Cancer warning to appear on "natural" labels?

Think your "green" soap is squeaky-clean? Maybe not. The California Attorney General's Office has filed a complaint against four makers of green-branded personal-care and cleaning products, stating that they are violating the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65)—and the state's unfair-competition law, to boot.

Products made by Avalon Organics (owner of the Alba brand), Beaumont (Citrus Magic), NutriBiotic, and Whole Foods (specifically, its private-label brand, 365) were recently found to contain the toxic contaminant 1,4 dioxane (which I've blogged about before). The AG's suit states that the companies have known that their products were exposing users to 1,4-dioxane since late May of 2004, yet they did not provide "a clear and reasonable warning," as required by law. Violations of the safety law and the unfair-competition law each carry penalties of $2,500 a day.

1,4-dioxane is not an ingredient per se but rather a by-product of a process called ethoxylation.

Citrus Magic 100% Natural Dish Liquid is the product with by far the highest level of the contaminant (97.1 parts per million), according to the Organic Consumers Association's study (whose results, according to my sources, were confirmed by tests the AG's office had done). NutriBiotic's Super Shower Gel Shampoo with GSE was found to contain 32.2ppm, Alba's Passion Fruit Body Wash contains 18.2ppm, and Whole Foods' 365 Everyday Value Shower Gel contains 20.1ppm.

Some contend that a little bit of dioxane probably isn't anything to worry about (specifically, TreeHugger writer Karin Kloosterman in this post, and Ecover, whose dishwashing liquid was found to have 2.4ppm). For context, I looked at the EPA's webpage on the chemical. There, I learned that 500ppm is the ceiling recommended by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health to avoid "immediate damage to life or health," and that according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 100ppm is the concentration to which most workers can be exposed without adverse effects "over a normal 8-h workday or a 40-h workweek" (which? I wondered).

One can't help but observe that 100ppm is pretty close to the 97.1ppm in Citrus Magic... but fortunately, even with my exacting standards, I don't (quite) spend eight hours a day scrubbing our dishes.