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2010-05-19 Stacy Malkan Health Risks of Cosmetics

An Interview with Stacy Malkan

May 19, 2010, by Kirkham R. Hamilton, PA-C
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KIRK HAMILTON: Hi, my name is Kirk Hamilton, your host of Staying Healthy Today, and our mission is simple: To provide you credible, usable health information from interviews and our educational resources to help you Stay and Be Well in the busy modern world. Please take a few moments before or after listening to this interview to browse through the Prescription2000.com website, the home of Staying Healthy Today Radio, for our free educational services.

Today's show topic is "Are Your Cosmetics Safe? The Ugly Side Of The Beauty Industry." Our guest today is Stacy Malkan, the author of the award-winning book, "Not Just a Pretty Face. The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry" by New Society Publishers, 2007, and co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition of health and environmental groups working to eliminate toxic chemicals from beauty products. She is also the co-author of the new report, "Not So Sexy. The Health Risks of Secret Chemicals in Fragrance."

Welcome Stacy. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

STACY MALKAN: Thanks so much for having me.

KIRK HAMILTON: So tell me a little bit about your background.

STACY MALKAN: Sure. I was a reporter for about 10 year and then I started working for environmental groups in 2001. I had the good fortune of working with some of the leading researchers and advocates in the field of environmental health. So we started looking into the chemicals in cosmetics and formed a national campaign around that, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. So my role was a media outreach and public relations person. I've heard many stories about the recent science and what we're finding out about chemicals in products and what that effect is on our health. My role has been to find stories to tell that help get that information out to the public. So through that work I wrote my book.

KIRK HAMILTON: Why did you choose cosmetics as a place to look for chemicals? There's a million other areas that we can look for chemicals.

STACY MALKAN: Right. Well we started looking at cosmetics actually because of a report that came out of the Centers for Disease Control in 2000. They were measuring people's urine and blood for synthetic chemicals with a test called bio-monitoring. They reported that women of childbearing age had much higher levels of chemicals called phthalates. Phthalates are a concern because they're toxic to the reproductive system, linked to birth defects. Women were getting much more exposed, and we wondered why might that be. Could it be because this chemical is in cosmetics? So we went on a little research hunt and looked at labels all up and down the aisles of stores, squinting at those tiny little words on labels and we didn't find phthalates on any of the labels. But we ended up testing a bunch of products at a lab and we were really surprised to find out that more than 70% of the products we looked at from deodorant, hair gels, fragrances, did contain phthalates and the chemical wasn't listed on the labels.

KIRK HAMILTON: So even if it wasn't on the labels...So where does the phthalates come from? I thought they were in plastics.

STACY MALKAN: They are in plastics. That's true. Your vinyl shower curtain, that stinky vinyl shower curtain smell, that's phthalates. But it turns out they're in cosmetics because they're part of the fragrance. In fact we recently tested a whole bunch. You've mentioned our "Not So Sexy" report. We tested a whole bunch of celebrity perfumes and colognes and found that most of them did contain phthalates at pretty high levels.

KIRK HAMILTON: Well let's stay with the "Not So Sexy" report. Why don't you get into that and tell us about what you found.

STACY MALKAN: Sure. So we decided to look at fragrances, like Britney's Curious and J. Lo Glow and some of the teen body sprays that are so hot with the guys like AXE and Abercrombie & Fitch. We tested all these products at a lab because that's actually the only way to find out what's in them. We had to spend about $500.00 per product and do a massive project at the lab. So we wrote up the findings in this report called "Not So Sexy." We found that all of the products contained on average 14 secret chemicals that weren't on the label. They contained ten sensitizing chemicals that are associated with allergic effects, like things that a lot of people who come into contact with fragrance report, like headaches or breathing difficulties, asthma, skin rashes, those sorts of things. A lot of them also contained hormone disrupting chemicals including diethyl phthalate that I mentioned. So lots of problematic chemicals in these products and chemicals that people don't know they're being exposed to because the companies don't have to tell us.

KIRK HAMILTON: Can people get a copy of this report? Do they go to your website? How do they do it?

STACY MALKAN: Yes. Check us out at SafeCosmetics.Org and you can find all of our research there. We've also looked at children's products and found that a surprising number of them contain carcinogens that aren't on the label. All that research is available at SafeCosmetics.Org.

KIRK HAMILTON: What do you define as a cosmetic? I mean I don't think of myself as using cosmetics but you know, then I thought well I use a shampoo, I use a deodorant, I use hairspray so I guess I use cosmetics.

