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US cosmetics are full of chemicals banned by Europe
- quickben 7y agoMaybe because hundreds of millions are spent to lobby for it: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=H04&year=2018 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=H04&yea...
- cooper12 7y agoLet's just call it what it is: bribery.
- coldtea 7y agoYeah, "lobbying" should be outright banned.
- pergadad 7y agoComplex matter. There is legitimate lobbying, which is for expert groups affected by s policy to make their position known. The issue is that the process favours big commercial players that can cough up the cash for long-term professional lobbyists. Consumer groups, NGOs, etc. mostly have to resort to signature campaigns etc. But lobbying is helpful. Consider niche technical issue where maybe 3-4 organisations do reply have established expertise (because they are commercially engaged). There is often on specific policy no established evidence at the moment in time when government has to make a decision, nor is the way forward obvious. Thus it's a matter of hearing everyone concerned and finding a nuanced path forward. Wonlobbying is legitimately useful. But what has totally spun out of control is the US lobbying machine (which sadly is spreading to other places), which really often is just bribery in many ways.
- mdpopescu 7y agoBetter yet, don't make laws that are understood only by a few people.
- refurb 7y agoBribery? The dollar figures on that website aren't literal dollars being handed over to elected representatives. They list what the companies pay lobbying firm. Lobbying firms who get paid very well to craft messages and arguments for elected officials. If you've ever seen what a consulting company costs (hundreds of thousands of dollars for small projects), you'd realize most of that money is going to support lobbyist's lifestyles.
- aceon48 7y agoIn the US... products can list an ingredient as "Fragrance" at which point, it becomes a Trade Secret which is far less regulated... they could put arsenic in fragrance if they wanted. The US handling of Chemical regulations is a joke.
- stanski 7y agoThe answer is always very simple: in the US, money is king. I'm not going to deny that there are advantages to that, but how truly important those advantages are in the long run is up for debate.
- macspoofing 7y ago>A long list of potentially harmful ingredients banned in the EU are legally allowed in the US due to historically relaxed regulations Maybe European regulations are overly strict? US regulations aren't lax.
- StanislavPetrov 7y agoUS regulations are more non-existant than they are lax. In the US a company is free to saturate you with whatever new chemical they invent until you can prove that it is causing you harm. In the EU a company has to first prove the chemical doesn't cause you harm before they saturate you with it. Its why all of us are saturated with hundreds of industrial chemicals and we have no idea what the long term health effects of this saturation will be. https://www.forbes.com/2010/01/21/toxic-chemicals-bpa-lifestyle-health-endocrine-disruptors.html#4d1dc3f4bb91 https://www.forbes.com/2010/01/21/toxic-chemicals-bpa-lifest...
- EpicEng 7y ago>In the EU a company has to first prove the chemical doesn't cause you harm before they saturate you with it. That's not possible. What the EU does is allow things which have been used by other people for some time once they feel comfortable that it's probably ok. In other words, they have guinea pigs.
- purple_ducks 7y agoClearly not as the US has adopted that mindset for new chemicals. From the linked article... "The US has similar rules for new chemicals entering the market but no such precautionary principles for the thousands of potential toxins already in use"
- makomk 7y agoHang on - doesn't that mean that every single chemical that was used in US cosmetics but not EU cosmetics would automatically be banned by Europe rather than the US, regardless of whether there was any particular reason it would be unsafe?
- anigbrowl 7y agoBecause of money. America is so in love with capitalism that it's OK to poison people as long as you make enough money. If you get in trouble all you have to do is appear in public and say the magic words 'jobs, economy, consumers, America' with a straight face and a quarter of the people who hear you will nod vigorously and argue on your behalf with everyone else. Environment collapsing, possibly putting millions at risk? 'We don't know if climate change is real, but what about jobs? What about the economy?' People dying of hideous diseases? 'It's not our fault that people choose to die horribly under our free market system! Consumers in America want choice!' Remember, life is just a game and whoever dies with the most toys wins! So long, suckers!
- eeZah7Ux 7y agoAll the downvotes without any rebuttal are telling.
- jamesgeck0 7y agoPerhaps it's because people feel that a generic anti-capitalism rant doesn't add much to this specific discussion?
- anigbrowl 7y agoI can make nuanced arguments grounded in economic theory too but that doesn't seem to have any impact on people's behavior. Meanwhile negative externalities continue to pile up because it's profitable not to account for them.
