The San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund has concluded that American cosmetics including nail polish put women at risk of cancer and children at risk of suffering birth defects. Never mind that no mainstream cancer epidemiologist believes that cosmetics contribute in anyway to human cancer or reproductive effects. The Fund is convinced that "chemicals" in the environment are the culprits and thus must be targeted and banished.
Indeed, in March of this year the Breast Cancer Fund implored major cosmetic manufacturers to accept the "precautionary principle" of the European Union and replace any chemical that might possibly cause disease, even if there is no evidence that it does.
High on the list of chemicals they suspect cause cancer and birth defects is a member of the chemical phthalate family DBP, often used in nail polish to strengthen the finish and reduce chipping.
There is no indication whatsoever that human health is in any way jeopardized by using nail polish (assuming one is not ingesting it). Scant animal evidence, which in itself has little relevance to predicting human disease risk, points to adverse reproductive effects in laboratory animals. But then, a myriad of naturally occurring chemicals in food cause ill effects at high enough doses in rodents.
What is a cosmetic company to do? The correct answer, of course, is for them to state the obvious: there is no health hazard from using nail polish and no reason to reformulate the products.
Unfortunately, at least two major cosmetic makers did not see it that way and decided that it would be a good PR move to reformulate the product anyway, to show they "care" about the health of women. Procter & Gamble is reformulating its Max Factor and Cover Girl polishes and Estee-Lauder is revamping its Clinique and MAC lines to remove DBP. Although the companies contend this is not an admission that the old formula was unsafe, that is clearly the message they are conveying.
Great PR. Bad precedent. Can you imagine the chaos that would develop if every manufacturer responded to every baseless scare by coming up with an allegedly "new and improved" product?
As the European Union proceeds with its plan to require member countries to register some 30,000 industrial chemicals with a new regulatory agency and to prove to that agency that these chemicals are "safe" (how exactly does one ever prove something to be safe?), more American companies will come under pressure to remove chemicals from products "just in case." The ultimate loser here is the American consumer who ends up with a less effective or less desirable product with a higher price tag.
And what contribution does this scare-and-switch travesty offer in terms of improved public health? It could be argued that all the attention given to phantom risks like nail polish as a cause of disease distracts us from the real, preventable causes of disease and death and the real, everyday lifestyle changes that will improve health (as in the case of a woman who carefully seeks "safe" nail polish but does not put her seatbelt on in a taxi). As the witch-hunt against "chemicals" intensifies in the coming years, consumers, in their own self interest, should exert some pressure of their own on corporations that cave to junk science: don't buy the "reformulated product," and tell the manufacturer why.