STACY MALKAN: Yes. Thank you for bringing that up. Because, yes, these are products that we all use, and cosmetics is just a technical term that all of those products fall under. From the shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, to you know shaving creams, colognes, etc.. If you think about it, most of us use a lot of these products every single day.

KIRK HAMILTON: Then this brings up the question of how does the government regulate cosmetics? It seems like an impossible task especially with lack of funding. How does this work?

STACY MALKAN: Well it doesn't work very well. The FDA actually has very little authority over the cosmetics industry. They can't require safety testing, they can't require the companies to study the health effects of people who are exposed in salons, for example, and they can't even require recalls of products. You know there was just a story today in the Chicago Tribune about shocking findings. The paper tested skin whitening creams and found that they were loaded with mercury, which is a highly toxic heavy metal. It is one of the few things that's illegal to put into cosmetics, but yet many companies are using it and so that's an example. And the FDA's response was "well we don't have the capacity to monitor." But we believe it's critical that we give the FDA both the authority and the resources to regulate this industry.

KIRK HAMILTON: Is there greater concern for - when I thought of this topic, I thought of lead-laced eyeliner from a product coming outside the United States. But you're talking about most of this stuff is all made in the U.S.?

STACY MALKAN: That's correct. Yes. I am not sure where these skin whitening creams came from, but we certainly find most of the cosmetics they are made in the U.S., and they do unfortunately contain these toxins like formaldehyde and 1,4 dioxane and we found lead in lipstick made in the U.S.. You know these companies can just do a much better job of getting the toxic stuff out of products we put on our bodies.

KIRK HAMILTON: In your book, there was a part that I could resonate with. That you went to a conference kind of undercover, The Health and Beauty America Regulatory Summit in 2006. And world renown biochemist Dr. Bruce Ames from UC Berkeley was there. He is famous for the Ames cancer detection test (Ames Test). I've heard him talk about nutrition and we're kind of on the same wavelength there. But as far as his belief on chemicals and organic foods he believes that chemicals used to create foods are really not a problem and he says there's natural pesticides on plants that if you took them out they would be carcinogens. So he downplays that. And then you happened to have an experience with him and I was wondering if you could tell the audience that experience as you went to this conference.

STACY MALKAN: Yes, sure. I mean he's a fascinating character. What is going on with him? He was one of the leading researchers as you said looking at what causes cancer and now he's basically on the industry circuit giving presentations defending carcinogens in products and unfortunately not very good ones. As I wrote in the book, his presentation was just very patronizing and sort of racing through science and cherry-picking things. You know, telling us for example that cancer deaths are decreasing. Well, okay, but unfortunately so many more people are getting cancer, especially hormonal cancers like breast and testicular and prostate cancers have been just increasing dramatically. And there's a lot of good evidence showing that chemicals are part of the reason why. And in fact, the President's Cancer Panel just came out with the report saying that they, it was very worded, saying that they believe that the number of cancers linked to chemical exposures are being vastly underreported, and it's a critical need to regulate the chemical industry. Basically start getting carcinogens out of products and out of the environment. So somehow Dr. Ames is just glossing over that and was saying it's just a little bit of carcinogen and who cares basically. Then I write in the book about how I saw him later (that day) and I still regret that not, you know pinning him down and asking these questions. But just, he sort of had this attitude of like I'm out of here, I'll take my check and go on to the next thing.

KIRK HAMILTON: Well I'll have to have him on, not for just that conversation but I was going to talk to him about something else.

STACY MALKAN: You can ask him all this.

KIRK HAMILTON: Well I know what his answer is as far as nutrition and organic foods. Basically he doesn't feel that the amount of pesticide that's on a plant or whatever is harmful and that most lifestyle diseases could be prevented by basic nutrition. But anyway, let's move from there. That was quite an interesting - I could feel for you.

STACY MALKAN: But it's that whole argument, though. I mean it just, I mean think about all the pesticides going onto the fields, getting into the waterways.

KIRK HAMILTON: Right. Well that's different. See that's different. In other words -

STACY MALKAN: But we're all affected by it though still.

KIRK HAMILTON: Right. I understand that. And that's my concern. My concern is the runoff and the totality on the environment, but if you just ate a food that was - you know just a single food, vegetable, that might not be as bad see, so I understand your argument. Trust me. I'm there.

So tell me. There's a term that I just came across, and it came across because I saw the Susie Komen for Cure ad put on by KFC. They're going to raise 8.5 million dollars, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and for breast cancer prevention, and there was a term called "pink-washing." I had no clue what it meant until I saw that. And I'm wondering if you can explain the term "pink-washing" and how it applies to the cosmetic industry.