- tdb7893 7y agoI didn't vote at all on this post but I downvote and don't comment all the time. If a post has a combatative tone or it is just a stream of assertions without facts (e.g. this post) it's generally best to not comment on it even if you disagree. Trying to always comment just ends up being impractical and you have to pick your battles.
- eeZah7Ux 7y ago
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoTL;DR because Europe basically uses a whitelist model and the US basically uses a blacklist model.
- ChrisSD 7y agoAnd from the article it sounds like the US is reluctant to blacklist anything even when there are known harms. As someone from the UK, it surprised me to read that even asbestos is allowed.
- chrismeller 7y agoAllowed? Perhaps. Is anyone using it? Well certainly not that I know of... who in their reasonable mind would? You have to remember that the U.K. is very much of the mindset that everything will kill you until they’ve proven, tested, provided warning signs and signals, etc. The US is the exact opposite. Until there is a problem... go for it (with some caveats, obviously). Sure sometimes that causes a problem, but on the whole the market does work itself out. Case in point? We’re still alive.
- cygx 7y agoCase in point? We’re still alive. That's a rather crude metric...
- chrismeller 7y agoAnd yet really, isn’t that the most important one? If the whitelist vs blacklist attitude were really as important as everyone in this thread is claiming, wouldn’t there be some mass catastrophic extinction-level event in the US? There’s not.....
- MegaButts 7y agoBy that logic we should just ignore <problem> until we're too dead to do anything about it.
- otakucode 7y agoDoes the EU have a general policy of banning any substance determined to cause problems when taken internally from external use automatically? Lots of the things mentioned in the article make it seem like that might be the case. Formaldehyde in hair straighteners for instance... yes, formaldehyde is a carcinogen.... if you swallow it. If it touches your skin momentarily? Not aware of anything claiming that's dangerous. Same thing with the parabens... they cause problems when taken internally, but used externally there shouldn't be any problem.
- cygx 7y agoyes, formaldehyde is a carcinogen.... if you swallow it The main concern with formaldehyde tends to be inhalation.
- deogeo 7y ago> they cause problems when taken internally, but used externally there shouldn't be any problem. I don't know about parabens specifically, but that sounds like a reckless approach, akin to assuming a gun isn't loaded. You have proof it's harmful under X conditions, but you're just going to assume it's benign under Y?
- coldtea 7y ago>I don't know about parabens specifically, but that sounds like a reckless approach, akin to assuming a gun isn't loaded. Well, wait till you hear how the US considers gun ownership...
- notabee 7y agoThings that you put on your skin often do not stay obediently there indefinitely. They find their way into your mouth, and as skin products dry they often become particulate matter that is eventually inhaled. This is especially true of makeup, since it's applied to the face already. It generally rubs off over time and gets on everything. Any one product may not have an overtly toxic effect, but when many such products are deregulated and leaving carcinogenic residues in a household the cumulative effect is serious and usually not sufficiently studied. There was an article just recently posted on here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-hidden-air-pollution-in-our-homes https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-hidden-air...
- eeZah7Ux 7y agoThe very same goes for food: US regulations are extremely lax when compared to other wealthy countries.
- tareqak 7y agoThis laxness appears in free trade negotiations where the second party to the country wants to forbid certain kinds of US agricultural goods and prepared foods and the US rebuttal is that that is protectionism. To be fair, there really is some real protectionism based solely on the protecting an economic sector now and then.
- freddref 7y ago"US lobby groups for agriculture and pharmaceutical firms want UK standards changed to be closer to those of the US in a post-Brexit trade deal." https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47036119 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47036119
- mrob 7y ago>dioxins, used as an ingredient in Agent Orange, which the US sprayed during the Vietnam war. Dioxins were not used as an ingredient. Small quantities of dioxins were unintentionally formed as side-products during synthesis.
- ptaipale 7y agoGuardian often has little "errors" like this.
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y agoTo be honest, it doesn't change the argument much.
- hinkley 7y agoIt's like explaining things to a five year old. It doesn't matter if you 'meant to' kick your sister. You're kicking her and you need to 1) stop, and 2) apologize.
- mrob 7y agoI believe this "fact" is included with the deliberate intention of making people angry. If people are angry because they think the US deliberately poisoned Vietnamese people then that anger might transfer over to modern safety regulations. The false information has propaganda value. I support European-style regulations, but I think this is a short-sighted way to argue. Dioxins in cosmetics are bad because of their objective toxicity, not because of emotional associations. Playing up the emotional angle with false information only makes the rest of your arguments look suspicious.
