27 July 2019 | New Scientist | 21investigation, but its options are
limited. The product is still on sale.
In the European Union, people
are expected to report issues to
their national authorities.
Problems persist with other
cosmetic products too. Despite
this, Steve Xu at Northwestern
University in Chicago and his
colleagues found that, between
2004 and 2016, only 5144 adverse
events were submitted to the FDA.Cosmetic issues
“What we saw was very low,”
says Xu, who, as a dermatologist,
says he sees patients with skin
irritation resulting from personal
care products on a daily basis.
“That tells me people are not
going to the FDA, they’re going
to the manufacturer, and the
manufacturer is a black hole.”
There have been attempts to
tighten regulation of cosmetics in
the US, but without much success.
In the meantime, researchers
aren’t saying that cosmetics are
unsafe. Just that their full effects
are unknown.
As for sunscreen, while the
recent FDA rules are due to be
finalised by November, it is
unlikely we will have the final
word on the 12 ingredients still
under investigation then. Michele
says the industry has asked for
eight of the ingredients to be left off
the list to allow for extra data to be
collected. “This is a proposed rule,
so it’s not final yet,” she says. “We’re
currently reviewing comments.”
In the meantime, if you are
worried about sunscreens, one
option is to stick to products that
use zinc oxide or titanium dioxide
as an active ingredient. These are
“generally recognised as safe and
effective” by the FDA. And taking
other sun protection measures,
such as covering up and seeking
shade in peak hours, is also vital. ❚been done about which chemicals
in cosmetics can enter the
bloodstream and what their
effects may be.
Part of the problem comes
from complaints falling through
the cracks. If someone in the US
complains of an adverse drug
effect to its manufacturer, then
the company has to report it to
the FDA. But this isn’t the case
for cosmetics, meaning issues
can go unnoticed.
Take the case of hair product
WEN by Chaz Dean Cleansing
Conditioners. In 2014, the FDA
began investigating the product
after it received 127 complaints
directly from consumers. It later
discovered that, by this point, the
company had already received
21,000 complaints of hair loss and
scalp irritation. The FDA hasn’t yet
announced an end to itsCR
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cancer,” says Harley. “But these
compounds are getting into our
bodies, and what’s concerning
is that there’s a real lack of
information on what the
consequences could be.”
Manufacturers can point to the
fact that all these ingredients were
deemed safe by the FDA and we
have been using sunscreen for
decades without seeing
detrimental effects.
“Back in the 70s, we thought
that anything you put on the skin
just stayed there,” says Michele.
“We never thought that things
could be absorbed by the skin.”
Similar concerns are now being
raised about the chemicals in
cosmetics too. They face little
regulation in the US and have
had the same level of scrutiny
as sunscreen in the EU. This
means that few studies have▲ Penguins
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few hours later.▲ Steep streets
Residents of Harlech have
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of the world after one of
the Welsh town’s streets
was named the steepest
on the planet.▲ Robot umpires
You’re outta there! A robot
baseball umpire ejected
a pitching coach from a
game in the US for arguing
with its decision.▼ Airline tweets
A tweet by Dutch airline
KLM crashed and burned,
after it revealed the seats
with the highest risk of
death during an accident.▼ Te c h n a me s
Need a name for your
child, then why not try
Google? One family took
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hypothesis
Sorting the week’s
supernovae from
the absolute zerosMore Insight online
Your guide to a rapidly changing world
newscientist.com/insightAs of January next year, visitors
to Palau, an island country in the
western Pacific, will be prohibited
from buying or using a range
of sunscreens. The country has
classified products containing any
of 10 commonly used sun filters
and preservatives as “reef-toxic”,
as they are thought to harm coral
reefs. Other places have followed
suit, and similar bans will come
into effect in 2021 in Hawaii and
in Key West, Florida.
Craig Downs at Haereticus
Environmental Laboratory in
Virginia and his colleagues
ran laboratory experiments to
assess the problem. They found
that immature corals exposed
to oxybenzone (see main article),
an ingredient that is commonly
used in sunscreens, die.
The corals became deformed
and pale in colour, and wereunable to eat, as depicted in the
images above. “Their mouths
just opened, and it looked like
a horror movie scream,” says
Downs. “They were as good
as dead in the first 8 hours.”
Sunscreen manufacturers have
said that lab-based experiments
can’t tell us what happens in the
real world, but more bans are
likely. “We have one reef, and
we have to do one small thing
to protect that,” Teri Johnston,
mayor of Key West, was quoted
as saying before the city’s vote on
sunscreen. “It’s our obligation.”Toxic for reefs
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