STACY MALKAN: Sure. I have a chapter in my book called "Pink-Washing." Basically it refers to companies that are raising good will and getting a lot of money out of branding themselves as friends of women over the breast cancer issue. So we see it in the beauty industry. And the pink ribbon products that are champions by primarily it's Revlon, Estee Lauder and Avon. They all have breast cancer walks and big flashy events and they get a lot of marketing juice out of that. They never tell you exactly how much money is actually going to breast cancer and what the money's being used for. But my big beef with them is that all of those companies still actually have carcinogens in their products. I just feel that if you're going to stand up as a champion of the breast cancer cause you should make a true and meaningful commitment to breast cancer prevention by refusing to buy carcinogens from the chemical companies, and refusing to put them in your products.

KIRK HAMILTON: I agree with you.

We're talking to Stacy Malkan, the author of the award-winning book "Not Just a Pretty Face. The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry" and she is co-founder of Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Alright. So who are using cosmetics? Are young people, teenagers, older people? Who uses them?

STACY MALKAN: We all do and in fact there was just a story in the New York Times about how the fastest growing segment of the market is the tweens. So that's people, mostly girls 8 to 12 that are buying way more cosmetics than they've ever bought before. And I don't think that's so surprising when we look at some of the cultural messages and pressures on girls to look and act older. And girls are getting their hair dyed so much younger now too, like age 10 and 11. So you know I think all segments of the population use and buy these products, but the young kids are really using more of them and they're also being more targeted by the beauty industry because they see the potential of those sales.

KIRK HAMILTON: Would you say nail products, for example? Everybody's getting their toenails painted with the little designs.

STACY MALKAN: Right.

KIRK HAMILTON: I have a concern for patients who work in that industry because they have to breathe that stuff all day long, especially in the closed environments.

STACY MALKAN: Right.

KIRK HAMILTON: But that would be considered a cosmetic as well, I guess.

STACY MALKAN: Yes. And you're exactly right that the biggest concern with nail products is the salon workers who are exposed all the time, and they mostly are women of childbearing age, often women of color. And you know there's a lot of toxic chemicals in not only the nail polishes but also the acrylics and the glues that they use. So that's a big problem. Now nail polish has gotten somewhat safer. I tell the story in the book about how we took on the nail polish industry and won some big victories in getting them to take out some of the worst chemicals

KIRK HAMILTON: How do you tell if a product is reasonable? In fact, as I was taking a shower this morning I looked at my shampoo and it was - you know I happen to be a vegan so I'm not real thrilled about anything that hurts animals, but there was a little rabbit on it and a line through it so I am assuming that meant no animal testing. So -

STACY MALKAN: Right.

KIRK HAMILTON: So am I being really naïve?

STACY MALKAN: Well it probably means that product wasn't tested on animals. Whether it's safe or not, you've got to look at the label and if you see a whole long list of chemicals like sodium laureth sulfate and methylparabens and fragrance, then I would trade it in for a new green version of the product.

KIRK HAMILTON: So how then, how does someone find what you consider to be a safe cosmetic? Do you have a list somewhere?

STACY MALKAN: We have a great database from the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org) where you can look up your favorite products. It's called Skin Deep (cosmeticsdatabase.com). It's this huge amount of information about a lot of the products on the market. You can type in your favorite product and it will tell you how toxic it is and also look for safer alternatives in every product category.

KIRK HAMILTON: Where is that? On your website or how?

STACY MALKAN: You can find that. It's called Skin Deep and you can find it at SafeCosmetics.Org.

KIRK HAMILTON: And there's just a link there or?

STACY MALKAN: Yes, there's a link to Skin Deep. And click on that. It's in the bottom left of the screen. And you can have a lot of fun with that database and find out more than you ever wanted to know about your favorite products. But the good news is that there are safer alternatives in every product category and you can look up for example all of the shampoos. There's like 1300 in there and it will list them from the least to most toxic. So the least toxic are the ones with the green circles, 0 to 2.

KIRK HAMILTON: You know when you talked about the market focusing on people of childbearing age, I keep thinking of all the infertility problems. I've heard about environmental pollutants, but you know I - again, this is just one of them we just happen to apply it to ourselves. That just rings a bell for me. You know, the difficulty and the tremendous effort that so many couples go through to try and achieve pregnancy, this might be one of the components.

