The results weren’t pretty.

Chemicals From Cosmetics Found In Young Women

For instance, every single young lady was exposed to parabens, a group of artificial preservatives. Some parabens can irritate the skin or cause allergic reactions In laboratory studies. There have also been indications that parabens are estrogenic, meaning they can mimic the hormone estrogen. This is disruptive to the normal function of the hormone system. Obviously, in young women, that particular system has kicked into high gear, and with the presence of these chemicals is put in jeopardy.

To complicate matters, if personal care products containing parabens are combined with chlorinated tap water, a number of chlorinated paraben byproducts can form. Considering most people have chlorinated water these days, that seems very likely – washing your face, taking a bath or shower – it’s easy for that combination to occur.

Worse, parabens is just the tip of this particular iceburg. Besides parabens, this study detected 16 chemicals from 4 chemical families known to have harmful effects on the human body.

Where’s The Safety Regulations?

Unfortunately, there are no federal health statutes requirng companies to test personal care products or ingredients for safety before they are sold. The Food And Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t have the authority to require testing of personal care product ingredients.

In other words, there is no set standard of safety these companies have to follow.

Even if there’s a known problem with a personal care product, the FDA doesn’t have the power to require the recall of a harmful product. All recalls are totally voluntary company actions.

The Fox Is Guarding The Henhouse!

Instead of governmental regulations for safety of personal care products, the industry polices itself through the Cosmetic Ingredient Revew (CIR). Excuse me, but might they be just a tad biased?

Even if they aren’t, the CIR has only reviewed a piddling 11% of all ingredients used in costmetics. Yep, barely more than one tenth of all ingredients have been tested, and some of those are ones not used any more. Furthermore, the testing is mostly for concerns like irritation, while ignoring potential problems of more serious concern like cancer or birth defects or hormone disruption.

And even if the CIR finds anything, companies don’t have to follow their recommendations. They’re free to ignore them since compliance is entirely voluntary.

Bottom line… most personal care products have ingredients that have never been tested for safety by any accountable agency, nor are companies expected to meet any sort of regulations for safety.

Where Does That Leave The Consumer?

For not only young ladies such as those in the study by the Environmental Working Group, but for all people, it would be nice to know what personal care products are safe.

The only organization certifying personal care products right now is the Natural Products Association. They recently instituted a Certification Program For Natural Care Products. Those products which meet their standards may use the seal pictured to the right on their products.

The guidelines are as folows:

• The product must be made up of at least 95% truly natural ingredients, or ingredients that are derived from natural sources,
• No ingredients with any potential suspected human health risks,
• No processes that significantly or adversely alter the purity/effect of the natural ingredients,
• Ingredients that come from a purposeful, renewable/plentiful source found in nature (flora, fauna, mineral), and
• Unnatural ingredients only when viable natural alternative ingredient are unavailable and only when there are absolutely no suspected potential human health risks.

Does that mean the safety of these products is 100% guaranteed? No, it’s possible for a natural product to cause a health problem. However, generally speaking, natural products have a longer history of safe use. Chemicals or synthetic ingedients are new in comparison, and despite scientific testing, are sometimes found to have negative effects on the human body when used for longer periods of time. Think how many times a so-called safe drug is recalled because it’s found to have harmful effects!

Informed Health Care

Take charge of your health, and that of your family! Look for personal care products that don’t have a bunch of untested ingredients in them.

http://www.ewg.org/book/export/html/26953

www.naturalproductsassoc.org

Of all the ways we’ve used antibiotics, allowing them in our food supply may well top the list as our biggest mistake in creating antibiotic resistant bacteria. Why? For one thing, this was mostly unnecessary germ warfare. We used antibiotics when they weren’t truly needed in the battle against germs.  The antibiotics weren’t used in a search for better healthcare at all.

Also, many people are totally unaware they are consuming antibiotics in their food, so they can be exposed to antibiotics and not even know it. Unfortunately, it’ s quite pervasive. People have to eat, and a lot of the food they’re eating has been compromised.

Feeding Antibiotics to Healthy Animals

So how do antibiotics get in our food? For one thing, cattle and other meat-producing animals are often given low doses (sub-clinical levels) of antibiotic drugs to increase production. In this instance, antibiotics aren’t being used to fight disease, but because someone discovered the animals would grow faster if they were given low doses of antibiotics.

This is especially useful to industrial-style livestock operations. They’re putting as many animals as possible in the smallest space possible to increase the bottom line. Not only do they want the edge of increased weight gains from animals taking antibiotics, but there is greater need for antibiotics to prevent disease in the crowded conditions.

