Revealing the relationship between the natural world and the everyday lives of people
When you use cosmetics or cleaning products, you might assume that the government has checked out the ingredients and has deemed them safe. But Julie Grant reports – that’s not the case. Companies don’t even have disclose everything that’s in their products.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics wants the labels on cosmetics to reflect all the ingredients in a product. But spokesperson Stacy Malkan says that’s not what’s happening. The Campaign recently sent 17 brands of perfumes and body sprays to an independent lab.
“We found in these products an average of 14 hidden chemicals that were not on the labels that the lab was able to detect.”
Malkan says some of those hidden chemicals have been associated with asthma and headaches, while others are hormone-disruptors, linked to sperm damage, thyroid problems, and even cancer. Malkan says there’s a reason companies don’t put those chemicals on the labels: they don’t have to.
“It is required that companies list the chemicals in their products, except that if they are part of the fragrance. So there’s a huge loophole in the federal law that allows companies to keep secret the chemicals in fragrances.”
And this loophole exists for more than just for perfumes.
Malkan says they have things like children’s bubble bath can create toxic contaminants. And researchers have found un-disclosed chemicals in nearly all brands of cleaning products – things such as dishwashing soap, floor polish, and air fresheners.
“If a chemical is found in a product, it doesn’t mean that the product is toxic or hazardous.”
Gretchen Shaefer is spokesperson for the Consumer Specialty Products Association, which represents the makers of cleaning products. She says companies are required to list anything that’s hazardous on the label.
As more consumers ask for additional information, she says manufacturers are providing more about their chemical formulas. But Schaefer says most are not willing to disclose the trade secrets of their fragrances:
“It is the fragrance that makes those products unique. And that’s why protecting those fragrance formulas are absolutely critical to the manufacturers of the overall product.”
That’s also true when it comes to companies that make cosmetics and perfumes. The trade group representing the cosmetics industry says that new study, the one that found 14 un-disclosed chemicals in the top perfumes and colognes, is misusing the information. The Personal Care Products Association says the chemicals in question are only a concern at very high levels. But the study doesn’t report the levels of these chemicals.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics says most of the chemicals it found in fragrances have not even been assessed for safety.
Ann Steinemann is an environmental engineering professor at the University of Washington, and has studied hundreds of cleaning products. She says nearly all brands on the market, even those labeled green products, contain undisclosed carcinogens – which are considered hazardous by the Environmental Protection Agency:
“According to the EPA, things that are classified as carcinogens have no safe exposure level. There is no safe exposure level. Even one molecule cannot be considered safe.”
Bills have been introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate to change labeling laws on things like cleaning products. And the EPA has recently classified some of the chemicals found in fragrances as chemicals of concern. Advocates for improved labeling and safer ingredients advise consumers to use fewer products with fragrances.
For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.
Some consumer advocates say more oversight is needed on over-the-counter drugs. Their concerns come after the recent recall of infant’s and children’s Tylenol and other medicines. Rebecca Williams has more:
McNeil Consumer Healthcare recalled more than 40 different varieties of medicine for babies and kids.
That happened only after inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found major problems at a plant in Pennsylvania. Inspectors found raw ingredients were contaminated with bacteria. They also found the company did not have adequate lab facilities to test the drugs. And they found the company did nothing after complaints from consumers who found dark specks in liquid Tylenol products.
Larry McNeely is with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. He says there are not enough government inspectors keeping an eye on the pharmaceutical industry.
“We need more of those inspectors and I think we were just lucky and dodged a bullet because we were able to stop this before somebody got hurt.”
The FDA says you should stop using all of the recalled products. But the agency says generic versions of these drugs are safe.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.
The agencies in charge of the Energy Star Program are making it less vulnerable to fraud. Lester Graham reports, a covert investigation revealed corporate self-reporting could be faked.
The Energy Star Program certifies whether appliances and other products lower energy costs. But, it was based on the honor system. If the company said its product qualified, it got the Energy Star label.
The Government Accountability Office submitted fake products to the Energy Star program. Jonathan Meyer was one of the investigators.