- pjc50 7y ago> the US deliberately poisoned Vietnamese people The US recklessly poisoned people; the Vietnam campaign had a disregard for Vietnamese life. The herbicide campaign, initially intended to clear forest cover, spread to deliberate use against crops to starve the population. The use of napalm was similar in its widespread civilian casualties. https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/vietnams-horrific-legacy-the-children-of-agent-orange/news-story/c008ff36ee3e840b005405a55e21a3e1 https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/vietnams-horrific-legacy-... "Nearly 4.8 million Vietnamese people have been exposed, causing 400,000 deaths; the associated illnesses include cancers, birth defects, skin disorders, auto-immune diseases, liver disorders, psychosocial effects, neurological defects and gastrointestinal diseases." "According to the Red Cross of Vietnam, up to one million people are currently disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange, 100,000 of which are children." If any of the Nazis had ordered this they would rightly have been put up against a wall and shot.
- Gallactide 7y agoIt's amazing that all US critical posts are being downvote-bombed... Also the claim that the US is not lax in its regulation is a bad joke. Half of the parties available literally made de-regulation their damn group mantra...
- TheArcane 7y agoHN is traditionally quite pro-US to the point that many here were defending Boeing during the 737 Max fiasco. Not to mentions the vitriol against the EU when it fined American tech giants.
- mutzp 7y agoHaven't seen a single comment defending Boeing.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoI find it amusing or at least ironic that you say "many here were defending Boeing during the 737 Max fiasco" when in reality the mainstream opinion here is very anti-Boeing and there is a down-voted and dead comment that says they didn't see anyone defending Boeing. Well of course, those people are/were a tiny minority so they got down-voted and buried like that comment. It's a perfect illustration of what it's asking about. And this is going to get down-voted because of the first of fight club.
- dang 7y agoThere are a lot of users on both sides of the topic, just like there on other controversial topics. But it always feels like the "mainstream" opinion is being the one most opposed to your own. The confident generalizations people make about HN are nearly all based on this feeling. That's why they contradict one another. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%20effect%22&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%20effect%22...
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- h3ckr 7y agoThis applies to so many other things: cosmetics, food, drugs, guns, etc. And now they’re lobbying to influence other countries too (UK, Brazil, etc). Incredible amount of greed and lack of ethics.
- devy 7y agoDefinitely! Growth hormone (rbGH/rbGT) used in American diary products has been prevalent for decades where those were forbidden in Canada and Europe. FDA practically turned a blind eye on this (and later research proven FDA's screwed-up) and nowadays market and producers are taking self-regulating approach. [1] [1]: https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/1044/rbgh/about-rbgh https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/1044/rbgh/about-r... And this is just one of hundreds if not thousands FDA mishaps out there. The lobbying influence is BAD.
- JamesBarney 7y agoDo you have any links you could share that show cow hgh increases human igf-1 levels meaningfully? I went to the article but it mentioned a change was detectable but didn't link to the study.
- m0zg 7y agoOf course they don't have any links, because studies proving this don't exist. Another little known fact: even _human_ growth hormone is utterly pointless to consume orally: it gets destroyed by stomach acid. That's why people who take it go through the trouble of injecting it. I also don't think I've ever seen dairy in store that doesn't come from cows "not treated with rBST". I don't buy organic unless the price is roughly the same, and for milk it's easily double, so I don't buy organic milk. But even if it did boost igf-1 a tad, that'd be freaking great. People would start growing muscle, losing weight, etc.
- Proven 7y ago"Europe bans the use of chemicals allowed everywhere else"
- fopen64 7y agoThere are chemicals banned in US only, like saccharine, I guess.
- bob_theslob646 7y agoThe Instagram influencers who push these products should be held accountable.
- imgabe 7y agoAnd is there a corresponding increased rate of cosmetics-related illnesses in the US compared to Europe?
- zaphod4prez 7y agoI think this question is misguided. It is extremely difficult or even impossible to trace problems back to a specific source. The burden should be on companies that are creating an entirely new compound to prove that it is safe. See: talcum powder contamination taking decades to come to light even though it was a huge effect and a case of contamination instead of a new compound having some as-yet-unknown effect that we would then have to retroactively identify.
- imgabe 7y agoThat's an impossible standard to meet though. If you're going to say "Prove that this new thing won't have any negative effects 50 years from now", that means it takes at least 50 years to release anything new. You might as well say "never make anything new". > It is extremely difficult or even impossible to trace problems back to a specific source. Then why is the EU banning random things without being able to definitively attribute any negative effects to them?
