Have you ever looked at the ingredient list of your favorite fragrance? I guarantee you cannot pronounce most of the words. That can't be good. And did you also know that the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found 14 secret ingredients not even listed on the label -- they call them trade secrets. I call them synthetic chemicals. To make matters really worse, it's totally legal to omit those ingredients from the label.
It's unusual to find a household or personal-care product made without synthetic fragrances. You practically can't escape it. Recently I was putting on lipstick and I noticed it was perfumed. Why would I possibly want my lipstick to smell good? I call this "involuntary aromatherapy," and we're all exposed to it every day.
Fragrances may seem benign, but they can irritate the eyes, nose and throat. Many of the individual chemicals in perfumes and other fragrances can also potentially cause damage to the liver, kidney, immune and reproductive systems.
And virtually all fragrances are stabilized with phthalates -- yes, we've heard about them before. They're plasticizers and fragrance carriers that are banned in children's toys, but still used in a wide array of consumer products, especially those containing PVC (polyvinyl chloride).
They're in nail polishes, where they keep polishes flexible; in hair sprays, where they keep your hair from stiffening too much; and -- more importantly -- in the vast majority of fragrances, where they help to stabilize, or "fix" perfumes in products to make fragrances last longer.
Phthalates are especially dangerous to children. The Washington Toxic Coalition explains in no uncertain terms that a developing baby is extremely vulnerable to the effects of toxic chemicals. They develop at a breakneck pace in the womb, and that development is easily derailed by toxic chemicals. Unlike adults, babies also have a very limited ability to detoxify foreign chemicals.
Just last month, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found that higher prenatal exposures to phthalates significantly increased the odds of motor and behavioral developmental delay during the preschool years. The Center for Health Environment and Justice summarizes the mounting evidence against phthalates in "This is Your Brain on PVC." The facts on trends in learning disabilities are startling:
• The incidence of learning and developmental disabilities appears to be rising, affecting about one in six children in the U.S.
• The number of children in special education programs classified with learning disabilities increased 191 percent from 1977 to 1994.
• Since the early 1990s, reported cases of autism spectrum disorder have increased tenfold. One in a hundred American children has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed childhood psychiatric disorder in the United States. Recent evidence suggests the prevalence may be as high as 17 percent for all school children.
• The U.S. has seen a six-fold increase in ADHD between the years 1985 (0.7 million cases) and 2000 (4-5 million cases).
Many naysayers believe that these numbers are exaggerated -- that we are perhaps just better today at identifying these problems in children. I say that may be true in part, but the numbers speak for themselves and are way too staggering to dismiss.
But there is a silver lining to this dark cloud: Phthalates don't build up in our bodies. When the source of exposure is removed, levels decrease quickly.
You can begin making a difference for you and your family right now by skipping PVC plastic (vinyl) in products like shower curtains, food wrap and flooring, and checking ingredient lists to avoid "fragrance" and phthalates. You can find detailed information on thousands of products in the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database.
On a personal note, I stopped wearing perfume when I gave birth to my first child 11 years ago. It just didn't feel right when my infant smelled like Chanel No. 5. I may no longer smell like jasmine or spice, but I'm a lot safer.
Follow Sloan Barnett on Twitter and join Sloan on her Facebook Fan Page.
Follow Sloan Barnett on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sloanbarnett
Not all phthalates are dangerous. The Columbia study focused on low density ones used in some PVC and toys—DEHP, BBP, DBP, DIBP. They are less stable and release outgasses. The EU has classified them as reproductive toxicants. If you had made this point, you would have served your readers well. It pointedly does not regulate tightly bound high density plasticizers-DINP, DIDP, DPHP- that are stable and for which there are few safe/effective alternatives. They have been used as a substitute or low density ones and in pigments, adhesives & lubricants. There has not been one scientific risk assessment that has concluded they are dangerous for humans or the environment (that hasn't stopped campaigners from making that claim or even political bodies from urging bans, but in those cases it's been against the recommendations of scientific risk assessment bodies).
Summary: DINP, used in fragrances or PVC, is not dangerous.
