snake oil, revisited

[anotheranon]

From L., who knows more about this sort of thing than I:

A slightly less fun link: the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep personal product safety report. Turns out a lot of the snake oil isn't just ineffective, it's bad for you - but the FDA signs off on it anyway.

Unsure whether this will change my makeup/lotion/etc. habits or not. MAC shows up nowhere on the "avoid" or "recommended" lists, so my inner MACattacker says not to worry too much ;)

Having said this, some of the cautions about eye care and eye makeup ingredients give me pause. I never like to take chances with my eyesight. Next time I get mascara, for example, I'm going to look at this list first.

Comments

not too sure about this

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

A lot of their "danger" ingredients are things that are relatively harmless to 99% of the people out there. Like menthol. Ooh - now I'm scared of my throat drops.

[geekchick]

To be honest, what I took away from this was "everything on the planet is going to kill you". Some of their listings frankly strike me as scaremongering, especially when you get into the explanations: tocopherol (vitamin E) is listed as a cancer concern because it "may be contaminated with impurities linked to cancer or other significant health problems"? Okay, but nearly anything could be contaminated with impurities linked to cancer or other health problems. (They're not in California, are they? ;)) I think the site's idea is a great, but I confess to being a little skeptical of this particular implementation.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

A healthy skepticism is a good thing. What I took away were the number of ingredients that they simply don't know about - but include anyway.

I think it's also important to remember that a lot of these products - especially the cosmetics - are vanity items. They're not necessary for a medical condition the way medicines are, so if anything gives me pause, I'm not missing much if I have to give it up :P

I am grateful for the eye product evaluation though - I'll risk an allergic reaction but I'm going to try not to put potentially toxic substances in my eyes!

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

I've been looking through the EWG link and I'd like to see a few things.

Better differentiation between ingredients with well-known problems vs. ingredients that seem safe but which lack formal proof of safety.

For ingredients which are not formally tested for use in cosmetics, some distinction between those with a long history of detailed study and safe use as supplements (e.g. lecithin) and those which are not well studied and/or have little history or bad history.

Better evaluation of the likely risks. For instance they list several forms of vitamin E as a carcinogen. My ass it is. Other ingredients they list are real problem issues, but the site doesn't show the distinction at all.

It'd also be nice to have some breakdown of allergic reactions. This is difficult, but not every potential allergen is equal. It would be nice to have them report on which ingredients often cause problems vs. which ingredients only do so rarely.

They're also entirely too paranoid about ingredients like glycerin, which the body manufactures quite a bit of from food, and which does have a long history of very safe use as a supplement.

In some ways the site seems like it was put together by liability lawyers for the cosmetic companies. It seems to say "Hey, this could kill you! You've been warned - don't even try to sue!" for every last ingredient.

Basically, when you cry wolf, you lose credibility. When you fail to distinguish between small risks and large risks, you lose credibility. It's like if I implied that driving to work was as deadly as drinking a quart of lye. It's just BS, and everyone knows it.

I think companies should have a strong incentive to use safer and better ingredients, and I think that getting this sort of information out to consumers is a key part of that. People need to be able to find out which products to avoid, through the chemical alphabet soup on the label. But I know from experience that if you tell people that *everything* is gonna kill them, they give up caring and just get on with life. I'd much rather see them focus on the top 10 or 20 or 50 ingredients to avoid, based on which ones truly cause the most problems, or which are the most suspicious. As it is there are LOTS of ingredients in there which have long histories of safe use but which are still lumped in with some nasty shit, with no distinctions drawn between them. As a result I think the site gives off a Chicken Little vibe, and I fear that can only hurt their message.


Your own point about checking out your eye makeup is a good example of what I'm saying. Eyes are known to be more fragile than most skin areas, and losing your eyesight would probably be way worse than most types of skin damage that are at all common. So it makes good sense to be more careful with products that will go in or near your eyes. I'd just like that site to show a similar, graduated evaluation of the relative risks of each ingredient, in context.

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

Ok, this one's a 2 parter. I don't want to seem like I'm down on what they're doing, I'm actually all for it, I just fear they're shooting themselves in the foot.

They've clearly done a huge amount of work gathering raw data. HUGE. Huge to the huge'th power. And it looks like it's all nicely databased, with a list of products and a list of ingredients. So I think they have a great start here, I'd just tweak the algorithms that go through the list of ingredients and assign worry levels.

The fact that they're bringing this information to public attention at all is very important. I don't agree with the FDA's charter, or how they implement lots of it, but I also don't think they should be able to imply to American citizens that they are doing this excellent watchdog job when they're not. They're just plain not.

Drug industry (cutesy voice): "Aww, who's a good little lap dog, who is? Yes, it's my little FDA wuvvums! Mommy luvs you soooo much!" (smooches FDA)
FDA (lap dog voice): "Bark! Bark! (pause) Bark?"
DI: "Aww isn't that cute, he's trying to be fierce! Who's your mommy? Who's your mommy? That's right, Mommy's your mommy!. Now you play nice or no more revolving-door into cushy industry jobs for your administrators!"

Consider the recent canard that drugs in the US are somehow safer than in other countries, which has been disproven even by the GAO's report. This is basically the drug companies trying to keep states and citizens from buying drugs at the same (cheap) prices people in other countries pay. People who, mysteriously, aren't dying from those drugs any faster than we are, despite not having the marvelous FDA to protect them. Summary: The market effect of the FDA is to jack up prices without increasing quality.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that companies will do what it takes to get your money, and that there has to be a strong stick present to punish them if they act in ways the citizens don't support. Exposing what really happens down at the FDA (and what does not) is a key part of that. We the people may think we're getting X level of oversight and protection, but I can tell you this: the level we're actually getting sure as hell isn't as high as the FDA wants us to think it is. So I think sites like this are helping out a lot by getting people to realize how little oversight there is in many areas.

On the other hand, if every supplement, cosmetic and food item had to have the ingredient list reviewed by the FDA, our stores would look like the old USSR: 8 products to choose from, 5 foods, 2 cosmetics, one vitamin. (At least here we'd have plenty of each.) So there needs to be a balance. On the food side that's GRAS, the Generally Regarded As Safe list. Things like corn and rice are GRAS. Noone has ever formally tested them like they did with say aspartame, we just assume they're ok for you due to thousands of years of human history indicating they're ok. Likewise many herbs are GRAS, and many older additives are too. So on the food and supplement side, there are plenty of ingredients to work with. On the cosmetic side, I gather that things are not so good, if what that site says about X and Y and Z being untested is true. On the other hand, if X is considered GRAS for foods, maybe it should be considered less questionable in cosmetics than something that's not GRAS?

They've also clearly done a lot of work finding out what ingredients have what potential health concerns. I think this is the one area I'd like to see revised. If they did just that I think they'd have a killer site.