Meyer: We initiated our work by submitting fairly common products and those made it through the certification process without any real scrutiny, so we increased the level of, you know, ODD products toward the end of our investigation to see if there’s any type of information that would raise red flags.
Even a phony gas-powered alarm clock was certified as Energy Star compliant.
This week the EPA and the Department of Energy started requiring complete lab reports to review before approving products for Energy Star labels.
For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.
There’s been a rise in reports of behavioral disorders in kids over the past decade or so. Some researchers say genetics, lack of sleep, and chaotic households all contribute to things like ADHD. Now researchers say another cause could be personal care products. Julie Grant reports.
Researcher Stephanie Engel at Mount Sinai College of Medicine says we’re all exposed to a group of chemicals called phthalates all the time. Heavier ones are used in plastics. Lower weight phthalates are used in fragrances, shampoos, cosmetics and nail polishes, to make them work better and last longer.
Some studies have looked at the relationships between phthalates and problems in reproduction. But Engel says phthalates are can be toxic to the nervous system. So she and her colleagues wanted to see if exposure to phthalates in the womb affected children’s brain development.
“WE ENROLLED A GROUP OF WOMEN WHO WERE PREGNANT AND RECEIVING PRENATAL CARE AT MT. SINAI. AND WHEN THEY WERE PREGNANT, WE COLLECTED A URINE SAMPLE FROM THEM. AND WE CONTINUED TO FOLLOW THE WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN FOR THE NEXT TEN YEARS.”
Engel says researchers tested the urine of the pregnant women in the study.
That’s because when we rub on lotion or use shampoo, phthalates are absorbed into our bodies, processed and eliminated.
She says the women who had higher levels of the pthalates during pregnancy reported more behavioral problems as their children got older:
“THEIR PARENTS, THEIR MOTHERS, REPORTED THEIR BEHAVIOR AS MORE DISRUPTIVE AND MORE PROBLEMATIC. SO THEY TENDED TO BE MORE AGGRESSIVE, HAVE MORE ATTENTION PROBLEMS, HAVE MORE CONDUCT PROBLEMS AND ALSO EXHIBIT MORE SYMPTOMS OF DEPRESSION.”
Engel says the problems looked like the types of problems found in children with ADHD: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
She says no behavior effects were found for the phthalates used in vinyl toys and other soft plastics. But the higher the mother’s exposure to phthalates found in personal care products, the more the symptoms were manifested by their children. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal – Environmental Health Perspectives.
“I CANNOT SEE HOW THE CONCLUSIONS THAT ARE REACHED ARE SUPPORTED BY THE WAY THE STUDY IS DONE.”
John Bailey is chief scientist for the Personal Care Products Council. That’s the trade association for the companies that make things like cosmetics, shampoo and nail polish.
He says in any study that correlates a behavior to an outcome – there needs to be a control for outside influences.
“IN THIS CASE THOSE CONTROLS, AND AGAIN THESE ARE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, NO MATTER WHAT TYPE OF STUDY YOU’RE DOING, ARE NOT THERE. THEY’RE NOT CONTROLLING FOR THE GENETICS OF THE CHILDREN, THEIR HOME ENVIRONMENT, THEIR DIETS.”
Without those kinds of controls, Bailey says there’s no way to draw a conclusion from the study.
Other scientists who’ve looked at phthalates say the Mount Sinai study shows a new area of concern about these chemicals. But it needs to be replicated by other research.
Still, this isn’t the first time this type of correlation has been made. In a study published last year, Korean researchers linked childhood exposure to phthalates to ADHD.
Researcher Stephanie Engel says environmental toxicants, like phthalates, clearly play a role in child neurodevelopment.
“THERE’S NOTHING ELSE THAT COULD EXPLAIN THE RESULTS THAT WE’VE OBSERVED. WE SPENT OVER A YEAR PROCESSING THIS DATA AND LOOKING AT IT IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS. IT IS WHAT IT IS. THESE ARE THE RELATIONSHIPS.”
Engel says more study needs to be done. In the meantime, she says pregnant women might want to avoid phthalates in personal care products. They’re not listed on the label – but she says anything that has “fragrance” on the ingredients list probably contains phthalates.
For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.
