Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia)
October 7, 2006

Last month, a Montreal group, the 250-member Breast Cancer Action Montreal, held a Toxic Dump march.

Participants brought with them and then threw away the toxic soaps, shampoos, deodorants and toothpaste that they had been using as part of everyday grooming.

With the start Oct. 1 of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I decided to see whether the products I use are toxic.

Breast Cancer Action Montreal recommends several websites to check for toxicity. Two of the sites are www.ewg.org/reports/ skindeep2 and www.safecosmetics.org.

EWG stands for Environmental Working Group. I looked up my shampoo, blush and toothpaste on www.ewg.org.

I discovered that my shampoo, Neutrogena, which I buy because it sounds and looks natural, contains 689 ingredients, 137 of which raise health concerns and 65 of which present safety concerns.

It also contains one known human carcinogen, coal tar. So much for looking natural.

By comparison, my makeup seemed positively beneficial. I use a blush from MAC Cosmetics, a division of the $6.3-billion cosmetics giant Estee Lauder. The blush, a cheerful-looking pink powder, contains 100 ingredients, 10 of which raise health concerns.

Out of the 65 ingredients in my toothpaste,Arm and Hammer, 25 pose potential health concerns. Two ingredients are potential breast-cancer risks.

All in all, not comforting reading.

The shampoo's definitely going.

The point of the Toxic Dump march last month was twofold: To let people know the nine or more personal-care products most North Americans apply on average every day might not be safe for use; and to protest against the inaction of cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies whose products contain potentially dangerous ingredients.

The hypocrisy of some of these cosmetics manufacturers can be quite breathtaking.

Last week, Evelyn Lauder, senior corporate vice-president of Estee Lauder, the company founded by her late mother-in-law, was in Montreal with British actress and model Elizabeth Hurley, to promote the company's line of Pink Ribbon products for Breast Cancer Month.

Yet, as Montrealer Eve Thomas pointed out in a letter to The Gazette, "Estee Lauder is one of several major cosmetics companies which have not yet signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, an agreement to meet the standards and deadlines set by the European Union Directive 76/768/EEC to be free of chemicals that are known, or strongly suspected, to cause cancer, mutation or birth defects."

U.S. cosmetics makers claim their products are safe, but according to Abby Lippman, professor of epidemiology, biostatistics and occupational health at Montreal's McGill University, "89 per cent of the 10,500 (cosmetics) ingredients sold in the United States have not been assessed for safety."

Lippman, a member of Breast Cancer Action Montreal and co-chair of the Canadian Women's Health Network, also said, "We need to be vigilant, and that means more than just looking for lumps. We need to see that environmental laws are enforced and improved."

If companies such as Estee Lauder, Johnson and Johnson and Avon were to agree to remove potentially harmful chemicals from their products, they would only be following Europe's lead.

As Thomas reminded us, in January 2003, the European Union amended its cosmetics directive to ban the use of chemicals known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutations or birth defects.

Since 2004, cosmetics companies are required to remove hazardous chemicals from cosmetic and personal care products sold anywhere in the EU.

This means North American cosmetic companies must reformulate their products for sale in the European market. It seems perfectly reasonable to ask that these companies sell the same safer products in the United States and Canada.

Canada, at least, is showing some leadership. It has ordered that by Nov.

16 all cosmetic and personal-care products sold here must list every ingredient.

This would be fine, as BCAM president Carol Secter said this week, if the average consumer had the 2,600-page, $1,000 International Nomenclature for Cosmetic Ingredients. But who among us does? It's bad enough trying to figure out what oils you can eat without running the risk of an instant heart attack, but to be expected to sort through the 65 separate ingredients in a toothpaste is, frankly, an abrogation of responsibility on the part of government.

Secter said it best: "The goal is to be able to walk into a store and buy a product knowing that it is safe."





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