Madeleine Bird
Our workshop was facilitated by Diana Daghofer of the Saunders-Matthey Cancer Prevention Coalition and was in two parts: First, a thought-provoking overview of consumer-product labelling and the right-to-know, presented by Sean Griffin, author of the well-known CancerSmart Consumer Guide put out by the Labour and Environmental Alliance Society (LEAS).
Sean, a veteran of the environmental and occupational health field, said to me, “About a year ago, BCAM’s name started popping up in the media and in conversation. I don’t remember hearing much about your organization before that.” I thanked him for his excellent presentation and gladly accepted this positive indication of BCAM’s growing success -- success due, in no small part, to BCAM’s Safe Cosmetics Campaign and the Health and Environment Awareness Project (HEAP), the latter in collaboration with The McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women. These efforts were showcased to a national audience in my presentation “The Beast of Beauty: Toxic Chemicals in Cosmetics”.
What a crowd we had! Of 17 workshops offered at this conference, this was one of only two with full registration. The crowd included citizens from public health, government, natural cosmetics producers, mothers, fathers and writers. I use the term ‘citizens’ rather than ‘consumers’ because our participation in society reaches beyond mere consumption, and our willingness to pay for products is an important aspect of this participation. The value and trust we place in the products we receive, however, is eroded when we get something we didn’t bargain for: potentially harmful toxic chemicals in a shampoo or skin cream we thought was benign. This loss of trust in the products offered for purchase, coupled with the need to learn more, is what I believe draws crowds to a workshop on this subject.
Citizenship was a main theme of the workshop as a whole. As citizens, we have a right to access the full list of ingredients in products we buy, and to know whether or not these ingredients are known or potentially toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic or disruptive to our hormonal systems. We also deserve government policies to protect us from exposure to toxic chemicals in such products. As citizens we can inquire, request, demand, and use our power – by purchasing (or not), by writing, by calling or by voting – to promote positive change and safer consumer products. It begins in rooms of individuals with inquiring minds, willing to flex their citizen muscle, who are given key information to prompt action. New policies that protect public health and that require industry to introduce safer products must originate with concerned citizens because, thus far, government and industry (for the most part) have failed to act.
Key information at the workshop on The Beast of Beauty included a discussion of the increasing incidence of cancer generally, the potential (but not yet established) health effects of long-term exposure to toxic chemicals in cosmetics, and details on some of the most toxic chemicals found in some cosmetics today, such as phthalates.
I presented the major components of Health Canada’s Cosmetics Regulations, their Cosmetics Ingredient Hotlist, the puzzling criteria for listing one product as a cosmetic and another as a medication, and some of the major gaping regulatory loopholes. For example, Health Canada does not require from industry any evidence of long- or short-term safety of a cosmetic product. Most of all, I emphasized the important role that citizens can play in changing the situation. In fact, we now have examples of positive change attributable to the U.S. Safe Cosmetics Campaign which successfully pushed a well-known brand of nail polish (OPI) to remove toluene and phthalates from their salon nail products.
The Beast of Beauty was not BCAM’s only success at the conference. Following BCAM’s lead, a new Canada-wide Safe Cosmetics Campaign committee was formed. This nation-wide effort will help push our government to ban toluene, phthalates and other nasty ingredients from cosmetics. No wonder that people working in the field of environmental safely, like Sean Griffin, now have BCAM on their radar. The Safe Cosmetics Campaign and HEAP are working together to increase awareness among concerned citizens. The Health and Environment Awareness Project and the Safe Cosmetics Campaign Canada will continue to refine and articulate the issues through evolving workshops like The Beast of Beauty, encouraging all our citizens to participate, learn more, voice their concerns and make significant changes.