EDF Health

The science behind toxic inequities in beauty and personal care products

By Jennifer McPartland / Published: July 19, 2021

Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist with the Health Program.

Prominent incidences of environmental injustice in the public eye are typically place-based — from lead-contaminated tap water in Flint, Michigan to smokestacks lining Cancer Alley in Louisiana. For decades, communities of color and low income communities have confronted long-standing discriminatory practices and policies around land use, housing, and related issues that result in greater exposures to pollution and toxic chemicals.

While geography is a predictor of an individual’s health and well-being, environmental injustice and environmental racism extend beyond geography to include inequities in toxic exposures like in personal care product formulations. Beauty and personal care products marketed to women of color often contain more toxic ingredients than products marketed to white women. As a result, women of color are disproportionately exposed to toxic chemicals through these products. Read More »

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Beauty has a toxic equity problem. It’s time companies champion clean beauty justice.

By EDF Blogs / Published: July 14, 2021

By Boma Brown-West. This blog was originally posted on EDF+Business.

The U.S. beauty industry is under scrutiny for its use of toxic chemicals. Consumers, particularly Gen Z, are concerned about the ingredients in their beauty and personal care products and the impact they are having on their health, and are pushing the industry to clean up its act.

Companies are responding by trumpeting clean beauty commitments. From major retailers to boutique brands, the number of companies marketing “cleaner” alternatives is exploding. Today, the clean beauty industry is estimated to reach $11 billion by 2027.

While it’s encouraging to see companies work to fill the current regulatory void on safe beauty products, the majority of clean efforts are focused only on products marketed to white women. As a result, women of color don’t have the same access to safer beauty options, and are therefore facing alarming and disproportionate exposure to toxic chemicals.

Retailers and product manufacturers need to champion clean beauty justice, which will put racial equity front-and-center in their efforts to provide consumers of color with safer products. Read More »

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Finally—EPA takes steps to unify its approach to the evaluation of chemicals for cancer and non-cancer endpoints

By Jennifer McPartland / Published: July 13, 2021

Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist, and Lariah Edwards, Ph.D., is an EDF-George Washington University Postdoctoral Fellow

A recent article in Inside EPA ($) indicated that the US EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) will begin piloting a “unified approach” to the evaluation of chemicals for cancer and non-cancer endpoints. Specifically, it appears that the program intends to develop analyses demonstrating how a unified approach could work as supplements to some of its chemical assessments. This represents a major step forward in advancing the science of chemical assessment at EPA and is responsive to recommendations the scientific community and stakeholders have been making for years.

By way of background, chemical regulatory assessments generally assume that if a chemical is a genotoxic carcinogen, there is no exposure threshold for the effect. This means that across a diverse population, some level of risk for developing cancer exists at any level of exposure. Traditionally for all other toxicity endpoints, EPA and other regulatory agencies typically have assumed that there is a bright-line exposure threshold below which no adverse health effect will be seen.

This bifurcated approach to characterizing chemical hazards and risks is not scientifically supported. The assumption that there are “safe” exposure thresholds for all non-cancer endpoints ignores real-world variability in exposure and susceptibility across the human population.  This variability influences whether any particular person or group will experience an adverse effect, and includes such factors as: co-exposures to other chemical and non-chemical stressors and differences in susceptibility that may arise from things like genetic differences or underlying health conditions.

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Beyond paper: PFAS linked to common plastic packaging used for food, cosmetics, and much more

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: July 7, 2021

Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director, Maricel Maffini, consultant, and Tom Bruton with Green Science Policy Institute. 

Update August 11, 21 – Added FDA’s Response to FOIA.

Results from an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigation into PFAS-contaminated pesticides have much broader, concerning implications for food, cosmetics, shampoos, household cleaning products, and other consumer products, as well as recycling. This investigation, first announced earlier this year, found that fluorinated high-density polyethylene (HDPE) containers used for pesticide storage contained a mix of short and long-chain per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), including PFOA, that leached into the product. From what EPA can tell, the PFAS were not intentionally added to the HDPE containers but are hypothesized to have been produced when fluorine gas was applied to the plastic.

Since EPA released its investigation, we have learned the disturbing fact that the fluorination of plastic is commonly used to treat hundreds of millions of polyethylene and polypropylene containers each year ranging from packaged food and consumer products that individuals buy to larger containers used by retailers such as restaurants to even larger drums used by manufacturers to store and transport fluids.

The process of polyethylene fluorination was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1983 for food packaging to reduce oxygen and moisture migration through the plastic that would cause foods to spoil. The fluorination process forms a barrier on the plastic’s surface and it also strengthens the packaging.

Fluorination of plastic leading to the inadvertent creation of PFAS may be another reason these ‘forever chemicals’ show up in many unexpected places. This significant source of PFAS contamination needs to be addressed. Much remains to be resolved as FDA and EPA actively investigate this new source of PFAS; however, preventive steps need to be taken quickly, especially since other PFAS-free barrier materials are available as alternatives.

Growing evidence links PFAS to a wide range of serious health effects – from developmental problems to cancer.

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Heart disease and adult lead exposure – the evidence grows more compelling

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: June 30, 2021

Tom Neltner, J.D., is Chemicals Policy Director

Two recent articles add to the already strong evidence that adult exposure to relatively low levels of lead is associated with heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, after COVID-19. These studies reinforce the urgent need to reduce not only children’s exposure to lead but also adult exposure through regulatory action.

A February 2021 Environmental Health Perspectives article found that blood lead levels were positively associated with prevalence of moderate to severe coronary artery stenosis (CAS), the narrowing of at least 25% of these vital arteries to the heart. The researchers studied a cohort of 2,000 Korean adults studied with no history of CAS, cardiovascular disease (CVD), or occupational exposure to lead. The vast majority of their blood lead levels were below the U.S. Center of Disease Control’s (CDC) reference level.[1] The researchers found that he severity of CAS is an important predictor for life threatening cardiovascular disease, even after adjusting for factors such as age, sex, hypertension, body mass index, regular exercise, smoking, and alcohol drinking.[2]

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Getting chemical safety back on track 5 years after TSCA reform

By EDF Blogs / Published: June 22, 2021

Five years ago, President Obama signed into law the Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which overhauled the country’s chemical safety law to better protect people from toxic chemicals.

In a welcome change to the dismal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform anniversaries during the Trump administration, this year we are able to highlight some signs of progress we have seen from the Biden EPA that are getting chemical safety back on track.

Though significant challenges remain and lots of work lies ahead to repair the damage done by the former administration and advance a broader vision of health protection for everyone, here are five ways the Biden administration has started to turn things around on chemical safety:

1. Naming leaders committed to scientific integrity and public health protection

With Michael Regan at the helm of EPA, the agency is already miles ahead of where it stood in the last administration. The critical position for overseeing TSCA implementation at EPA is the leader of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Fortunately, a chemist with deep experience on TSCA and other chemical issues from her time on Capitol Hill, Dr. Michal Freedhoff, has been confirmed for the role.

Both Regan and Freedhoff have made strong statements supporting a return to scientific integrity and transparency – which are critical needs to building back trust. Dr. Freedhoff specifically cited how the Trump White House forced EPA scientists to weaken their assessment of the dangerous chemical trichloroethylene, an egregious example of political interference in science-based decision-making.

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