The age of rampant deregulation isn't just a financial issue. You and your kids are probably bathing in carcinogens. And it's all legal.
A report by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow finds that common children's bath products contain formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, both probable carcinogens. Why is this permissible? Because as long as they aren't intentionally added, there are no regulations in the U.S. on the presence of these chemicals in toiletries.
You can read the whole story here.
An excerpt, though:
Despite label claims like “gentle” and “pure”, the bath products can contain formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane that the federal government say “may reasonably be anticipated to be a carcinogen.” Formaldehyde can also cause skin rashes in children. Lax label laws do not require the chemicals to be listed on product labels. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says that "the presence of 1,4-dioxane, even as a trace contaminant, is cause for concern."
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics commissioned an independent laboratory to test 48 products for 1,4-dioxane; 28 of those products were also tested for formaldehyde. The lab found that:
• 17 out of 28 products tested - 61 percent - contained both formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane; these included Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, Sesame Street Bubble Bath, Grins & Giggles Milk & Honey Baby Wash and Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wash.
• 23 out of 28 products - 82 percent - contained formaldehyde at levels ranging from 79 parts per million (ppm) to 610 ppm. Baby Magic Baby Lotion had the highest levels of formaldehyde.
• 32 out of 48 products - 67 percent - contained 1,4-dioxane at levels ranging from 0.27 ppm to 35 ppm. American Girl shower products had the highest levels of 1,4-dioxane.
The study is the first to document the widespread presence of both formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane in bath products for children.
Grins and giggles, indeed.
Let's look at what levels of these chemicals are considered unsafe for adults in the workplace by OSHA:
1,4-Dioxane: 100 ppm skin exposure.
Formaldehyde: 0.5-2 ppm airborne.
The levels in these products are close enough to unsafe to warrant at least some concern, don't you think? So what are we to do? Get a load of the first suggestion:
Simplify: Select products with fewer ingredients and no synthetic fragrance or dyes, and use fewer products overall.
Use fewer products! The FDA simply has nothing to say about it, so you should avoid products altogether. Why is there an FDA again? Heckuva job.
The article does go on to list safer products and does give a lot of good information.
For example:
Formaldehyde contaminates personal care products when common preservatives release formaldehyde over time in the container. Common ingredients likely to contaminate products with formaldehyde include quaternium-15, DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea and diazolidinyl urea.
1,4-Dioxane is a byproduct of a chemical processing technique called ethoxylation, in which cosmetic ingredients are processed with ethylene oxide. Manufacturers can easily remove the toxic byproduct, but are not required by law to do so. Common ingredients likely to be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane include PEG-100 stearate, sodium laureth sulfate, polyethylene and ceteareth-20.
But we shouldn't have to scrounge for this information ourselves! Isn't that what our tax dollars go to the FDA for?