Did you know that the cosmetics industry is largely self-regulated? Did you know that lead is found in two-thirds of all top-selling lipsticks? Did you know the FDA has only banned eight of the 12,000 chemicals used in cosmetics and that they don’t require all ingredients be listed on the labels? Did you know that you could learn enough infuriating facts about the cosmetics industry to the point of wanting to don a haz-mat suit every time you step into the shower?

Okay, so the last question may be my own. But a new short from documentarian Annie Leonard has the beauty world talking – and this time, it’s not about who got what lip or breast implants. Leonard is the author The Story of Stuff, where she takes a good hard look at what we’re putting into our bodies every time we use beauty products. Check out her short here.

The good news? Congress has come up with legislation that may change all this. The Campaign of Safe Cosmetic just announced that Congress has introduced the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010. Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc. sponsored the bill which “gives the Food and Drug Administration authority to ensure that personal care products are free of harmful ingredients. Existing law, passed in 1938, granted decision-making about ingredient safety to the cosmetics industry.” This law, among other acts, will phase out ingredients linked to cancer, birth defects and more. It will adequately fund the FDA and require full transparency of ingredients of products for users and beauty workers.

So what can you do in the meantime? As always, be vigilant about reading labels. A good rule of thumb is to look for Sodium Lauryl Sulfates (SLS), parabens, and phthalates. Check out our resources for some of the most toxic products. We have covered a ton of products here at EcoSalon, so scroll down to learn about various natural and/or organic beauty products.

Baby Shampoo
Eye shadow
Deodorant
Shampoo
Conditioner
Makeup Labels
Blush
Kids Nail Polish
Facial Scrubs
Mascara
Moisturizer

Image: idhren

The post Annie Leonard’s The Story of Cosmetics: Essential News About Your Beauty Products appeared first on EcoSalon.

We love our cats and dogs, and we owe it to them to keep them healthy. After all, mercury in fish is just as bad for Whiskers as it is for you! Green pet care may cost a little more up front, but it’s certainly less expensive than future vet bills for sick pets.

Here are some tips to keep your pets healthy:

Don’t buy foods with the chemical preservatives BHA, BHT and ethoxyquin.

Switch your cat’s diet around so they don’t get too much mercury exposure from fish.

Bypass the by-products. Choose ingredients that are organic and free-range.

Don’t use insecticides on your lawn. They’re poisonous to you, but even more so to your furry friends.

Flea collars are toxic. Instead, vacuum often, bathe your pet, and look for safer flea repellents.

Don’t buy pet shampoo. There’s no regulation of chemical ingredients for pet products. Use a mild baby shampoo instead.

And most of all, love your pet and be kind! They depend on your for their care and will be thankful if you treat them as well as you treat yourself.

Source: Pets for the Environment

Image: Mirko Macari

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According to a new study published in the recent Acta Pædiatrica journal, American women might be wise to skip the baby making during spring and summer months. The study, which analyzed the 30.1 million births in the United States between 1996 and 2002, found that there was an increased number of babies with birth defects born to those women who conceived in April, May, June, and July.

But what’s behind all this? Turns out this is the time of the year when there is also an increase in the levels of pesticides in the surface water across the United States. These pesticides include atrazine (which is banned in Europe but still used in the United States) and nitrates, chemicals already suspected to be harmful to the developing embryo.

But this is the first time that a study has been able to link the increased seasonal concentration of pesticides in surface water to a similar increase in birth defects in newborns conceived in the same months.

This is an important finding, for as Dr Winchester, lead author, says -¦ if our suspicions are right and pesticides are contributing to birth defect risk, we can reverse or modify the factors that are causing these lifelong and often very serious medical problems.”

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The post A Correlation Between Month of Conception and Birth Defects, But Why? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Last year, USA Today ran a series of articles looking at the issue of  Toxic Air and America’s Schools. Working with researchers and scientists, they analyzed the extent of industrial pollution outside 128,000 schools across the nation. They have even created an easy search tool so that you can check out your child’s school for air toxicity.

What USA Today discovered is frightening. School children throughout the United States are breathing in extreme levels of toxic chemicals on a routine basis. And these are chemicals that can cause all sorts of health problems, from asthma to cancer, as well as trigger learning disabilities.

As a result of Today‘s investigative reporting, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the other day that it now plans to monitor the air that schoolchildren breathe at 62 schools in 22 states in an effort to determine exactly how toxic the air is.

Starting mid-April, the air surrounding chosen schools will be monitored for at least 60 days. The results will then be analyzed, allowing the EPA to evaluate the health risks students at each school might be facing.

You can find a list of the 62 schools to be tested here, and bookmark this post for timely updates in the future.

Image: duchamp

The post A Toxic Routine: the Air That School Children Breathe appeared first on EcoSalon.

Serious hikers and those who travel are quite familiar with the many varieties of portable water testers. But who would have imagined that here in the United States we would ever feel the need or desire to test our pet food or baby formula?

