Quaternium 15 – a chemical found in Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, Mr. Bubble Bath, and Huggies Bath Wash, among many others – “has been repeatedly shown to be a strong allergen that can cause contact dermatitis,” an inflammation of the skin that varies from mild irritation to rashes and open sores, according to a peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of the Dermatology Nurses’ Association.

“Quaternium 15 is present in an alarmingly high number of baby products, making exposure and sensitization at an early age increasingly common,” said Sharon Jacob, M.D., co-author of the paper and physician at the Department of Medicine and Pediatrics at Rady Children’s Hospital.

“This is a concern because repeated exposures to sensitizing chemicals, especially in early life, can cause a person to develop allergic reactions over time.” She advises parents to choose products without quaternium 15 and other formaldehyde-releasing preservatives whenever possible.

Nearly 700 products on the market contain quaternium 15, according to the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database.  Johnson & Johnson/Aveeno and Cover Girl make the highest number of products in the database containing the chemical.

EWG’s database at www.cosmeticdatabase.com is also an excellent resource for finding products without this chemical.

Growing pressure on companies

Correcting this problem could help millions of people.  An estimated 72.9 million adults in the United States suffer from allergic contact dermatitis, and most are never properly diagnosed, according to the cover article in the July 2009 Skin & Aging magazine, co-authored by Dr. Jacob.

The authors conclude that proper diagnosis and avoidance of sensitizing chemicals could help patients avoid a lifetime of contact dermatitis.

The papers come on the heels of a March 2009 report by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics that found dozens of top-selling children’s bath products, including the market leader Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, were contaminated with the carcinogens formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane.

In the wake of the March report, thousands of stores in China pulled Johnson’s baby products off shelves and several class-action lawsuits were filed against the company. New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand introduced a bill into Congress that would require FDA to limit contaminants in baby bath products.

In August, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the American Nurses Association met with top executives from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ: NYSE) to ask the company to remove hazardous chemicals from its popular children’s products.

“The meeting was a positive step, and we’re optimistic that a productive dialogue will continue,” said Lisa Archer, national coordinator of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics from the Breast Cancer Fund – yet she noted that the company has made no definitive commitments.

“We urge Johnson & Johnson to show its leadership by reformulating its baby products to remove quaternium 15 and other chemicals of concern. Many companies are already making products without these hazardous ingredients.”

Take action by sending Johnson & Johnson a letter asking them to live up to their “pure” and “gentle” claims.

Stacy Malkan is the co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of the award-winning book, “Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry.”

Even less reassuring is the fact that FDA spent two years studying the problem, only to discover that, yup, there really is lead in lipstick – and then decide that, no, they’re not going to do anything about it.

Wasn’t FDA once the world’s gold standard agency for consumer protection? Don’t they exist for the purpose of ensuring that America has the safest possible food, drugs and cosmetics?

If so, one might expect FDA to work with companies to ensure they are making the safest possible lipstick with the lowest levels of lead.

Instead, FDA put up a web page dismissing health concerns about leaded lipstick because “lipstick is a product intended for topical use, is only ingested incidentally and in very small quantities.” This statement is not based on science. There are no studies we can find that look at how much lipstick gets into the body. Such studies are not required of industry, and have not been conducted by FDA.

The statement also defies common sense: if lipstick doesn’t end up in the body, where does it go? And why does it need to be reapplied so frequently?

The lips are one of the most sensitive and absorbent parts of the body; plus, as anyone who has used lipstick knows, the product gets onto our tongues, our teeth, our food and into our mouths.

Lead also builds up in the body, so small amounts add up to significant exposures over time, and even the smallest amounts of lead can harm developing brains. In a review of recent science, Harvard Medical School researcher David C. Bellinger, PhD, concluded: “No level of lead exposure appears to be ‘safe’ and even the current ‘low’ levels of exposure in children are associated with neurodevelopmental deficits.”

So, if we want to protect developing children from lead exposure, we need to protect women who are pregnant – as well as women who may be pregnant or who may someday want to become pregnant — from unnecessary lead exposures. In other words, we need to protect all women from unnecessary lead exposures by getting the lead out of lipstick.

An interesting finding of the FDA study is that lipsticks made by three manufacturers had consistently higher lead levels. The most lead-contaminated brand, made by Manufacturer A, had 11 times more lead than the average level found in the bottom 10 brands. Who is Manufacturer A? FDA won’t name the brands.

We did name brands in the 2007 study conducted by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics , which also found that a few brands had consistently higher lead levels. Those were L’Oreal, Maybelline NY (made by L’Oreal) and Cover Girl.

These companies can do better, and they must be held accountable to make the safest products possible. The appropriate action for FDA is to do what a group of U.S. Senators asked them to do two years ago: set a maximum level of lead in lipstick that corresponds with the lowest lead levels found in laboratory tests.

FDA took a similar step to protect children from lead in candy, by setting a maximum lead level of .1 ppm. This level was not chosen because .1 ppm of lead is safe in candy, it was based on the reasoning that .1 ppm is the lowest lead level candy manufacturers can achieve. Using its own logic, FDA should set a similar standard for lead in lipstick.

Help us give the beauty industry a makeover by joining the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics action list and sign our petition to give the FDA a makeover too.

Stacy Malkan is a co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of the award-winning book, “Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry.”