STACY MALKAN: Absolutely. And even young couples are having more trouble getting pregnant. You know just for one example I mentioned the chemical diethyl phthalate that's used in a lot of fragrances. There's studies that show that adult men with higher exposures to diethyl phthalate from cologne have DNA damage in their sperm. Now that's something that may never show up in a sperm analysis but yet could impact fertility.

KIRK HAMILTON: Are some of these products being found in the environment? I've heard of reports finding medications in different waterways and things like that. How about these types of chemicals...?

STACY MALKAN: Yes. Absolutely! One big problem is triclosan and that's toxic to aquatic life and found unfortunately in lots of waterways. That's the antibacterial chemical in lots of hand soaps. And the antibacterial thing, I just want to mention, is something that is such hype. And the FDA has even said that antibacterial soaps are no better than regular soaps when it comes to actually getting rid of germs. And plus they're highly toxic in polluting the waterways. So definitely give up on the antibacterial soap if you haven't already.

KIRK HAMILTON: So tell us about your book a bit. How did that come about? "Not Just a Pretty Face." Great title! "Not Just a Pretty Face. The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry."

STACY MALKAN: Thank you. Thanks. Well I was seeing a lot of fascinating stories as I was doing my work and working with these scientists and you know we were taking on the beauty industry over these big questions of "hey, why don't you take carcinogens out of your products?" And getting a lot of interesting responses and resistance. And so it occurred to me that it would make a great story. So I tell the story about the research that we've done, the interactions with the companies, the response of the industry. I went undercover to that conference which was fascinating hearing the industry representatives talk at length about how they're trying to evade regulations and what their plans are to convince people that the voluntary safety programs are good enough.

KIRK HAMILTON: How did you get into that conference? When I remember reading it, it sounded like you kind of snuck in but were a little nervous.

STACY MALKAN: Yeah. I thought I could get tossed out at any time and it was like an eight hour conference. I was taking copious notes. I did use a fake name because I thought they might recognize my name and just paid the money. It was like $500.00. I guess that's how they figured that maybe we wouldn't come, but certainly I don't think they expected us to be there.

KIRK HAMILTON: So what can people do, aside from go to your list to pick out products for themselves? What would you like ideally people to do?

STACY MALKAN: I think that we need to get active and we need to get organized. And you can certainly make better choices in your own life by reducing unnecessary exposures to chemicals and fragrances and eating organic food, no matter what Dr. Ames says. And the President's Cancer Panel, by the way, also is big on suggesting organic food and they also recommend that pregnant women and couples trying to become pregnant should avoid hormone disrupting chemicals whenever possible. So that's another reason to avoid the fragrances. But so making the choices ourselves, that's one thing, but really what it's going to take is collective action. We're pushing for congress to take on the cosmetic regulations and give them a makeover because the current laws were put in place in the 1930s. It's really important, I believe, to give FDA the authority and the resources to require that companies get rid of hazardous chemicals, tell us what's in their products, and make the safest products that they can.

KIRK HAMILTON: Yeah. It sounds like a tough call, though, because if money's short how does the government do stuff if they're going to act in that kind of way. You know I always think as a consumer, if you can educate the consumer, then they don't buy it and things change just by themselves, but I understand what you're saying.

STACY MALKAN: That's true too. The challenge with that is it's hard for consumers to make good choices because so much of the information is hidden. But in answer to your important question, I think the companies have to pay for it. I mean remember we're talking about companies with a huge profit margin. Like a $24.00 tube of lipstick is costing them about 15 cents to make that lipstick. So you know I think some of that could be used to put independent mechanisms in place that would ensure cosmetic safety. And that ultimately would be better and more profitable for the industry in the long run because people want to buy the safer stuff and consumers are only becoming more and more educated and capable of finding the better stuff. So I think that the smart companies are paying attention to that and figuring out how to really solve some of these toxicity problems.

KIRK HAMILTON: Any closing comments or pearls you want to share?

STACY MALKAN: Just that I think that there's a lot of reason for hope too. I write in the book about a lot of the young people that we've worked with who are just so fired up about this. I think it's really important, especially for young girls, and the boys, too, to really just get a realistic perspective on this and realize the companies are not always telling us what's best for us. And we have to take charge of our own health and really do the research to find safer products and also demand that these companies be honest and do the best job they can.

KIRK HAMILTON: Alright Stacy. Thank you very much.

STACY MALKAN: Thank you very much.

KIRK HAMILTON: And again that is Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics. I want to thank her for her hard work and she is the author of "Not Just a Pretty Face. The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry."

And I want to thank you, the audience, for listening to this edition of Staying Health Today Radio. And until next time, Stay and Be Well.

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