The makers of a popular deodorant body spray have been fined more than a million dollars for polluting the air in California. Julie Grant reports it’s part of an increased effort to reduce air pollution.
The makers of Axe body spray – popular among teenage boys – have been fined for causing environmental problems in California. Dimitri Stanich is spokesman for the California Air Resouces Board. He says California has specific low limits on how much air pollution can come from consumer products.
And if they get a tip that a product is over the limit – they head to the pharmacy.
“THE AIR RESOURCES BOARD HAS ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS THAT WILL BUY PRODUCTS OFF THE SHELF AND THEN TAKE IT BACK TO THE LAB IN SACRAMENTO. TECHNICIANS THEN WILL PIERCE THE CANISTER AND DETERMINE THE AMOUNT OF VOCS IN THERE.”
VOCs – that’s short for volatile organic compounds. VOCs come out of our vehicle tailpipes, out of smokestacks. And they’re in a lot of every day products: some aerosol sprays, most paints, even some cosmetics. Stanich says there are lots of reasons a manufacturer might use a volatile organic compound. In a product like Axe, he says the VOCs make it spray better.
“MOST OF OFTEN IT IS PART OF THE PROPELLENT USED TO FORCE THE PRODUCT OUT OF THE CANISTER AND INTO THE PRACTICAL PURPOSE THAT THE CONSUMER IS USING IT.”
And once those VOCs hit the air – from deodorants, tailpipes and smokestacks – they mix with the heat of the sun – and create ground level ozone. Pollution.
The multinational corporation, Unilever, owns the Axe brand. Stanich says that between 2006 and 2008, Unilever’s parent company, Conopco, sold more than 2.8 million units of Axe spray that failed to meet California’s clean air standards.
The state has fined Conopco 1.3 million dollars.
It’s all kind of a bummer. At least for some teenage girls.
Katie Schombeck and Julia Rombach say the boys locker room reeks of Axe. And they love it.
“YOU SMELL IT AND YOU’RE LIKE DRAWN TO IT, IT SMELLS SO GOOD.”
“I DO THAT ALL THE TIME. I REMEMBER HANGING OUT WITH GUYS, AND LIKE IF THEY SMELL GOOD I’LL BE LIKE ‘HEY COME HERE FOR A MINUTE’ AND SMELL THEIR SHOULDER AND BE LIKE ‘YOU SMELL GOOD.’”
“I’LL GIVE THEM A BIG HUG, JUST BECAUSE THEY SMELL GOOD.”
But these 16 years olds didn’t realize body spray could be bad for air quality.
“BUT IT NEVER REALLY DAWNED ON ME THAT AXE…I DON’T KNOW, YOU DON’T REALLY THINK ABOUT THAT.”
Compared to all those cars and trucks and smokestacks – it doesn’t seem like a little deodorant spray could cause that much of a problem. But Dimitri Stanich with the California Air Resources Board says all those little bits add up.
“WE SPRAY A LITTLE PERFUME HERE, WE SPRAY A LITTLE DEODORANT THERE, SOME WD-40 ON THE VEHICLES WE’RE WORKING ON. THE LIST GOES ON. EVERYTHING THAT’S A CONSUMER PRODUCT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO CONTRIBUTE TO OZONE.”
Stanich says on peak ozone days, people have a harder time breathing, especially those with asthma.
California has a particularly bad ozone problem in its cities – and also has tougher clean air rules than most of the country.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is about to tighten federal air quality standards – to reduce ozone pollution everywhere else.
Julian Marshall is professor of environmental engineering at the University of Minnesota.
He says most health officials support tougher air standards.
But there are lots of ways to reduce exposure in your own home:
“BUYING LIMITED QUANTITIES OF PRODUCTS THAT EMIT VOCS, OR BUYING LOW VOC PRODUCTS. WHEN YOU GO TO BUY PAINTS FOR EXAMPLE THERE ARE LOW VOC PAINTS.”
To reduce exposure, Marshall says get rid of old chemicals and those you don’t need.
In the meantime, California officials say Unilever has corrected the problems with Axe – and reduced the emissions from its spray can. Making a lot of teenage boys – and some of their girl – friends happy.
