Students Urge Cosmetics Companies
to List Toxic Chemicals
Source: Breast
Cancer Fund / Marin Independent Journal By Richard
Halstead
 A group of Marin teens visited Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's
Sacramento office yesterday to urge him to sign a bill that
would require cosmetics manufacturers to disclose cancer-causing
ingredients in their products.
The teens never saw Schwarzenegger, who was in Los Angeles
campaigning. After waiting an hour, however, they did get
the ear of an aide, Kacy Hutchison, who said she would brief
the governor on the legislation.
"We tried to reach them on a personal level," said
Audra Silman, a 17-year-old senior at Redwood High School. "We
made friends with the guard and gave him information to take
home to his daughter."
Silman was accompanied by two other Redwood High students,
Julia Smith and Victoria Ruff; Jessica Assaf, 15, a student
at The Branson School; and Sasha Hoffman, 17, who graduated
from Redwood High last year.
The bill, SB 484, introduced by state Sen. Carole Migden,
D-San Francisco, would also authorize the state's Department
of Health Services to investigate the health effects of chemicals
in cosmetics linked to cancer or birth defects. It would
require the health department to submit its findings to other
state departments, including the Department of Industrial
Relations.
The bill would make failure by a manufacturer to submit
the information a crime, and provides for enforcement by
the state attorney general and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The bill was by passed by the Legislature on Aug. 31. The
governor has until Oct. 9 to veto it. Otherwise, it becomes
law regardless of whether he signs it. A spokesman for the
governor declined comment yesterday both on the legislation
and the teens' visit.
The Environmental Working Group, a watchdog group involved
in the safe cosmetics campaign, has estimated that one-third
of all personal care products contain one or more ingredients
classified as possible human carcinogens. For example, it
says that acrylamide—found in foundation, face lotion
and hand cream—has been linked to mammary tumors in
laboratory research, and that dibutyl phthalate, an industrial
chemical commonly used in perfume and hair spray, increases
the risk of breast cancer.
But the teens said Schwarzenegger's aide seemed skeptical.
They said Hutchison asked them if they had evidence that
any particular ingredient in cosmetics is dangerous. They
responded that the effects are cumulative so it is difficult
to prove a cause.
The trip to Sacramento was orchestrated by Judi Shils, director
of the Marin Cancer Project. It was Shils' idea to get perhaps
the biggest users of cosmetics in Marin, teenage girls, to
lobby for the bill.
Smith, 16, said giving up cosmetics altogether to avoid
possibly dangerous ingredients is not an option for her.
"That's completely unrealistic in our society; like
there is so much pressure on teenage girls to look a certain
way," Smith said. "If our campaign asked girls
to stop wearing makeup, it would have a lot less support."
"Also, it's not just makeup," Assaf said. "These
ingredients are in everything from toothpaste to deodorant
to body wash."
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