Educate the public, don't scare them. There are no safe/effective alternatives to high density phthalates. Don't play toxic roulette with kids!
Jon Entine www.jonentine.com
Riding the bus for 10yrs, it seems that folks are wearing less fragrance than,say in the 80's and 90's.
TBH, I would rather smell a little BO, than get a whiff of some awful cheap Target knockoff perfume any day.
Margaret Dunkle asked about the safety of the ever-expanding vaccination schedule http://njvaccinationchoice.org/docs/genrescue.pdf when it's never been tested for its cumulative effect.
Officials acknowledge that certain children may be susceptible to severe reactions to vaccines yet there is no way to tell which children have this predisposition.
Anne Dachel, Media editor: Age of Autism http://www.ageofautism.com/
Hundreds of top people at both agencies have conflict of interest waivers because they're also being paid by the companies they're overseeing. The last head of the CDC, Dr. Julie Gerberding, a long time denier of any link between vaccines and autism, is now head of the vaccine division at Merck.
Anne Dachel, Media editor: Age of Autism http://www.ageofautism.com/
Tens of thousands of parents report that their children were born healthy and were developing normally until they received certain routine vaccinations. Suddenly they got sick with things like seizures, bowel disease, and sleep disorders. Many stopped talking and lost learned skills, ending up with an autism diagnosis. Doctors say autism has no known cause. The only thing they're sure of is that their ever-expanding vaccine schedule isn't to blame and they have lots of pharma-funded studies to prove
See youtube for "The Greater Good," a new film http://www.youtube.com/user/GreaterGoodMovie that explores the reality of our ever-expanding vaccine schedule.
Anne Dachel, Media editor: Age of Autism http://www.ageofautism.com/
INGREDIENTS/INGRÉDIENTS: WATER/EAU, CETEARYL ETHYLHEXANOATE, PHENYL TRIMETHICONE, CETYL LACTATE, OCTYLDODECYL NEOPENTANOATE, DIMETHICONE, POLYSORBATE 60, STEARIC ACID, PANTHENOL, HYDROGENATED LECITHIN, SORBITAN STEARATE, PEG-100 STEARATE, TRIDECYL TRIMELLITATE, GLYCERYL ISOSTEARATE, TOCOPHERYL ACETATE, GLYCERIN, BETA-GLUCAN, PPG-20 METHYL GLUCOSE ETHER, SODIUM COCO PG-DIMONIUM CHLORIDE PHOSPHATE, POTASSIUM SORBATE, STEARYL ALCOHOL, TRIETHANOLAMINE, CARBOMER, CERA ALBA/BEESWAX/CIRE D'ABEILLE, DISODIUM EDTA, ACRYLATES/C10-30 ALKYL ACRYLATE CROSSPOLYMER, PEG-7M, FRAGRANCE/PARFUM, BISABOLOL, RETINYL PALMITATE, VITIS VINIFERA (GRAPE) SEED EXTRACT, SUPEROXIDE DISMUTASE, MAGNESIUM ASCORBYL PHOSPHATE, PHENOXYETHANOL, 1,2-HEXANEDIOL, CAPRYLYL GLYCOL, ETHYLHEXYLGLYCERIN, BENZOIC ACID, SODIUM BENZOATE.
Martin S. Flacks RPH
VP of Personal Care Product R&D
Shaklee Corporation
Viewing the labels on the Shaklee cosmetics documents the exact same situation she finds fault with in her article: loaded with ingredients some people cannot pronounce; secret ingredients hidden under the ingredient labeled "fragrance".
The ingredients that are listed document a product that contains hazardous chemicals no one would want if they were shopping for a "green" cosmetic.
We still don't know what causes problems like ADHD, but there is evidence to suggest that it has been with us longer than the widespread use of PVC's.
Remember, Columbus didn't discover America. The continent had been there long before he knew about it. And it wasn't until Amerigo Vespuci correctly identified it as a new continent did people start accepting it as America. The same is true o ADHD. The more we learn about it, the more we learn about who might have it and who might night. But until we can pin down the cause of it (the dominant theory is heredity) it is reckless to speculate on other causes without sufficient scientific study to back it up.