The exact figures vary widely depending on the source, but there is little doubt antibiotics are used much more for animals than people. After all, for the most part, people take antibiotics only when they’re sick. Many food animals such as cattle, pigs, and chickens, are given antibiotics on a regular basis to increase the profit margin.

Day after day we’re pouring antibiotics into animals. And then day after day, people eat animal products like meat from those animals.

Worse, these low doses of antibiotics aren’t strong enough to kill off microbes that have developed even a weak resistance, so that many more bacteria prone to resisting antibiotics are allowed to reproduce and continue to mutate and become stronger.

Growing Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria All Over The Farm

Having antibiotics in the animals is bad enough, but it doesn’t end there. The resistant bacteria from animals that have been on antibiotics get spread around on the farm.

J. Glenn Morris, Jr., of the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute, said, “We looked at a confined animal operation that used tetracycline at sub-therapeutic levels to enhance growth.” And what did they find? After sampling the soil and water all over the farm, they discovered “the resistance genes for tetracycline had permeated the entire bacterial community. Everything was tetracycline-resistant. And the bacteria carried between four and five genes that made them resistant to tetracycline.”

Bacteria adapt. And they pass those adaptations around, so the antibiotic resistance genes are passed from one species or strain to another. Eventually, ALL the bacteria on the farm carry resistance genes.

And did you notice? The germs even went underground. So now the bacteria in the soil is antibiotic resistant. And the water has antibiotic resistant germs.  So what about the plants growing in the soil? Don’t you suppose they too can pick up those pervasive antibiotic resistant bacteria?

A Double Edged Sword That’s Bad News In Health

This creates more than one problem with antibiotic resistant bacteria. First off, this widespread use of antibiotics in livestock is creating large reservoirs of resistance to antibiotics in animals. When people eat products from these animals, the resistance could be transferred.

Secondly, people can be exposed to antibiotic resistant bacteria from handling the raw meat when preparing meals. Without careful hand washing in-between handling different foods, the bacteria could be transferred to a raw food like salad for example. Then when a person eats the salad, or if they ate undercooked meat, they can become infected with a resistant Campylobacter or Salmonella.

And since they are resistant strains, antibiotics may not work.

Further, while the food may not actually have disease causing bacteria, it is still covered with Enterococci and other harmless bacteria. Although these bacteria may not produce disease, they can carry resistant genes picked up from the farm environment and in their new environment transfer the genes to other bacteria that aren’t so harmless.

It’s going to be a sad day if you have to wear sterile gloves in the kitchen to safely cook.

Rethinking The Use Of Antibiotics

No matter how you look at it, feeding antibiotics to animals on a regular basis is causing major problems. While hospital acquired infections are bad, not nearly as many people are exposed to them as those that are exposed every day to antibiotic resistant bacteria by eating foods from the farm.

We’ve got to rethink our use of antibiotics, and we’ve got to do it fast.

FDA Consumer Magazine, Sept. 1995
www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/
www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/anti_resist.html
www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/antimicrobialresistance/
www.sierraclub.org/factoryfarms/factsheets/antibiotics.asp
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in antimicrobial resistance. The Journal of Infectious Diseases DOI: 10.1086/533451
Nutrition Action Health Letter, October 2008

Regulating Safe Food For Good Health

But the government protects us from the bad food bogeymen, right? They make all those laws and regulations that are in the latest news on health, keeping us safe.

After all, we have the USDA and FDA, and even the EPA, all agencies that in one way or another make regulations that impact the food we ingest. But even with all those regulatory agencies, that doesn’t always mean what we eat is safe.

Food Additive Regulations

Let’s take food additive regulations as an example. Back in 1958 Congress passed the “Food Additives Amendment.” It requires that new food additives be tested by manufacturers and be accepted by the FDA as having a “reasonable certainty of no harm.”

GRAS Grows

However, Congress deemed that some chemicals, such as starch and vinegar, were so obviously safe, they didn’t need to be tested. So those chemicals and others like it were declared GRAS – “Generally Recognized As Safe.”

But big companies can grow their own GRAS labels, and declare than any new chemicals they produce are “generally recognized as safe” without having to notify the FDA or consumers.

Yes, they can just say it’s safe, label it GRAS, and that’s all there is to it.

Mowing Down The GRAS

While it’s easy to declare something GRAS, it’s a whole lot harder to make companies get rid of that label. The burden of proof is on the people wanting to see what they consider a harmful additive removed from the market.

So, for an outrageous example, a company could say manure is safe and stick it in food, and the burden of proof would be on those who said it is NOT safe to put it in food. The company doesn’t have to prove it’s safe before putting it in the food in the first place. Nope, they can just slap a GRAS labeling on it, and then anyone who contends otherwise has to prove them wrong.

Seems a little backwards to me.

Nutrition Action

Center For Science In The Public Interest