Hero Honda Marketing

Personal Care Products Council

(Redirected from Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association)

The Personal Care Products Council (previously the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association or CTFA) is an industry group comprised of more than 600 member companies. [1] [2] Its website states: [3]

CTFA strives to ensure that the personal care products industry has the freedom to pursue creative product development and compete in a fair and responsible marketplace. CTFA represents the industry's interests at the local, state, national, and international levels, promoting voluntary industry self-regulation and reasonable governmental requirements that support the health and safety of consumers.

Contents

[hide]

1 Cosmetic Ingredient Review

2 Challenges

2.1 DEA safety concerns

2.2 Nanotech safety concerns

2.3 Campaign for Safe Cosmetics

2.4 California legislation

2.5 European regulation

2.6 Environmental Health Network

2.7 Animal rights activism

3 Public relations

4 Lobbying

4.1 Federal lobbying

4.2 State lobbying

4.3 CTFA lobbyists

5 Political action committee

6 IRS reporting

7 Programs

8 Contact info

9 SourceWatch resources

10 External links

[edit]

Cosmetic Ingredient Review

CTFA established the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) in 1976, "with support of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration and the Consumer Federation of America." [4] CTFA funds CIR, but claims that it "assesses the safety of ingredients used in cosmetics in an unbiased, independent forum with an expert panel comprised of world-renowned physicians and scientists." [5]

[edit]

Challenges

[edit]

DEA safety concerns

After his research found that diethanolamine, or DEA, "slows the creation of brain cells vital to memory in rodents," the University of North Carolina nutritionist Dr. Steven Zeisel suggested that pregnant women "check shampoo and sunblock labels," to avoid products with DEA. "I'm not saying I know women will do harm. My personal choice would be to heed this warning. Why use shampoo and sunblock containing DEA until research under way is complete?" Zeisel asked. [6]

CTFA's John Bailey questioned Zeisel's warning. "The exposure is, by all measures we can see, thousands or tens of thousands times lower than reported in [Zeisel's] paper," he told the Raleigh News & Observer. [7]

[edit]

Nanotech safety concerns

In mid-2006, a coalition of environmental groups asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate the use of nanoparticles in cosmetics, saying their safety had not yet been determined. Two groups, Friends of the Earth and International Center for Technology Assessment, filed a formal petition with the agency. The petition "coincided with the release of a report by the groups that highlighted the number of personal care products with nanoingredients." The report states that nanoparticles are "used extensively in more than 116 sunscreens, cosmetics and personal care products," according to the San Francisco Chronicle. [8]

The FDA "plans an October meeting to discuss the new kinds of nanotechnology materials being developed for use in the products it regulates, including drugs, food, cosmetics and medical devices," reported AP. [9] The SF Chronicle reported, "Animal studies have shown that some nanoparticles can penetrate cells and tissues, move through the body and brain and cause biochemical damage. But whether cosmetics and sunscreens containing nanomaterials pose health risks remains largely unknown, pending completion of long-range studies recently begun by the FDA and other agencies." [10]

CTFA's executive vice-president for science, John Bailey, claimed, "The amount of knowledge that we have for the safety of these materials is more than adequate to deal with their safety in the marketplace. That, combined with the FDA's authority to seek more information if they require, combine to form a powerful check and balance." [11]

[edit]

Campaign for Safe Cosmetics

In 2002, a coalition of environmental and public health groups calling themselves the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics released its first report, "Not Too Pretty: Phthalates, Beauty Products and the FDA." The report stated: [12]

Major loopholes in federal law allow the $20-billion-a-year cosmetics industry to put unlimited amounts of phthalates into many personal care products with no required testing, no required monitoring of health effects, and no required labeling. ... In animal tests some phthalates damage the developing testes of offspring and cause malformations of the penis and other parts of the reproductive tract. The same phthalates that cause permanent harm of the male reproductive system in laboratory studies are also found in hair spray, deodorant, and fragrances.

Harvard professor Russ Hauser, described by the San Jose Mercury News as one of "the few researchers to have studied phthalates in humans," said in 2005 that, "There's not enough human data to say they are safe and don't cause health effects. But, on the other hand, there's not a lot of human data showing they do." Hauser's research team "found that some phthalates may cause sperm abnormalities" (Julie Sevrens Lyons, "Chemicals' Toxicity Debated; Phthalates Are Used in Personal Products," San Jose Mercury News (California), May 18, 2005).

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics urges cosmetics companies to "pledge to remove toxic chemicals and replace