New York has become the third state to ban the distribution or sale of cosmetics and personal products containing mercury. The law was signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul in late December, with little fanfare or media attention. The ban takes effect June 1, though its enforcement and penalties for retailers who violate it remain unclear.
Mercury is a naturally occurring chemical that is also a neurotoxin. It has been linked to cancer, developmental disorders, and other health effects, but it is legal in small amounts in some products as a preservative and germ killer.
The new New York law requires clearer and more consistent labeling of beauty product ingredients. Mercury has long been used in skin lightening or whitening creams marketed to women of color, as well as in hair relaxers and treatments aimed at removing blemishes, age spots, and wrinkles.
But consumers will still need to do their own due diligence as state Department of Environmental Conservation officials determine enforcement mechanisms and how retailers will comply with this new standard.
“There is a very strong link between racism and the use of cosmetics, particularly skin lightening creams,” said Sonal Jessel, policy director for WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
The new state law has a stricter standard than the federal government. At this time, the US Food and Drug Administration does not require the beauty industry to list all of its ingredients in its products. For example, a loophole allows ingredients to remain hidden if they are considered “trade secrets.” Lax application is also a problem given the scale of cosmetics and lotions sold in stores across the country and online.
Skin lightening creams for sale at a shop in Thiruvananthapuram, India. The WHO says that the skin lightening industry (including mercury and non-mercury products) accounts for 50% of the skin care market in India.
Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images
“There is not the ability to test every product that comes into the United States,” said Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group.
Mercury, a heavy metal, may have a skin-lightening effect by suppressing melanin production, leading to a lighter skin tone, according to the World Health Organization. Using mercury-containing skin lightening products can cause short-term skin rashes, but lifetime exposure could damage organs, Stoiber said.
“The health effects can range from skin rashes, skin irritation, to much more serious effects like kidney damage, so it’s definitely not something you want to expose yourself to or put in your body,” he said. Stoiber. .
These skin lightening products are part of a global industry estimated to be worth $31 billion by 2024, according to the World Health Organization. A recent CNN investigative report indicated that the US makes up a third of the market for skin lightening products.
Even with the New York ban, the products could still be around.
Efforts to update cosmetic safety standards have been ongoing since 2008, when Minnesota became the first state in the country to ban mercury as an ingredient in beauty products.
But mercury-containing products can still be purchased online, despite a global treaty agreement to cease production, according to a March 2022 report by the Zero Mercury Working Group.
The group began tracking mercury in skin-lightening products in 2017, but this is the first report it has published that focuses on the online sale of these items since international regulations on the neurotoxin went into effect in 2020.
The researchers found that of 271 skin-lightening products sold by online retailers like Amazon and eBay, 129 contained dangerously high levels of mercury. The report calls on retailers to really enforce their restricted item policies.
Mercury is sometimes found in hair straighteners.
Kehinde Olufemi Akinbo via Shutterstock
Amazon’s policy states that products the company sells “must comply with all laws and regulations” and that “the sale of illegal, unsafe, or other restricted products listed on these pages…is strictly prohibited.” And in 2020, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, and L’Oréal changed the way they sell and market skin lightening products in countries across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Before buying a product marketed as a skin lightener or antiaging treatment, the FDA recommends checking ingredient labels for the words “mercurous chloride,” “calomel,” “mercuric,” or “mercury,” all which indicate that the product contains mercury. .
The FDA recommends checking ingredient labels for the words “mercurous chloride,” “calomel,” “mercuric,” or “mercury.”
For nearly a century, the FDA has had little power to ensure the safety of thousands of personal care products, from mascara to shampoo. But cosmetics regulation, which hasn’t changed since 1938, finally got a much-needed makeover in December with the Cosmetics Modernization Regulation Act of 2022. The law requires cosmetic manufacturers to provide the FDA with a list of products and product ingredients.
Right now, the agency only regulates 11 ingredients in cosmetics. By contrast, the European Union bans more than 1,300 chemicals in personal care products. However, the FDA maintains a list of skin care products that it found to contain mercury.
Complaints about cosmetics in New York City and across the country go through the US Department of Health and Human Services. The city’s 311 service does not accept these reports, according to a spokesperson for the Office of Technology and Innovation. , which handles data from the entire city.
Bobbi Wilding, executive director of Clean+Healthy, one of New York’s leading environmental health organizations, said nonprofits and state agencies, like the Department of Environmental Conservation, can go into stores and test products. to test for mercury once the ban goes into effect.
“Often organizations like ours do some compliance testing where we just buy some products, send them to the lab, and flag them up to regulators,” Wilding said. “The attorney general’s office has been known to go and test [for toxic chemicals.] They were testing children’s products a decade ago.”
How mercury got into some cosmetics
Numerous skin lighteners are for sale in the aisles of beauty supply stores in Brooklyn and Queens; most of them are manufactured abroad. But users don’t need to leave the comfort of their home to buy the products. A simple search on Google or Twitter shows products ranging in price from $6 to $40.
Wilding said regulators have known about the dangers of mercury for centuries. The expression “mad as a hatter” entered the English lexicon because hat makers were being unknowingly poisoned by mercury salts used to make hat felt, he said.
“As a general rule of thumb, I would definitely stay away from skin lightening creams,” Stoiber said. While the FDA banned the use of mercury in most cosmetics at levels above 1 ppm in 1973, that was for US-made products and made no mention of imports or online sales.
Customers at the beauty shop link their heads to form a human chain, with each woman in a different phase of a facial. Photo taken on August 24, 1941.
Betmann
Advocates argue that mercury has no place in beauty products and that racist beauty standards are driving the use of harmful skin lightening creams.
New York City-based WE ACT for Environmental Justice collaborated with several universities on a survey to better understand the use of chemical hair-straightening and skin-lightening products frequently used by women of color.
The study, published Jan. 18 in the journal Environmental Justice, found that the use of these skin-lightening creams stems from much more than a desire to appear whiter; it is also used to enhance social standing, careers, and relationships.
We found that people generally feel that lighter skin is a more beautiful way to look, and that’s because of our history of racism in America.
“We found that people generally feel that lighter skin is a more beautiful way to look, and that’s because of our history of racism in the United States,” said Jessel of WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “Our legacy of even colonialism is part of that conversation in terms of the global side of skin lightening use.”
Jessel said WE ACT hasn’t heard of anyone, including merchants currently selling mercury-containing products, being upset about the ban in New York. Organizations like WE ACT and Clean+Healthy are trying to change harmful beauty standards and increase public education about the dangers of mercury-containing products.
New York’s ban modifies the state’s Environmental Conservation law to include mercury along with existing limits for 1,4-dioxane in cosmetics and personal care products in the state.
The law also requires the creation of more consistent product ingredient labeling for these items. New York already banned the use of mercury in thermometers, fluorescent lights and other common products in 2004.
Source: news.google.com