For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.
The popular eco-friendly products are not always the best solution. Lester and Greenovation.tv’s Matt Grocoff drop in on Matt’s neighbor to help him with his hardwood floor dilemma.
In home improvement projects, the popular eco-friendly products are not always the best solution. Lester Graham has the story of a home improvement intervention.
Kevin Leeser was not happy with the floors downstairs in his one-hundred year old house.
KL: “Well, we’ve lived here five years and just over the five years they’ve started to get grayer and you can tell that the finish was –in the high traffic areas—you could tell where we were walking it looks like we were hamsters walking through this place.”
LG: “This is maple, right”
KL: “Pfft. Yeah, that’s what they tell me.”
Kevin toyed with the idea of finishing the maple floors… but that sounded really involved.
And then the in-laws visited during the holidays.
KL: “My mother-in-law was like ‘Why don’t you get new floors.’ (laugh) And I was like well, yeah, it would be easier, ‘cause the things I was concerned about were sawdust, and ‘cause I have a newborn, just dirtying up the house and figured just getting some clean stuff, cutting it outside, sticking it down and be done with it.”
LG: So, wanting to be eco-friendly, he thought he’d put down bamboo flooring. Bamboo is renewable and it grows fast… and it’s pretty popular these days.
Then his neighbor stopped by. Matt Grocoff… the eco-friendly home improvement guy with Greenovation-dot-TV who had some –eh—thoughts about Kevin’s plan…
MG: “And, I, like, practically smacked him in the face and I said ‘What are you thinking? This is a gorgeous floor. Go rent yourself a sander or even hire someone for a few hundred bucks to strip the floor and then refinish it.’”
LG: So…You’re not a big fan of bamboo?
MG: “Bamboo is a great product if you have to do something new. You have to ask a question: do you need that new product or do you have something that works now and just needs to be renewed.”
Oh, yeah. Reduce. Re-use. Recycle. So, Kevin’s wife, Lauren and their baby were away for a few days. Kevin rented a sander… …and then started looking for an eco-friendly sealant for his maple floors. Matt had an idea for that.
MG: “Kevin’s using a natural oil from BioShield which is a mixture of tung and linseed oil that is so easy to use. It’s easier to use than even a low-VOC or zero-VOC polyurethene finish and easier to maintain in the long run.”
And in the end… renting the sander, buying sanding pads, buying the floor sealant, paint brushes and all that stuff… ended up costing Kevin about HALF of what it would have if he put down bamboo. Not a bad deal.
But… the big question… what did his wife, Lauren, think of the refinished old floors.
LM “It looks absolutely beautiful and we didn’t have to get new floors. Win, win. We love it. Beautiful.”
Matt Grocoff says he was sure Kevin and Lauren would be happy, because he did the same thing at his house.
MG: “The first thing that I did when we finished with our floor is I took a glass of red wine when we were celebrating and I poured half a glass of red wine on the floor and my wife was like ‘What are you doing!’ And I was like, look, we’re going to spill wine on it eventually, let’s see what happens now. The wine beaded up on the floor. We took a little sponge, wiped it clean and it’s gorgeous, five years later.
LG: “That’s Matt Grocoff with Greenovation-dot-TV. Thanks, Matt.”
MG: “Lester, this is always so much fun. I’m glad to be doing it.”
LG: “That’s The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.”
Flame retardant chemicals help keep foam and plastics from catching on fire. But certain kinds of these chemicals are building up in people. And hundreds of studies are suggesting links to problems with brain development, and thyroid and fertility problems. In the final part of our five part series… Rebecca Williams reports on the alternatives to these chemicals:
PBDEs – or polybrominated diphenyl ethers – are flame retardant chemicals. Penta-BDE is a type that was the go-to chemical for furniture for more than 30 years. Penta was phased out in 2005 because of health concerns. So companies needed alternatives. Now they often use a chemical called chlorinated tris. But there’s a problem.
“Chlorinated tris was removed from children’s sleepwear in the 70s after it was shown to cause mutations and cancer in animals.”
Arlene Blum is one of the scientists who discovered the chemical could mutate DNA. She also discovered the chemical was being absorbed into children’s bodies when they wore their pjs.
