Feb. 10 – Testing finds traces of carcinogen in bath products

Some bath products may soon require Prop 65 warnings if they are sold in California, according to an article in the L.A. Times:

Some shampoos and other bath products still contain traces of a cancer-causing petrochemical that federal health officials have expressed concerns about for more than 20 years, according to test results announced Thursday by environmental activists.

All 18 children’s and adult products tested in a laboratory contained 1,4-dioxane, and three had concentrations that exceeded the Food and Drug Administration’s recommended limit, says the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a San Francisco-based coalition of eight national environmental and health advocacy organizations…

“However, some cosmetics, detergents and shampoos may contain levels higher than recommended by FDA,” says a report by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency advises consumers to avoid products listing the surfactants PEG, polyethylene, polyethylene glycol, polyoxyethylene, polyethoxyethylene or polyoxynolethylene as ingredients unless the company has shown that they are not tainted with 1,4-dioxane.

The chemical was declared a carcinogen under California’s Proposition 65, which requires warnings on products that pose a certain cancer risk. But state officials have not reviewed whether any products contain enough to trigger such warnings.

See the full article here