Wallet Mouth

Envious on Earth Day, or, The limits of pocketbook activism

Do you ever feel like you’re in the Twilight Zone? Between learning about all this BPA stuff and finishing the book Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, I’m having a touch of reality disconnect. 

You see, most of the time when I blog about the unsavory side of commerce, it has to do with the environment or labor abuses—stuff that’s “out there”—not physical harm that potentially threatens me personally, as well as my loved ones and most everyone else who lives in the U.S.A. Yet here is Stacy Malkan’s book, a well-written account of how most mainstream cosmetics and personal-care products are contributing to pollution “in here”—inside our bodies, women and men alike—and how nobody is protecting us from this contamination, because the industry polices itself. (And it polices itself without concern for the long-term health effects of chemicals, testing only for short-term things like skin irritation.)

I’ve blogged about this issue before, in the context of the Environmental Working Group’s helpful Skin Deep online database (which is discussed in the book). But as I read the screed, the surreality of the situation really started to sink in. After all, these are normal, familiar products that have been sold on the shelves of normal, familiar stores for years and years. Are we all crazy? 

Thankfully, there’s a reality check: the fact that the European Union has banned scads of chemicals regularly in use in the U.S. (and not just in cosmetics, by the way) through its Cosmetics Directive and REACH legislation—both reflections of Europe’s embrace of the precautionary principle. Why, oh why, can’t the U.S. get hip to this eminently reasonable approach? Here’s where my EU envy starts to kick in with a vengeance (Down, EU envy! Down!). 

Of course, it’s not really about where you are. A couple years ago, I spent an afternoon on a gem of a beach in a Mexican eco-reserve that was stunning—except for the waves of garbage that came in with the tide. My sister, Mr. Wallet Mouth, and I made a game of collecting the trash and putting it in a neat pile on shore so that the people who ran the place could have it taken away. Then we found out from them that there wasn’t any “away” where it could be disposed of. This happens every day, they told us. The litter rides in on currents from places as far away as Australia and China. It was a good reminder that the world isn’t such a big place after all, that you can’t necessarily escape the ills of one region by traveling to another.

It’s the same thing with chemicals. Once they’re let loose in the world, we can’t avoid them—a point Not Just a Pretty Face drives home with its opening anecdote about a 2004 study in which randomly selected newborn babies in the U.S. were found to have hundreds of toxic chemicals in their blood.

So on this Earth Day, I’m contemplating the limits of pocketbook activism. It’s simply not always enough. We need to actively pressure companies to do the right thing and actively pressure our government to strengthen its regulatory muscle to keep us and our environment safe.

BPA blowup

Finally the mainstream media is talking about bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in many plastics, in light of a new brief by the National Toxicology Program that expresses concern over the substance. As the report puts it, “the possibility that bisphenol A may impact human development cannot be dismissed.”

It’s especially nice to see more light being shed on the fact that the FDA based its sketchy “BPA is safe” stance on two studies funded by the plastic industry [link], ignoring hundreds of government and academic studies that raised red flags about BPA.

In my recent post about the chemical, I expressed surprise to learn that it’s found not only in baby bottles but also in aluminum food cans and beverage cans and bottles. Turns out it’s in numerous other everyday objects, such as CDs, too. Today's Washington Post story on the issue quotes an overseer of the report as saying, “It’s everywhere.... Your cell phone is probably made out of it.”

In Canada, as the New York Times reports, the government is expected to label it toxic in the coming days. Meanwhile, big retailers there, such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot, are already pulling BPA-containing products from their shelves.

Much of the focus in recent reports is on BPA’s presence in baby bottles, sippy cups, and infant formula containers. That’s as it should be, since developing bodies are more affected by endocrine disruptors than adult bodies are.

The Washington Post story points out that BornFree, a company that makes BPA-free baby bottles, can’t keep up with demand. I don’t know about other parents, though, but I’m sticking to glass bottles. Today it’s BPA, but tomorrow...?

EPA: WTF?

Not to be outdone by the FDA, the EPA is being grilled by Reps. John Dingell and Bart Stupak about possible conflicts of interest in advisory panels assessing the human health effects of toxic chemicals.

Meanwhile, speaking of toxic chemicals, my friend Evan sent me this link to an interesting PBS piece on phthalates in toys sold in the U.S.

FDA: WTF?

More bisphenol A blues: This story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the FDA deemed BPA to be safe at current exposure levels based on two studies ... paid for by an arm of the trade group the American Chemistry Council.

Amuse-bouche: Farm bill limits our access to local produce

A farmer speaks out against the U.S. Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program in this New York Times opinion piece.

Lead astray

We’ve all heard that you shouldn’t drink hot water out of the tap, and most of us know why. As a story from this past week’s New York Times explains, contaminants from pipes, such as lead, are easily dissolved into hot water. But the article goes on to state something I didn’t know: “even newer plumbing advertised as ‘lead-free’ can still contain as much as 8 percent lead.”

What?

Sure enough, if you dig around in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s website, you can learn all about the Lead and Copper Rule. Paragraph D of section 141.43 states that the term lead free, “[w]hen used with respect to pipes and pipe fittings refers to pipes and pipe fittings containing not more than 8.0 percent lead.”

I’m reminded of the “0 grams of trans fat” language approved by the Food and Drug Administration. As I’ve ranted about here before, products can claim to have 0 grams but actually contain .49 grams—nothing to sneeze at when you consider that the American Heart Association recommends consuming less than 2 grams of trans fat a day (assuming a regular 2,000-calorie diet).

The Lead and Copper Rule has been in force since 1991, and apparently it’s an improvement over previous regulations, so that’s good, but still. Eight percent is not “lead free,” in my book.

Can any doublespeak experts out there shed light on this?

Get the skinny on skin-care products

I just learned that the lotion I’ve been using every day for years is hazardous to my health.

The culprit is probably the 11th ingredient, triethanolamine, which according to the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep cosmetic safety database is toxic to human skin and respiratory and immune systems—and may be carcinogenic, to boot.

It could also be any of the other inscrutable ingredients, but in any case, I’m not buying any more fragrance-free Lubriderm. Especially since, as I also learned from Skin Deep, the manufacturer of the moisturizer, Pfizer, conducts animal testing and has not signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ pledge that represents a promise to meet European Union standards prohibiting the use of chemicals known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutations, or birth defects.

And why, you may wonder, is an American public-interest group encouraging the use of European standards? 

Because we don’t have any.

Yep, that’s right. Our government (specifically, the Food and Drug Administration) does not require cosmetics and personal-care products to be tested before they are put on the market. Given that the skin is the largest, most permeable organ in the human body, that strikes me as insane.

I encourage everyone to check out Skin Deep—but be warned: you may not like what you learn. It’s a great site, though, because it gives you healthier alternatives to the same type of product you’re investigating. There’s also a guide to children’s products, which I suspect I’ll be using more and more often in the months to come.

I also recommend spending some time on the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ site, which has links to stories with headlines like “Mercury in Mascara” and “Lead in Lipsticks.”

Happy horror-finding. And remember, if you ever encounter 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol in a dark alley (or in your body wash), run the other way!

A tale of three failures

Recommended reading: a scary story in today’s New York Times about a hazardous home product that stayed on store shelves long after its dangers were known to the manufacturer, the retailers, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The cost: two fatalities and scores of injuries.