SAFER SUBSTITUTES RECOMMENDED

Did you know that your lipstick and other make up contains formaldehyde?

In my endless search to make life cleaner and less toxic, I saw an article on this site that I want to share. Dr. Philip Landrigan, of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine is quoted. You can read about his specialties online.
The following is only a portion of the article, so I urge you to go there and read the entire post. Among things that cause cancer are the cosmetics we use or personal body care products we use.
This includes the chemicals to make fragrance.

Cosmetics

Your makeup bag and medicine cabinet may be hazardous to your health, containing chemicals that are known carcinogens.
Philip Landrigan, dean of Global Health at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, advises avoiding the “dirty dozen” toxic chemicals in skin care listed in National Geographic’s Green Guide, including:

• Antibacterials
• Formaldehyde
• Hydroquinone
• Mercury
• Lead
• Parabens
• Phenylenediamine
• Coal tar
• Diethanolamine
• 1,4-Dioxane
• Nanoparticles
• Petroleum distillates

According to Landrigan, chemicals belonging to a class called phthalates are among the biggest culprits in beauty products because they mimic the action of our natural hormones. Phthalates such as dibutyl phthalate (DBP), dimethyl phthalate (DMP), and diethyl phthalate (DEP) are used in beauty products as “plasticizers,” to harden nail polish, help hair spray adhere to the hair, and fix scent in perfumes. 
Phthalates are also found in the flexible plastic bottles in which shampoo, lotion, and other beauty products are stored, and they can leach into the contents.

Another of the worst offenders is lipstick, which may contain lead, known to cause numerous health problems, including cancer.

In response to a public health effort by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, the FDA recently conducted two separate investigations testing lipsticks for lead, and the results were pretty scary.
Lead was detected in every single one of the lipsticks tested, and not in small amounts. The first FDA test revealed lead levels up to 3.06 ppm (parts per million), and the second test found lead levels up to 7.19 ppm.

Safer substitute: The generic term “fragrance” can cover a lot of chemical additives; choose fragrance-free products or fragrances made from botanical ingredients. Natural skin care and beauty companies sell natural and organic skin care lines that list their ingredients transparently and are free of phthalates, heavy metals such as lead, and other toxic chemicals.

The above information came from:
http://blackdoctor.org/13764/everyday-things-that-cause-cancer

Your Fragrance is Killing Me -- and You and Your Children

Have you ever counted how many cosmetics or personal care products you use in a day? Chances are it's nearly 10. And chances are good that they include shampoo, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, hair conditioner, lip balm, sunscreen, body lotion, shaving products if you're a man, and cosmetics if you are a woman. And what about your children? On any given day you might rub, spray, or pour some combination of sunscreen, diaper cream, shampoo, lotion, and maybe even insect repellant on their skin.

Most people use these products without a second thought, and believe that the government must certainly be policing the safety of the mixtures in these myriad containers. But they are wrong about this.

The government does not require health studies or pre-market testing for these products before they are sold. And as people apply an average of 126 unique ingredients on their skin daily, these chemicals, whether they seep through the skin, rinse down the drain, or flush down the toilet in human excretions, are causing concerns for human health, and for the impacts they may have to wildlife, rivers and streams.

Why personal care products? At first blush it may seem that mascara and shaving cream have little relevance to the broader world of environmental health. Think again. In August 2005, when scientists published a study finding a relationship between plasticizers called phthalates and feminization of U.S. male babies, they named fragrance as a possible culprit. When estrogenic industrial chemicals called parabens were found in human breast tumor tissue earlier this year, researchers questioned if deodorant was the source. And when studies show, again and again, that hormone systems in wildlife are thrown in disarray by common water pollutants, once again the list of culprits include personal care products, rinsing down drains and into rivers.

At the Environmental Working Group we have researched and advocated on personal care product safety for five years now, and consider it an integral part of our work to strengthen our system of public health protections from industrial chemicals. Here's why:

Industrial chemicals are basic ingredients in personal care products. The 10,500 unique chemical ingredients in these products equate to about one of every eight of the 82,000 chemicals registered for use in the U.S.