With an estimated 50,000 Chinese children sickened and several deaths after drinking melamine contaminated formula, and the reported deaths 8,500 dogs and cats in the United States from contaminated pet food produced in China, the folks at Purdue University were inspired to invent a new analysis method that can detect the kidney-damaging chemical in a matter of seconds.

“This situation created an immediate need for an analytical method that is highly sensitive, fast, accurate, and easy to use,” said R. Graham Cooks, Purdue’s Henry B. Hass distinguished professor of chemistry on the Purdue website. Hass led the team that developed the analysis method, which included Guangming Huang, a postdoctoral research associate, and Zheng Ouyang, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering. A paper detailing their work was published online in the journal Chemical Communications and will appear in the next issue of the journal.

Cooks said that even without direct contamination, trace amounts of melamine sometimes make their way into consumable products because melamine is used in manufacturing and is found in many packaging materials. At trace levels, said Cooks, the chemical is not known to be a health threat and has been deemed safe by the FDA. Our analysis, he added, provides a way to determine whether the amounts present exceed safe levels.

The Office of Naval Research Research Tools Program funded this research.

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Our national innocence regarding the safety of our food supply is fast eroding. From salmonella in tomatoes and peanut butter, to E. coli in spinach, how can we trust that the food we eat is safe and the government we pay taxes to is paying attention?

Two recent examples: Last fall, Mother Jones broke the story that canned tuna contains dangerous levels of mercury and that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) knew this when it left canned tuna off the seafood advisories it released in 2001. This week, two studies are out showing that nearly one-third of popular food and drink products listing High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) as the first or second ingredient contain mercury.

So much for that standby childhood lunch of a tuna sandwich and a soda – children are especially susceptible to mercury poisoning.

In the case of mercury contamination of HFCS, Grist reports that the FDA has known about it since 2005 and that the information was finally revealed when a researcher left the agency and published her work in one of the studies just released.

The Corn Refiners Association, conveniently located in Washington D.C. near Capitol Hill, released a statement about one of the studies saying, “This study appears to be based on outdated information of dubious significance.” And while it’s true that not all HFCS is produced using the chemical processes that cause mercury contamination, much of it still is.

In addition to its prior knowledge of the mercury contamination in HFCS, the FDA has done its part in helping HFCS become the ubiquitous ingredient it is. In 1983, the FDA formally listed high fructose corn syrup as safe for use in food. That decision was reaffirmed in 1996 and in 2008, when the agency classified HFCS as a “natural” product.

Despite the FDA’s friendly stance, HFCS had a publicity problem long before the sweetener was found to be contaminated with mercury. Nutritionists have linked the pervasive ingredient to obesity and other health problems.

To counter bad publicity, The Corn Refiners Association launched an approximately $30 million public relations and advertising campaign last summer to convince consumers that HFCS was safe and as natural as sugar. Full page newspaper ads and television commercials ran in the nation’s most prominent media outlets. The blogosphere, including Ecosalon, was not convinced.

In the case of canned tuna, the FDA released an updated advisory in 2003 listing chunk light canned tuna as a “low mercury” seafood. Though the agency didn’t require this information to appear in stores or on tuna cans, the mild warning caused a minor drop in sales. The industry responded by launching a major $25 million campaign touting tuna’s Omega-3 fatty acid content and other health benefits.

Faced with the knowledge that our government agencies are more interested in protecting industry profits than protecting our health, what are we to do?

Trust your instincts. If a cheap, highly subsidized and highly processed ingredient suddenly shows up in a lot of different foods, be suspicious.

If the government drafts an advisory warning the public about contamination of a commodity product (like tuna) but pointedly avoids warning the public about branded versions of that commodity (canned tuna) be suspicious. Tangled red tape is a warning sign.

Be wary of major advertising campaigns by industry groups. You can bet if X industry trade group is spending millions of dollars trying to convince you that a particular product or ingredient is good for you, it probably isn’t.

Speak up.
Tell the new administration in Washington that you want the government to put your health before the health of agribusiness balance sheets.

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Mysteriously, autism rates in California have gone up 700% in the past 15 years. Theories abound. Some claim the explosion in cases is because doctors are more aware and are therefore diagnosing more children; but that doesn’t account for such a huge spike. Others insist it’s vaccines containing thimerosal that are to blame; but thimerosal (a mercury compound used as a preservative) was phased out in 1999 and autism continues to skyrocket. Environmentalists have long argued that it must be due to environmental factors.

A new study confirms this.

Flame retardants, mercury, pesticides, phthalates, flea shampoos, even chemicals in antibacterial soaps have been linked to autism if the mother had significant exposure to any of these during her pregnancy. Any and all of these substances can disrupt neurological development in fetuses and infants. What’s disturbing is how common most of these chemicals are – and when one’s environment includes more than one, as is the case for most of us, imagine the consequences.

Further studies are needed, but if you still haven’t greened your cosmetics, cleaning supplies and other household goods, now is the time to do so. No harm can come from switching to more natural products, but plenty of harm may come if collectively we don’t.

Image: Dianna

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