Be Well By Dr. Frank Lipman
Healthy Living Made Simple for Busy People
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Stacy Malkan
Author
Stacy Malkan is author of the award-winning book, "Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry" and co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, an international coalition of health and environmental groups working to eliminate harmful chemicals from personal care products. Stacy is frequently interviewed by television, radio and print media about the health concerns of toxic chemical exposures and latest market developments in safe products, and her book tells the inside story of the campaign's 10-year effort to give the $50 billion beauty industry a safety makeover. Prior to working as an environmental health advocate, Stacy was a journalist and newspaper publisher for many years in Colorado. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit Stacy at www.NotJustaPrettyFace.org, or follow her on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/StacyMalkan or on Twitter @SafeCosmetics.
Copyright © 2013 - Dr. Frank Lipman
The Dose Makes the Poison?
We Know Better Now
Stacy MalkanMarch 15
When I was working on my keynote talk for the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit, I got to thinking about the paradigm shifts in science that are changing the business of beauty. To sum it up: We didn’t used to know what we know now about the health risks posed by toxic chemicals. So, now that we know, what are we going to do about it?
Science has come a long way in that past five centuries. Now we know: it’s not the dose that makes the poison, but also the timing of the dose, the size of the person and the toxicity of chemical mixtures — factors that aren’t considered in typical risk assessments.
We know that even very low doses of some chemicals can have a profound effect on health, especially if exposures occur to the developing fetus. And there’s far too much we don’t know. Consider the following equation for risk assessment:
Risk = Hazard x Exposure
Makes sense, except that we have a regulatory system that encourage ignorance on all parts of the equation. You can’t figure out the answer (risk) if you don’t have good information about hazard and exposure — and unfortunately, there are no requirements for cosmetics companies to assess the hazard of the chemicals they use or understand how much their customers are being exposed.
It reminds me of the time the Cosmetics Ingredients Review panel tried to determine the risk of phthalates in cosmetics by calculating exposure numbers on the back of a lunch napkin. (See Chapter 2 of my book for more on that story.) The bottom line is, they don’t know the aggregate exposure, and to understand risk, you would have to know how much people are being exposed to a particular chemical as well as to other substances that have similar biological mechanisms of action.
Clearly, we need new chemical policies and new cosmetic laws that bring our regulatory framework and scientific assessment methods into the 21st century.
Meantime, companies have a choice about how to respond to new knowledge from current science. Many good companies are choosing to avoid hazardous chemicals in the first place. And then there are those who insist it’s safe for products like baby shampoo to contain low levels of known carcinogens mixed with various other toxins. What are they thinking? Calvin & Hobbes offer some insight:
Thanks to all the companies that are willing to get informed, act on new knowledge and make the best choices — these companies have my business and will continue to grow as more people become aware of the facts. And to all the rest: Ignorance may be easier but it’s not particularly smart!