Group cautions public vs toxic cosmetics

With Valentine’s Day just a day away, an environmental group advised consumers to mark the occasion in a "green" way by passing up on toxic cosmetics. EcoWaste Coalition also urged the government to enact and enforce a labeling policy requiring manufacturers to disclose the health effects of every ingredient in their products. “As in the case of most products, manufacturers leave us customers in the dark as to the health hazards of the things they sell. As consumers we must assert our paramount right to know and right to be healthy vis-à-vis the commodified right to be beautiful," Velvet Roxas, deputy executive director of women and children’s group Arugaan, said on EcoWaste’s blog site. EcoWaste cited studies of private consumer-interest groups in the United States and Canada show that beauty and personal care products teem with hazardous toxins like lead and mercury. Lead and mercury both pose serious threats to human health, it pointed out. It said Republic Act 7394, the Consumer Protection Act of 1992, ensures that consumers have access to safe cosmetics and more information about the articles available, and are protected against unreasonable risks of injury associated with their use. The law compels the appropriate government agency to declare a consumer product to be imminently injurious, unsafe or dangerous, and order is immediate recall, ban or seizure from public sale or distribution whenever the departments find, by their own initiative or by petition of a consumer, that a consumer product is found to be injurious, unsafe or dangerous. EcoWaste also cited a study by the US Food and Drug Administration in September 2009, showing lead was found in lipstick at alarming levels. While it did not identify the brands, FDA found lead in all 20 lipsticks it tested, at levels ranging from 0.09 parts per million to 3.06 ppm. Lead builds up in the body over time and, unfortunately, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is no safe level of lead in the human body. “Lead, one of the oldest known poisons, is a neurotoxin that adversely affect young and old alike. It interferes with a variety of body processes and is toxic to many organs and tissues including the heart, bones, intestines, kidneys, and reproductive and nervous systems. Lead exposure has been associated with high blood pressure, and studies have also found connections between lead exposure and coronary heart disease, and heart rate variability," EcoWaste said. The group also cited the legislative ban on mercury in the State of Minnesota. In 2007, Minnesota spearheaded the banning of mercury, also a neurotoxin, in mascara, eye liners and skin-lightening creams. When applied, mercury is readily absorbed through the skin into the bloodstream. Symptoms of mercury poisoning have been observed from the use of various mercury-containing cosmetic products, such as whitening creams – articles notorious amongst Asian women, particularly the Philippines. In 2002, Hong Kong’s health department revealed that two skin whitening products were discovered to contain between 9,000 to 60,000 times the regulated levels. “When we consider mercury along with steroids, glutathione, salicylic acid and hydroquinone – ingredients in skin cosmetics under fire in the media as of late, then we will begin to see the real price of superficial beauty. I hope we don’t sacrifice health in the name of vanity, as some deceitful manufacturers would want us to," said Aileen Lucero of the EcoWaste Coalition. Mercury can retard brain development in children and fetuses, which are most vulnerable to the metal’s toxic effects. It can also cause neurological symptoms in adults, and can cause damage to the brain, kidney, and lungs. “Direct links to tachycardia [persistently faster-than-normal heart beat] and hypertension [high blood pressure] have also been established," the group said. - LBG, GMANews.TV