Statement by Linda Loretz, PhD, Chief Toxicologist Personal Care Products Council In Response to the Environmental Working Group’s New Skin Deep Report
Washington, D.C. – “Consumer and product safety are top priorities for the cosmetics and personal care products industry, with careful and thorough scientific research and development serving as the foundation for everything we do. Our products are among the safest product categories regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“The Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) report is speculative, misleading and does not use sound science to assess the safety of ingredients used in cosmetics and personal care products. The group’s Skin Deep database assumes certain ingredients are hazardous, despite the fact that they have been found safe for use in cosmetics by expert bodies such as the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) Expert Panel (U.S.) and the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) (EU). Like its Skin Deep database, the group does not use sound scientific principles or peer reviewed data as the basis for its claims. The analysis in this report is fundamentally flawed, and the conclusions are not meaningful.
“Personal care products companies invest nearly $3 billion each year in scientific research and development. Numerous scientific, peer-reviewed papers are published on evaluating ingredient safety and enhancing or developing new safety methods. Companies take their responsibility for consumer and product safety very seriously.
“Furthermore, FDA has clear authority to regulate the safety of these products under the Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act, which requires that every product and its individual ingredients be substantiated for safety before they are put on the market, and that those products’ labels be truthful and not misleading.
“Families who use cosmetics and personal care products, regardless of their background, can feel confident that they are protected by a combination of federal safety regulations and a strong commitment by manufacturers to utilize the best science and latest available research data to substantiate the safety of a cosmetic product before it is marketed. Companies employ tens of thousands of scientific and medical experts who are devoted to studying the safety of human health in relation to products and the ingredients used in them.
“We encourage consumers to visit www.Cosmeticsinfo.org to get factual, scientific information on ingredients most commonly used in cosmetics and personal care products in the United States.”