I just heard this guy on Fresh Air on NPR, maybe you guys heard it? There is lead in lipstick.* There is also some kind of weird chemical in all pliable plastic (including your car dashboard and kid's toys) that messes up your hormones.
(Note the New York Time's story on the lead in lipstick--they basically just buy the cosmetic industry's excuse! (Which is that you don't eat lipstick, so who cares?) Wow, the NYT is really awful. I am glad we mostly canceled our subscription.)
Yup, the government has virtually no legal authority to regulate cosmetics; this includes zero power to make sure they're not putting lead in lipstick.
The guy found that the European Union has banned all kinds of chemicals which the EPA of the U.S. has declined to ban. The reason? E.U. countries pay for health care. They have an incentive to protect the health of their populations.
One (just one of many) of the reasons we need to regulate capitalism (and regulate it more) is that we've seen again and again that there's virtually no incentive not to market a product that will cause illness and death so long as the produce doesn't cause an immediate, dramatic situation involving injury or death (such as exploding lipstick). Slow poisoning products (see the cigarette industry, the global warming crisis, cancer clusters, etc.) make it impossible for people to sue. "Industry" is so powerful in this country that we individuals are basically left to regulate it ourselves by suing! That is why there are so many lawsuits, CC! Tell your parents.
*Something funny that's going on in the media coverage of the lead-in-lipstick issue is: As I noted, there's no law about whether you can make lead lipstick. There is, however, a legal limit on how much lead you can put in candy. So the reporters are writing that lipstick is "over the legal limit" because it's over the limit for candy. This is funny because
a) isn't the disturbing thing here the fact that the lead is clearly in the lipstick because no agency regulates cosmetics? There are probably all kinds of junk in lipstick! You know how we know about the lead? Some NGOs tested the lipstick, for lead, just for lead, not for, like, asbestos. Tom, remember when you worked at the cosmetic company and that lady sent in pictures of the chemical burn she got, and they just sent her a big check? That's why--they're totally unregulated, and they want to keep it that way!
b) There's lead in candy???!
10 comments:
There's lead in candy??!!
Holy shit! I need to watch out, as other than cheese blintzes, all I am living off of these days are peppermint patties. What can too much lead do to you? Cause if it makes you sterile, then maybe it's not a bad thing.
I believe its main effect is to make you really stupid. As usual, the wikipedia has more.
I agree with the gist of your post, that regulators in our country are too often cowed by the industries they're supposed to oversee.
The report is pretty manipulative. I love how the website has a picture of a cute kid putting on lipstick (there's a giant version on the report itself). The report is title "A Poison Kiss".
Oh noes! Is our childrens lead poisoned?
Color me more than skeptical. I can't help wonder if the teensy sample of lipstick they tested is actually a sample of the redest lipstick they could find.
I can't wait to hear presidential candidates making cosmetic-related promises. "In my America, children shouldn't be threatened by makeup!" There's a tough stand.
Dude, I can't believe you're skeptical of the safe cosmetics people and not of the cosmetics industry. It's not that the regulators are cowed--by law, there are no regulators. This also goes for shampoo, by the way.
The guy on NPR explained repeatedly how stuff banned by the E.U. gets shipped to the U.S., which made a big impression on me.
I imagine that there are things not banned by the EU that are banned in the USA and that people who are trying to sell them end up selling them wherever they are not banned (which is somewhere).
Which is to say that the EU is not some magical wonderland where all badness is regulated out of existence.
The safecostmetics people are hysterical. Their report is hysterical and highly polemical. It doesn't mean they are wrong.
But it seems to me that the safecosmetics people want to cause a panic. And that is why I am skeptical of them.
there is at least one thing they make in the e.u. that you can't get in the u.s., and that is this particular type of insane cold medicine that is powdered, and you have to dilute it in water and drink more than a glassful. it is truly disgusting, but it cures your cold overnight. on the other hand, once i took it long before i went to bed and i passed out on the couch and then kind of woke up and started babbling in gibberish, scaring the crap out of my roommates. maybe if eating lipstick made people pass out and go crazy, there'd be a more active anti-lipstick lobby.
yet another reason to stop wearing makeup altogether. also, what's in that anti-wrinkle cream?
Dude, let's all stop putting crap on our faces!
I need that anti-wrinkle cream. It keeps the lady at the Stop N Shop thinking I am 17. That shit's worth its weight in gold.
Well, I know how important the opinion of the lady at the Shop and Stop is to each and every one of us.
What is next, where were these lipsticks made is it the country that put lead in everything they made, I really wonder if America cannot make things for themselves, what really is their problem in such case.
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