Ever heard of the Food, Drug and COSMETIC Act? FDA is supposed to regulate cosmetics.

Send Commissioner Califf back to Google (Verily) and replace him with someone who cares about human health.

The state of Washington is having to become a mini-FDA because FDA can’t be bothered to oversee the safety of products over which it has jurisdiction. From Kaiser Health News and the Defender:

Washington has joined more than a dozen other states in seeking to crack down on toxic substances in cosmetics after a state-funded study there found lead, arsenic and formaldehyde in makeup, lotion and hair-straightening products made by CoverGirl and other brands.

The U.S. stalled out on chemical regulations after the 1970s, according to Bhavna Shamasunder, an urban and environmental policy associate professor at Occidental College. And that has left a regulatory void, as lax federal oversight allows potentially toxic products that would be banned in Europe to be sold in U.S. stores.

“Lots of products on the market aren’t safe,” Shamasunder said. “That’s why states are helping create a solution — it’s a patchwork approach.”

The potential exposure to toxicants in cosmetics is especially worrisome for women of color because studies show that Black women use more hair products than women of other racial groups and that Hispanic and Asian women have reported using more cosmetics in general than non-Hispanic Black and white women.

The Washington state legislation is a second attempt at passing the Toxic-Free Cosmetics Act after legislators approved a bill in 2022 that was stripped of the ban on toxic ingredients in cosmetics.

This year, lawmakers have additional context after a report commissioned by the legislature and published by the state Department of Ecology in January found multiple products with concerning levels of hazardous chemicals, including lead and arsenic in dark-tint CoverGirl Clean Fresh Pressed Powder foundation….

https://www.personalcarecouncil.org/u-s-and-eu-cosmetics-regulation/

U.S. | Under FDA’s Voluntary Cosmetic Reporting Program (VCRP), manufacturers are encouraged to:

• Register their manufacturing sites;

• Register their products and ingredients; andFrom Kaiser Helth News and the Defender

• Report any health-related consumer comments (e.g., allergy reactions).

Industry voluntarily complies with these requests as part of its trade association (Personal Care Product Council) Consumer Commitment Code.