogen, is used as a preservative in baby shampoo. And something called 1,4-dioxane, another probable carcinogen, is found in products that make suds. All are in tiny amounts. Last week a coalition of organizations calling for safer personal care products - not just girlie stuff, but also things men use, and even creams we rub babies with - revved up their activism.
This coincided with the introduction of the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010, which would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to ensure that the products we slather on our skin don't have harmful ingredients. "Only a fraction of the ingredients have been assessed for their safety" by researchers independent of the companies, said U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.), a cosponsor.
The industry pushed back vigorously, saying its products are safe. Lezlee Westine of the Personal Care Products Council contended the legislation was not based on "credible and established scientific principles," and would mandate "unachievable" goals that would require hundreds of additional agency scientists and millions of dollars of funding.
The industry, by the way, has its own proposal to "modernize" the FDA's cosmetics regulatory structure, which is about 70 years old. It is requesting more oversight, including a formal process for FDA review of ingredients in cases where the public or others request it. One thing is clear. There's a lot less FDA oversight than many people think. Just ask Linda Katz, director of the agency's Office of Cosmetics and Colors. In an online video on the FDA website, she noted that "consumers think we approve cosmetics, but we don't." She said the FDA regulates "in a post-market arena. We look at the safety issues once it's on the marketplace."
According to the Safe Cosmetics Coalition, the European Union has banned more than 1,000 cosmetic ingredients, the FDA just 11. The industry points out that the substances watchdogs are concerned about are used in such minute quantities that they are all but inert.
What worries critics is the cumulative effect of incessant bedaubing and lacquering. Plus, the synergistic effect. Supposedly, the average woman uses 12 personal care products a day (a vast underestimate for any teenager or woman over 40).
For those who want to delve further into the mountains of competing claims, check out the industry site www.cosmeticsinfo.org, and the watchdog site www.safecosmetics.org. One of the Safe Cosmetics Coalition members, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, also maintains a database evaluating more than 25,000 products at www.cosmeticsdatabase.com.
By the way, the words organic and natural have no legal meaning when it comes to cosmetics, both the industry and the watchdogs say. But Maryann Donovan, a cosmetics expert at the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh, identified several chemicals that consumers who are worried should avoid: triclosan, a pesticide found in some toothpastes; anything with fragrance, which often is from synthetic musks that may have estrogenic effects; plus parabens and pthalates, which may disrupt hormones.
Julie Becker of Philadelphia's Fairmount section has been alert to product ingredients for years because she has sensitive skin. She thinks the precautionary principle should apply: If there's any doubt about an ingredient, use something else. A public health adjunct professor at Temple University, she founded the nonprofit Women's Health and Environmental Network more than a decade ago. It recently joined the Safe Cosmetics Coalition.
Cosmetic labels don't have to list all their ingredients, but Becker tries to keep up.
"There is no longer a quick trip to the store," she says. "Between reading food labels and now reading personal care product labels, all I can say is, especially as we age, keep those bifocals handy." To view original article - Click here.
Redding News - Programs Offer Safer Ways to Dispose of Unwanted DrugsPrograms offer safer ways to dispose of unwanted drugs Redding News
by Debra Atlas
Posted April 21, 2010
More Americans are faced with a growing problem: what to do with expired, unused or unwanted medications. The common practice of tossing pills in the trash or flushing them down the toilet has led to an increase in drinking water contaminated by prescription drugs of all kinds, including mood stabilizers, hormones and antibiotics. An Associated Press investigation in 2008 found that 51 million Americans’ drinking water was affected.
There’s also the problem of children and others finding the tossed pills and ingesting them. Adding to the problem is an increase in drug use and purchases. Big-box stores offer large quantities of over-the-counter medications and an aging population turns to medication to cope with chronic conditions and other illnesses. One activist organization estimates that as many as 40 percent of all prescriptions are tossed.
...And the problem is expected to grow as people live longer and develop chronic conditions, said Dr. Julie Becker, director for Pharmaceutical Waste for Healthcare without Harm, an international coalition of more than 470 organizations in 52 countries. Here are steps consumers can take to reduce the amount of waste...
To read the full article, click here.
Philadelphia Inquirer GreenSpace - Hospitals Take on Bottled WaterHospitals take on bottled water TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2010
by Sandy Bauer, Philadelphia Inquirer
GreenSpace Blog
Four of the region's hospital and health care facilities have agreed to spend at least the next month -- until Earth Day -- educating visitors and staff about bottled water and trying to wean them off of disposable plastic and onto the tap. The Christiana Care Health System plans to serve water in pitchers at meetings and to encourage its staff to use ice and water machines in the cafeteria. Of course, that leaves open the question of what kind of glasses the water will be in -- disposable? -- but moving on... Thomas Jefferson University Hospital is giving a 10 percent meal discount to anyone who has a reusable water bottle on their tray on Wednesdays, which have been dubbed "Water Wednesdays."
At Abington Hospital and Holy Redeemer Hospital, information will be posted about the health and environmental effects of bottled water. Holy Redeemer is also touting the work of the religious order's work to build water wells in Tanzania. The push is being coordinated by Women’s Health & Environment Network (WHEN), a local non-profit organization working on reducing environmental impacts in hospitals. The group is concerned about plastic waste, water shortages and the quality of bottled water. It has a compendium of facts and sources here. (Scroll down to "bottled water facts.").
To view the originial piece, click here.
Daily Pennsylvanian - Nursing Student Wins Essay ContestNursing grad student wins essay contest on health and environment Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Christina Mancheno
Nursing graduate student Erin Johnson was announced the winner of the 2010 Hollie Shaner-McRae Nursing Student Essay Contest, which is held annually to recognize a nurse’s role in environmental activism. ...Her essay, “Voices of Students,” will be publicized on The Luminary Project’s website and she will receive a $200 travel stipend to attend CleanMed 2010, an international conference on health care and environmental sustainability. Her inspiration for the essay came from her clinical experiences and her observations on the amount of waste being produced.
...“When I heard about the [Hollie Shaner-McRae] contest, I spoke directly with Erin,” said Teresa Mendez-Quigley, director of Women’s Health and Environmental Network, a Philadelphia-based non-profit where Johnson volunteers. Mendez-Quigley said the hope is that more nursing students will follow her lead of reaching out to non-profit organizations and picking a topic they want to focus on.
To read the full article, click here.
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