Daily Loaf

The $500 billion beauty industry is embraces a message that tells women they must correct, conceal and camouflage. Peel away the glitz and glamour, says Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, and you’ll expose the toxic truths lurking beneath the beauty industry’s seedy underbelly. Malkan shares five of the biggies that the major beauty purveyors would rather keep under wraps.

1. Many skincare products contain chemicals toxic to the skin

“A mind-boggling array of products contain chemicals that sensitize skin and trigger skin problems such as rashes, redness, acne, and other symptoms of contact dermatitis”, says Malkan, who notes that doctors often misdiagnose these problems as eczema and prescribe drugs such as steroids or immunosuppressants. Then, of course, there are the toxic chemicals that are known or suspected causes of long-term health effects such as asthma, infertility, learning disabilities, and cancer—ingredients that companies persist in including despite the fact that they “already know how to make great products without these hazardous chemicals,” she says.

2. Companies that donate to breast cancer research still use carcinogens in their products
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“Ugh, my cuticles are dry!” my Canadian pipefitter boyfriend said over the phone, 3,000 miles away. “I think I need to moisturize.” He has the most rugged job out of anyone I know, and yet he moisturizes daily. Aveeno, he swears by it.

“Now that you’re moisturizing, it makes me want to moisturize,” I said, not wanting to be out girled by someone who pounds steel together in the Canadian cold all day, as I reached for my Burt’s Bees Baby Bee Buttermilk Lotion. “Mine’s all natural.” Read the rest of this entry »

Source: Sarasota/Manatee Farmworker Supporters

What’s the value of a single human life? Under the Bush administration, writes Rebecca Clarren, about a million dollars less than it used to be worth.

Call it the dark side of “small government” that conservatives champion, an anti-regulatory stance designed to save dollars at the expense of lives.

Clarren, writing for Salon.com, details how little-known governmental offices led by Bush appointees have undermined the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to protect our nation’s citizens by giving non-health industries and agencies input on which chemicals are assessed and the ability to comment on scientific findings (comments that, oh by the way, are not for public view).

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