“It’s now being used as the flame retardant in furniture and baby product foam across the U.S.”
Blum is a chemist at the University of California Berkeley. She recently published a peer-reviewed study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. She and her team found chlorinated tris in furniture. And they also found it’s migrating out of products and getting into house dust. And then there are other newer flame retardants.
“The other main substitute is called Firemaster. It’s a mixture of four chemicals, two of which are known to be toxic and two of which we don’t know too much about.”
None of the three big chemical companies wanted to be recorded. One of the companies, Albemarle, didn’t respond at all. Both Chemtura and ICL Industrial Products said in email statements that their flame retardant chemicals are extensively studied and safe.
Furniture companies say they’re in a bind. There’s a California regulation called Technical Bulletin 117. It requires the foam in upholstered furniture and baby products to meet a certain fire standard. And that usually means companies have to add flame retardants to the foam to meet the standard. Companies often don’t want to make separate products just for California, so they just treat everything with flame retardants.
Andy Counts is CEO of the American Home Furnishings Alliance. He says back when they were using penta-BDE… they were told it was safe. And they believed it was. Now, he says furniture makers are switching to new chemicals. They’re being told those are safe. And they believe they are.
“Certainly when we started using penta years ago there was no indication of any harmful effects. So it’s always a danger to use substitutes unless you have all the science in front of you. We feel confident that we have that. But as a furniture manufacturer we would like to avoid any questions about the safety of our products.”
At the same time, a handful of companies have moved away from PBDEs and other suspect flame retardants altogether.
Arlene Blum says it’s a good idea to reduce your exposure to those flame retardants. She says they migrate out of products and get into dust.
“You just want to be really good about keeping dust down in your house. Do a lot of vacuuming with a HEPA filter, wet mopping and then always washing your hands before you eat.”
She says one rule of thumb is to look for the little white label on furniture and baby products with foam in them that says it meets California TB 117… and then avoid buying that stuff if you can.
She says we will all probably be surrounded by PBDEs in our homes for decades.
The hope is this new generation of flame retardants will be safe. But there’s no government standard to guarantee that.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.
Flame retardant chemicals are added to hundreds of products in our homes and offices to slow the spread of fire. But during a fire, the fumes can cause problems for firefighters. In the fourth part of our five part series, Rebecca Williams reports… some firefighters say flame retardants can make their jobs more dangerous:
We started using flame retardant chemicals called PBDEs back in the 1970s. Ever since, some people say firefighting has gotten more complicated.
Kathleen Chamberlain is the Fire Marshall for the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“In certain ways, I’m sure the flame retardant chemicals have made things easier: they’ve delayed fires, they’ve slowed them down.”
That’s the upside. But she says there’s also a downside.
“They’ve added a toxicity level which has made things much more dangerous for everybody.”
(fire station radio: “Battalion 1-3… “ and truck noise)
Downstairs at the fire house… Captain Tim Flack has to be ready to jump into his equipment at a moment’s notice. These days, on the way to the fire, he straps on air tanks and gets ready to put on his mask.
“You had the tough man mentality back in the old days where they didn’t wear the air packs and stuff like that. It’s to your benefit to wear your air packs and breathe the good air and not be the tough guy.”
He says all firefighters wear their air packs these days. It’s required. Turns out it’s also a really good idea.
Many firefighters are concerned about flame retardants called PBDEs. Even though two kinds of PBDEs were phased out by manufacturers several years ago, their products are still in our homes. The International Association of Firefighters says when PBDEs burn they release dense fumes and black smoke. And a highly corrosive gas called hydrogen bromide.
You wouldn’t want to breathe it.
So, firefighters are in a tricky place. Many say flame retardant chemicals are a good idea. But they want to move away from brominated flame retardants such as PBDEs. They say there are alternatives.
It’s complicated by a California regulation. Technical Bulletin 117 requires the foam in upholstered furniture and baby products to meet a certain combustion standard. And that often means companies have to add flame retardants to the foam to meet the standard.