Case in point: lead in lipstick. More than a year after health groups in the U.S. reported that top-selling lipsticks contain lead, FDA is sitting on the results of its own research.

Meanwhile, new tests reveal that lipstick isn’t the only make-up with a heavy-metal problem. Health Canada announced last week that it found lead, arsenic, mercury and cadmium during routine testing of children’s face paints. The results were immediately announced to the public as the government evaluates next steps.

Health Canada is also conducting a major review of chemicals in cosmetics, and creating an “ingredient hotlist” to prevent harmful chemicals from entering beauty products in the future.

Here at home, Americans are left to wonder about the safety of cosmetics. Unlike Health Canada, the U.S. FDA has no toxic-chemical designation, does not conduct routine safety testing of personal care products, and – as the lipstick saga shows – doesn’t even bother to share its science with the public.

You can take action now! Tell FDA to release its lead in lipstick study! And read on for more details.

Lead in Lipstick Jungle

The story began with internet rumors claiming that popular brands of lipstick contained lead, a highly toxic heavy metal that can affect brain development at the lowest doses.
Not true, said the cosmetics industry.

True, according to tests conducted in October 2007 by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics: 61% of the lipsticks tested contained lead, including a $24 tube of Christian Dior Addict and six L’Oreal brands. (In contrast, a $1.99 tube of Wet & Wild and several Revlon lipsticks did not contain lead).

FDA said it would conduct its own analysis, and several U.S. Senators urged FDA to test a wide range of lipsticks, publicly report the results, and take immediate action to reduce lead exposure from cosmetics.

Fourteen months later, FDA has made no public statements, issued no report and taken no action to reduce lead exposures.

It takes about 10 days to turn around lead tests in a lab, so what’s the hold up? FDA is saying they will not release their study until it is published in a peer-reviewed journal – a process that could take years.

In the meantime, don’t expect any action from the beauty industry. L’Oreal has repeatedly dismissed concerns about lead with the statement that their brands are “in full compliance with FDA regulations.”

Unfortunately, FDA doesn’t regulate lead in cosmetic products.

Bush-era Tactics

This isn’t the first time FDA has kept science from the public with the peer-review journal excuse. In 2002, environmental groups reported that 70% of personal care products tested contained phthalates, a set of industrial chemicals linked to birth defects and infertility.

FDA conducted its own study of phthalates in cosmetics in 2003 but did not release the data despite a Freedom of Information Act request filed by environmental groups. The FDA study eventually appeared – three years later – in a journal edited by an Estee Lauder staffer.

The public was not notified, the article cost $35, and the raw data was not disclosed as required by law.

So what’s going on at the FDA Office of Cosmetics?

As I wrote in my book, “Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry,” in recent years, the agency has served more as a marketing arm for the beauty industry than a watchdog for public health.

User-Friendly FDA

“The new reality, unfortunately, when you look at the federal budget, is that there will be no federal funding available to FDA – either this year or in the foreseeable future – to focus on cosmetics,” lamented Pamela Bailey in her first speech as president of the cosmetics industry trade association in 2006.

Bailey was lamenting because, as she explained, “we know that industry needs FDA as the tough cop on the beat to protect us, and to reassure consumers.”

Wait — isn’t the cop on the beat supposed to protect us, the American public?

Unfortunately, FDA has few resources to protect people from toxic cosmetics. But the agency does a good job of reassuring consumers, according to focus groups conducted for the cosmetics industry by right-wing messaging guru Frank Luntz.

Lexie Shultz, who sat though a three-hour focus group about cosmetic safety in 2006, reported that participants reacted most favorably to messages from the government. “People were willing to believe FDA,” Shultz said. “The FDA comforted people.”

Comments from participants included “FDA is strong” and “Nothing would get through FDA if it wasn’t safe.”

The reality is, FDA lacks the authority to fulfill this expectation. Under current law, FDA can’t require companies to safety test cosmetics and can’t even require product recalls. In cases where FDA does have authority – for example to recommend limits for hazardous substances such as lead – well… take a seat and wait a while.

FDA does, however, have a good reputation over at the cosmetics industry trade association.

At an industry conference in 2006, John Bailey, former head of the FDA cosmetics office and current spokesman for the industry trade association, was introduced with these words by conference moderator Meyer Rosen: “(John) has always been on our side, even when he worked with the FDA. He was always willing to give us an inside voice.”

Several speakers at the conference joked about Bailey being “user friendly” to industry during his tenure at FDA. Bailey joked back, “If I’d known I was so user friendly, I would have been a bit tougher.”

Compare this to FDA’s relationship with consumer groups: When a Campaign for Safe Cosmetics staffer called FDA to find out how many people work in the Office of Cosmetics and Colors, she was told to submit a Freedom of Information Act request.

Time for a Makeover

All this has deeper implications than the lead that obviously doesn’t need to be in lipstick. It’s about the food we all eat, the medicines we take, and the products we put on our bodies and our babies.

It’s about whether American products will be as safe as they can be, or whether we continue to fall behind as other countries develop greener ways of doing business.

For the long-term health of our economy, American companies must shift away from polluting technologies and toxic chemistry, in order to develop the next generation of safer products that the world market is demanding.

FDA has an important role to play in spurring the green economy. Yet, as former FDA head www.SafeCosmetics.org