I am also waiting for clarification regarding your accusation (and the associated implication that my my views are “tainted” in some way due to “vested interest”, especially in the light of the knowledge of the true extent of your personal vested interest. Either an explanation as to how you don't have a vested interest, or an apology for casting doubt on my veracity would be in order here.

Unlike your country, the cosmetics industry in the US is largely unregulated – regardless of what those who maintain this website may say. Some companies use certain synthetic chemicals that are known and probable carcinogens as ingredients, and have every right to do so under the authority of federal law.

In the US, under the regulatory statutes of the federal Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency the window for either agency to show a chemical is a concern to human health is very short. As a result, it's nearly impossible to complete the necessary tests to ensure these products are actually safe.

We don't believe the cosmetics industry is “trying to somehow sneak “toxic” materials into peoples home.” As I just explained, they don't have to. It's legal. But, just because it's legal doesn't make it right.

I would just make this final point to your original critique that people without degrees in chemistry have no place in pursuing policy change of US federal chemicals law. I've worked closely on public policy issues at the state and federal level for 15 years, including the last 7 on pushing legislative fixes of current US laws dealing with the security of chemical facilities and the reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act, from within and outside of government.

I've also worked to reform aspects of the country's healthcare system, fiscal, education and energy policies, and have pitched in on a number of foreign policy issues, including terrorism as an aide to three members of the US Senate.

When I want the facts, I turn to experts, not people who solicit money to fund high salaries for their “non profit”. I will repeat your statement. Lisa and I make NO $ off this site. We do not solicit for $5 or $10 every week. We both were compact signers with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and found serious flaws with the Skin Deep rating system. That is why we started PersonalCareTruth.com. Consumers, industry peers, everyone deserves the truth.

One further, and possibly final, point from me – to refer back to the section of my original article where I mention the Skin Deep use of the “If you can't pronounce it, it can't be safe” argument; words almost fail me at the depth of sheer stupidity of this statement. Scaremongering at its indefensible worst. If Alex would care to give some direct answers to these charges, then further discussion may be of some value.

First off the study is done on minority children based on socioeconomic status they are more likely to be exposed to environmental pollutants. Pollutants in our environment are a given and all of us are exposed to them. Furthermore, since this study could not actually identify how the exposure took place such as ingestion, inhalation, skin contact, it is only showing what is the obvious for all Americans. This was solely based on randomly checking cord blood for chemicals. It also did not deal with examples of drinkers or smokers and what they expose unborn infants to.

In an excerpt from the article I located:

“Each time we look for the latest chemical of concern in infant cord blood, we find it,” said Anila Jacob, M.D., EWG senior scientist and co-author of the report. “This time we discovered BPA, among other dangerous substances, in almost every infant's cord blood we tested.”

“This study proves newborns are exposed to BPA in the womb,” Jacob said. “After they are born, they'll encounter more BPA by drinking from a bottle, drinking canned infant formula and, eventually, eating canned food like ravioli and chicken noodle soup.”

“When I learned of EWG's groundbreaking biomonitoring research four years ago, I knew Rachel's Network members would want to be involved. We are proud to have funded this research, and it is imperative that Congress now take action to strengthen chemical regulation,” said Winsome McIntosh, founder and president of Rachel's Network. “This issue affects all of us; EWG's testing proves that a toxic chemical burden exists in women and children regardless of geographic location or socioeconomic status.”

This suggests that concerns come mainly from ingestion and not from topical exposure, plus she makes Dr. Whelans argument for her since she also states if we look hard enough for an exposure, we can find something, somewhere always….So I go back to what Personal Care Truth was created for, personal care products and cosmetics.

No one eats their cosmetics and nothing has been substantiated in any scientific research outside of nano particles which shows that any cosmetic ingredient, even those deemed penetration enhancers, as going any deeper than the Dermis layer and not actually proven to cross into the blood brain barrier.

Phthalates were a prime example of this debate with Whelan and Swan. Even by EWG's own disclaimers throughout their site and your comment:

“Now, EWG doesn't believe that just because a chemical is found in a person's blood that it is automatically a threat to their health.”

This in and of itself is the crux of the argument: Based on the “precautionary principle” the EWG feels this should be changed within the industry….Why, because EWG says so? Who are they? Perhaps read the latest article at the home page in this regard.

Proving something is safe is ridiculous and impossible again by EWG's own disclaimers. Not necessarily a health risk….If we set out to prove something was completely safe when there is no actual studies showing fundamentally they are unsafe, nothing and I do mean nothing, would ever come to market and we would all be staring at a bunch of empty shelves.

Drinking too much water can be unsafe and can kill you…..soaking in water can be unsafe to the point that excessive exposure can literally make skin fall away. And then, well the whole thing of having to resort back to being hunters and gatherers based on supposition and educated guesses….well to say the least is prehistoric.

This is of course if I have understood the various parts of policy and pieces of information I have read in good faith on the internet, as I am sure you read about chemical hazards.

I am in a slilghtly different situation to most on here as I am in the UK, where we do have a number of different pieces of legislation covering chemical risk ( and please note I do use the term risk here, not hazard ). Cosmetics must undergo a safety assessment here, and all the companies that I deal with that only sell products to the US do these as well, to the EU standard.

The biggest thing I object to is the assumption that we as an industry are trying to somehow sneak “toxic” materials into peoples homes. I think that everyone on here would agree that product safety is paramount to selling products. There may well be some in the industry who disagree, I can't speak for everyone, but I do feel that if there are they would be very few and far between and quite outspoken.

I am glad that you have replied, I have nothing personal against you and as Media relations I suppose it kind of is your job. I do also notice however that you haven't yet actually addressed any of the points in the initial article and subsequent comments about risk, hazard, data gaps and general product safety, relating specifically to Skin Deep, rather than the slightly off topic comments about the EWG as a whole.