Personal care products contain carcinogens, pesticides, reproductive toxins, endocrine disruptors, plasticizers, degreasers, and surfactants. They are the chemical industry in a bottle.
No premarket safety testing required — this is a reality of both the personal care product industry and the broader chemical industry as a whole. For industrial chemicals, the government approves an average of seven new chemicals every day.

Eighty percent are approved in three weeks or less, with or without safety tests. Advocating that industry have an understanding of product safety before selling to the public finds common messages, common methods, and common gains whether the focus is cosmetic ingredients or other industrial chemicals.
Everyone uses personal care products. Exposures are widespread, and for some people, extensive. Our 2004 product use survey shows that more than a quarter of all women and one of every 100 men use at least 15 products daily. These exposures add up, and raise questions about the potential health risks from the myriad of unassessed ingredients migrating into the bodies of nearly every American, day after day.

No safety testing. According to the agency that regulates cosmetics, the FDA's Office of Cosmetics and Colors, "...a cosmetic manufacturer may use almost any raw material as a cosmetic ingredient and market the product without an approval from FDA" (FDA 1995). The industry's self-policing safety panel falls far short of compensating for the lack of government oversight. An EWG analysis found that in its 30-year history, the industry's self-policing safety panel has reviewed the safety of just 11 percent of the 10,500 ingredients used in personal care products. FDA does no systematic reviews of safety. And collectively, the ingredients in personal care products account for one of every eight of the 82,000 chemicals industries have registered for commercial use with the Environmental Protection Agency.

The article above is excerpted from http://www.ewg.org/. In a recent post I commented on chemical sensitivity which is a deadly problem for some of us. When you read the above and other information about the chemicals we ingest into our bodies, our childrens' bodies and how many of these chemicals pollute the air that others have to breathe, I hope you will think carefully about reading labels and becoming an advocate for the health of all of us. I've heard from others who have to deal with chemical sensitivity and it is a very serious problem.

82,000 chemicals are manufactured in this country and the people, you and I, are being subjected to the danger of them every day and in every place, including our own homes.

Pollution of our bodies by folks we trust

The EWG newsletter I receive monthly has an interesting article that says the expensive bottled water we buy is no purer than regular tap water from our cities' treatment plants.Scientists have taken samples of bottled water which usually makes us thing of clear mountain springs, and tested it to find fecal bacteria, man made chemicals I can't even spell or pronounce and remnants of pain medicines, which have come from our bodies. The Environmental Working Group works hard to bring to the attention of the public and Congress that we are killing ourselves with the chemicals we ingest every day in ways we aren't even aware of.

My well water is cleaner than the so called "purified" water in the bottles we buy. Who would ever have thought when I was growing up that we would be buying water at nearly $2.00 a pop. This report says we need to insist that Congress pass a law that makes these bottlers and manufacturers tell the truth about what is in the water, especially for the sake of children. They have found that babies are being born with chemical pollution in their system from what the mothers ate or drank while pregnant.

While talking with a doctor this week, we discussed the growth of lymphoma diagnoses in recent years. He said they will someday find out it has to do with what we are eating. But I think it goes farther than that.
Every woman in America who gets up each morning, showers, shampoos her hair, uses deodorants, body washes, and scented lotions, pours hundreds of foreign chemicals into her body. Then she puts on makeup, eyeliner, lipstick, cologne, and sprays her hair to make it last all day.

What we put on our skin goes into our bodies. All that small print on the bottles, tubes and jars, tells you what chemicals you are ingesting through your skin. It gets into your bloodstream and main organs. One woman tested her blood for chemicals and was surprised to find things in there that she would not have ingested knowingly. Many of the things like parabens and pthalates are found in almost all cosmetics. The EWG website tells what they have found to be safe cosmetics, nail polish and other things that will not slowly poison us over the years.

As a person who must deal with a sensitivity to chemicals which bring on asthma, break down my immune system, and give me blinding headaches, I learned I am not alone. Many women my age are fighting this same syndrome. Over the years we have ingested so many dangerous chemicals into our bodies that our system is completely overloaded. With age, our natural immunity gives out and these man made chemicals that are not supervised by our FDA, creep into more and more of our products and we don't even know they are there or that they are poisoning us.
To learn more on this subject, go to http://www.ewg.org/ and see for yourself.
This is the information that should be forwarded around the world by email instead of the cruel and lying political junk I get everyday.