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

[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.