Straight From the Horse's Mouth

Hey y'all -

I wanted to share a post that appears on Personal Care Truth.

Kristin and I started Personal Care Truth for a variety of reasons.  The main one being we were and still are, tired of the half truths and fear mongering floating around on the web. The misleading information is sprouting up because of the alarmists cramming scare tactics down the throats of consumers.

When writing about the things we hear, see and do in the personal care products industry, it is really nice to have audio of scientific data or claims made by either side of the isle.  Kristin and I pride ourselves on providing truthful information and when we have the opportunity to share an audio of something we have both written posts on, well, it gives more credibility to our cause.

As my dad always says, “I’m from Missouri, you’ve got to show me”.  Well, here ya go.  You’ve read many posts that reference the Colorado Safe Personal Care Products Act that was brought before Colorado legislators back in March, 2010.  We’ve all quoted what we heard while listening live to the session.  Now, you can hear what we heard and then blogged about.  It’s hard to say you didn’t say something when there is a recording to prove otherwise.

For the record, I contacted Robin with the Colorado Legislative Council and received permission to use snippets from the recording I captured of the live session in March, 2010.

The following audio snippet contains Susan Roll, a social worker and a founding member of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, testifying as the Vice Chair of The Women’s Lobby of Colorado.  Ms. Roll was asked by Representative Daniel Kagan, “Where are the independent scientific studies”?  Listen below.

Wow! “We don’t have the science”.  Come on!  Do the alarmists really believe it is right to mislead consumers on a hunch?  On an educated guess?  All the while sending out newsletters asking for $5 here and $5 there.

As defined by Wikipedia, “The precautionary principle states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action”.  The truth is, in all the years personal care and household products have been on the market, they have been scientifically proven to be safe.  Remember, “the dose makes the poison”, which is a fundamental principle of toxicology.

With no scientific backup, Ms. Roll urged Colorado lawmakers to pass a law that would have limited consumer choice, strangled innovation and decimated thousands of small and family-owned businesses that are the backbone of the economy. I am relieved that Coloradans rejected the proposed bill. It would have had a needless
adverse effect on the lives of the very women on behalf of whom Ms. Roll claimed to speak. – Donna Maria Coles Johnson, Indie Beauty Network

There is a great deal of danger in misinformation, half truths, bad science and the manipulated data used by organizations like Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, Environmental Working Group and Skin Deep.  Based on a “feeling” they are misleading consumers into believing the safe ingredients are dangerous.  Not only do these organizations have bad science, but they lack it all together, and yet they are leading a charge to nowhere.   I think that Nobel Prize Winner John C. Polanyi said it best, “Nothing is more irredeemably irrelevant than bad science.” – Kayla Fioravanti, RA, Essential Wholesale Labs

People generally view substances as either “safe” or “dangerous”, and unless they have studied a life science, they may find it difficult to grasp the concept that it’s just not that simple. The human body only reacts to a substance when its concentration crosses a certain threshold. Above that threshold dose, there is an effect (whether “good”, “bad”, or both) and below that, THERE IS NO EFFECT AT ALL!

Yes, there can be cumulative effects, when different or similar substances aggregate, or “conspire” together to cause an effect, even though each of the substances alone may be below threshold. And, chronic, occupational, or lifetime exposure to a substance, even at below-threshold levels, can be problematic. But, that’s really because the threshold actually needs adjusting. Toxicity levels for short-term exposure are quite different to those for long-term exposure.

Toxicologists address often address these issues by giving rodents quite high doses over two years, pretty much a lifetime exposure for a rodent. Then, they figure out the dose that has no adverse effect, and then scale it down, usually by 500 or 1,000 times, before extrapolating to humans. These “uncertainty factors” are the main way of taking into account all of the above issues, and the fact that rodents may be less sensitive than humans to the toxicity of the substance. Though in most cases, it’s the other way round. – Robert Tisserand, The Tisserand Institute

So based on conjecture, supposition and “educated” guesses the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics feels they can dictate what ingredients are safe for us to use by removing an individuals personal choice on what they wished to use on their own body through
legislation, believing that only the government knows what is best for us.

This entity is extremely flawed and though perhaps well intentioned in the beginning as they gathered our signatures, they have now turned into a ruling authority utilizing political powers, dictating whether or not our products are toxic or that we may use toxic ingredients, and then instill fear in compact signers, they will be removed from the
data base if they don’t comply.

These tactics are slowly eroding the foundation they were built on and I along with many in our industry, who have defected, and have seen the truth behind their agenda, are coordinating our efforts to attempt to undue the damage they have caused with their irrational thinking and illegitimate research. – Katherine Corkill, Sterling
Minerals

Ironically, the very people who are trying to take these things away from us are the people telling you they are trying to protect them; the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Its very unclear to me what their motive is and that of their parent group the Environmental Working Group. Out of an apparent fear of chemistry they want to ban an extraordinary number of chemicals from skin care, chemicals that we eat in our food everyday.

Their fear of chemistry is such that it prevents them from seeing that many of the chemicals they would like to ban are ubiquitous chemicals occurring naturally in our environment; chemicals that compose the aroma molecules of essential oils, the antioxidants of vegetable oils, and miscellaneous molecules of fruits, vegetables and
herbs.

Did the relatively few small businesses that supported this bill even read the list of substances to be banned? I doubt it. If they had they would see that passing this bill would have made it impossible for any cosmetic company to manufacture or sell in the state of Colorado, including themselves. – Cindy Jones, Sagescript Institute

Personal care products are not introduced directly into your body in a dose (like a drug); they are not in any way introduced ‘in vitro’. They are leave on and rinse off.  If lotions really absorbed in all that well, anti-wrinkle creams would work like the packaging says they do.

We need to speak up for safe and knowledgeable regulation that takes into consideration natural occurrence and recognizes the difference between concentrated doses and personal care product use. Remember, salt and water can kill and no one is looking to ban any of those items. – Anne Marie Faiola, Brambleberry

It is surely of some considerable concern that a highly specialised, scientific subject such as toxicology relating to the safety of substances is being challenged by a social worker with no scientific background. If the lobby group that put Susan Roll forward as the spokesperson cannot offer a more credible champion, perhaps they should re-consider their entire strategy, i.e. disband.

It is comforting that the person putting the questions to Susan Roll was capable of coherent and logical thought processes and had an awareness of the difference between hazard and risk. It is less comforting to know that there are probably many hundreds, maybe thousands, of Susan Rolls’ around the world, lobbying for other causes of which they have a complete lack of insight or understanding. Susan Roll is exactly the sort of person who would campaign for the banning of dihydrogen monoxide. I find it difficult to be more damning than that! – Dene Godfrey

By the time I found the link to listen live to the legislative session, 30 minutes of the opponents testimony had already passed.  The audio picks up at the end of Dr. Jones testimony.  If you would like to hear the 2 hours I was able to record, you can do so below.  {Apologies for audio quality.  I was in a mad dash to get it recorded once I found the live link}