From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a coalition of
public health, educational, religious, labor, womens,
environmental and consumer groups with a goal to protect the
health of consumers and workers by requiring the health and
beauty industry to phase out the use of chemicals linked to
cancer, birth defects and other health problems and replace them
with safer alternatives.
Founding campaign members include: Alliance for a Healthy
Tomorrow, The
Breast Cancer Fund, Commonweal,
Environmental Working Group, Friends of the Earth, National
Black Environmental Justice Network, National Environmental
Trust, and Women's Voices for the Earth.
History
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics consumer campaign
began in 2002 with the release of a report,
Not Too Pretty: Phthalates, Beauty Products and the FDA.
- For the report, environmental and public health groups
contracted with a laboratory to test 72 name-brand,
off-the-shelf beauty products for the presence of
phthalates, a family of industrial chemicals linked to
permanent birth defects in the male reproductive system.
- The lab found phthalates in nearly three quarters of the
products tested, though the chemicals were not listed on any
of the labels. A second report,
Pretty Nasty, documented similar product test results in
Europe.
- In October 2005, the
Environmental Working Group released
Skin Deep: A Safety Assessment of Ingredients in
Personal Care Products (website). This computer
investigation into the health and safety assessments on more
than 10,000 personal care products found major gaps in the
regulatory safety net for these products. Also available is
an online rating system that ranks products on their
potential health risks and the absence of basic safety
evaluations. The core of the analysis compares ingredients
in 7,500 personal care products against government,
industry, and academic lists of known and suspected chemical
health hazards.
Actions
In February 2003, the European Union passed a new amendment
to their Cosmetics Directive that prohibits the use of known or
suspected carcinogens, mutagens and reproductive toxins (a.k.a.
CMRs) from cosmetics. This amendment went into force in
September 2004.
In spring 2004, members of The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics
and more than 50 other organizations signed a letter asking
cosmetics companies and personal care product companies to sign
the Compact for Safe Cosmetics (Compact for the Global
Production of Safer Health and Beauty Products), a pledge to
remove toxic chemicals and replace them with safer alternatives
in every market they serve.
External link
-
www.safecosmetics.org
-
EWG's SkinDeep project
Categories:
Breast cancer |
Cosmetics