- repolfx 7y agoThen why is the EU banning random things without being able to definitively attribute any negative effects to them? That's easy. It's for two reasons: 1. Trade barriers. The WTO mechanisms are full of holes. The so-called "precautionary principle" is just a justification to ensure that anything new the US invents can be instantly be made illegal in the EU until it can be "shown to be safe", i.e. the EU assumes everything to be dangerous by default until it decides otherwise. Actual science showing it's dangerous is not required. This is a great way to work around WTO rules on tariffs by abusing safety regulation and in particular protect French farming from genetically modified American imports. Americans aren't exactly dying en-masse from eating GM food (except maybe from obesity because food is so cheap), but pretending it's dangerous is a great way to block imports whilst avoiding a WTO dispute. 2. The EU regulatory apparatus is enormous. It has a staff of 32,000 people in the Commission alone, and many more in associated agencies. Many of these jobs are created for political reasons, for instance, countries are theoretically able to appoint one Commissioner each (in practice the head of the commission, Juncker, blocks any proposed appointment he doesn't like - this isn't meant to happen by treaty but does) and each Commissioner needs a staff. But more importantly, unlike in democratic governments, the Parliament does not create law. The Commission does that, and as a consequence the quantity of regulations the EU creates is staggering compared to any normal government. The throughput of regulations banning things is limited in democracies by the size of the chamber: there's only so much a group of a few hundred people can do after all. But there are so many regulations being churned out by the EU that the Parliament has rubber-stamp votes over 1000 times per week. You can see a video about the deleterious effects this rate of voting has here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLh9DMuetm4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLh9DMuetm4
- Causality1 7y agoMy wife is an aesthetician. She's had to put considerable effort into learning which off the shelf cosmetics are harmful to the point of uselessness.
- DubiousPusher 7y agoI 100% agree that the regulatory process in the U.S. is insufficient and deeply flawed but this article is quite the piece of fearmongering. It's not enough to say, "in this one specific case this substance can be harmful, therefore it must be banned." You have to evaluate the conditions under which it is harmful and whether those conditions are like to occur in consumer use. A lump of coal is a fairly harmless substance. Put it in your garden, on a shelf, sleep with it under your pillow. You'll probably never know a difference. Grind it up and breathe it every day for 10 years and you'll shorten your life by 5-15 years. Burn it and inhale it and you'll shorten it by 30. This article doesn't concern itself however with how a substance is used. It's merely enough for something to have been harmful for it to be dangerous. Worse yet, there's no evaluation of the quality of the science indicating potential harm. They vaguely hint that a food dye is dangerous because one 2007 study showed it might increase hyperactivity in children? Give me a break. If that's our standard, that one study ever showed a possibility of potential harm we'll have to ban everything. Again, I totally agree with the sentiment. The FDA should have its funding increased by 10 fold. They should be given the power to regulate supplements. They should be one of the most powerful and effective government agencies. But the standards of evidence are tremendously important. There's no reason to go full California and start serving coffee with a cancer warning.
- Retric 7y agoPotential for harm is only one side of the equation, benifit needs to sit on the other. Considering we are talking about cosmetics minimal benefit is combined with direct contact, regular ingestion, and even occasional contact with the bloodstream. Harm is also more of a continuum than a binary situation. Ten individual sources of say lead exposure may not be that harmful on their own, but they add up. When talking about public heath we have often gotten it wrong by saying it’s low enough not to be an issue.
- DubiousPusher 7y agoGood points. I generally agree.
- fma 7y agoEveryday, women are smearing formaldehyde on their body...story time. I bought a new construction house a few years back and have been paranoid about formaldehyde. Prior to moving into it, I bought a formaldehyde detector. I had it on at my old house just for kicks. Once in a while, it would reach high values and flash red with a death symbol (no joke). We realized it flashed red whenever my wife was putting on cosmetics. It contains an ingredient called DMDM hydantoin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMDM_hydantoin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMDM_hydantoin) which is basically a slow release formaldehyde, which prevents bacteria growth on the cosmetics. You can argue it's minute amount...maybe. But certainly enough for a detector to detect it after dispersion from across the room. Shampoo has it too. I've since checked for this ingredient prior to buying anything, and probably substituting for another bad chemical.
- maiterth 7y ago^^ A few years back when in the US for a short while: "Uh, Mountain Dew, we don't have that." Turning the label, "oh, makes sense"... :P Sometimes one wonders if consumers can't read, or don't want to.