The chemical industry stands by the safety of its flame retardants. The American Chemistry Council did not want to be recorded for this story. But in an email statement, the Council said quote: Flame retardants have been credited with saving many lives including the passengers and crew of the 2005 Air France crash in Toronto.
Many people say there are situations, such as airplane fires, where flame retardant chemicals can buy precious seconds to help people escape.
But many firefighters say in our homes, it would be smarter to deal with the sources of ignition.
Cigarettes and other smoking materials are the leading cause of fire-related deaths in the U.S. But for years, the tobacco industry fought laws requiring self-extinguishing cigarettes.
A 2008 Washington Post investigation revealed the tobacco industry and the flame retardant industry have a lobbyist in common. That lobbyist, Peter Sparber, first helped the tobacco industry fight against self-extinguishing cigarettes. Then he lobbied for tighter regulations that would require the use of flame retardant chemicals in furniture.
So first, he lobbied to protect the cause of many fires. Then he lobbied to use chemicals to retard those fires.
These days, most states now have laws requiring cigarettes to be self extinguishing.
Firefighters’ groups are joining forces to stop the use of PBDEs and other brominated flame retardants altogether. But one of the major chemical companies, ICL Industrial Products, says brominated flame retardants are the most efficient at putting out fires… and they will continue to play a vital role in product designs and public safety.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.
Flame retardant chemicals are in many of the products we use. They help slow the spread of fire. But some kinds of these chemicals are building up in people and in pets and wildlife. And hundreds of studies are suggesting the chemicals could be linked to problems with brain development, and thyroid and fertility problems. In the third part of our five part series… Rebecca Williams takes a look at why our federal government has not banned them:
In the U.S., chemicals are innocent until proven guilty.
Companies don’t have to prove chemicals are safe before putting them on the market. If government officials want to ban a chemical, they have to prove it’s harmful.
There are flame retardants called PBDEs – or polybrominated diphenyl ethers. There’s a good chance they’re in your couch or office chair or carpet padding. They’re toxic. Pretty much every American has some level of PBDEs in their body. The European Union has banned three kinds of PBDEs. Several U.S. states have banned them. But even people who want the federal government to ban them say we can’t.
“The EPA does not have the power or authority to ban these chemicals.”
Mike Shriberg is with the Ecology Center. It’s an environmental group.
“The last time EPA tried to take significant action against a chemical was on asbestos. A chemical that is widely known to cause cancer. And the agency’s actions were overturned in court essentially saying they lacked the authority to ban even this extremely well known hazardous chemical.”
Our nation’s chemical law is called the Toxic Substances Control Act. It’s supposed to give the Environmental Protection Agency power to regulate chemicals.
The EPA did not want to be recorded for this story. But in an email statement, a spokesperson said the agency can ban chemicals under the Act. But it has to prove they present an unreasonable risk. And the spokesperson said quote,
“Flame retardants are particularly challenging to make this finding because their commercial benefit is they save lives in fire situations.”
Some people say the EPA’s hands are tied. Deborah Rice is a toxicologist with the Maine Center for Disease Control. She says the chemical industry made sure of that.
“This Toxic Substances Control Act was passed by Congress over 30 years ago and it had major input by the chemical industry and it hasn’t been reformed since because of major lobbying by the chemical industry. That’s what kept the U.S. unable to really protect the health of its citizens or the environment.”
Rice has direct experience with input by the chemical industry. In 2007, the EPA asked her to chair a panel to help set safe exposure levels for a PBDE flame retardant. The chemical industry felt Rice had expressed bias against the chemical. The industry asked the Bush Administration’s EPA to remove Rice from the panel. The EPA removed her.
To this date, there are no federal bans on any PBDE flame retardant.
The company that made penta-BDE and octa-BDE started voluntarily phasing them out in 2004. EPA just reached an agreement with the three big chemical companies to phase out deca-BDE in three years.
Critics of these kinds of agreements point out they’re just voluntary. The Ecology Center’s Mike Shriberg says the agreements are not binding.
“EPA is essentially forced to begging for a piece of paper that’s meaningless if not followed by the companies. That’s why we’re in this mess we’re in.”
Shriberg says the only way to fix things is to overhaul our nation’s chemical safety laws.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.