Documentary Film Slams The Cosmetics Industry For Poorly Regulating Themselves

The US Food and Drug Administration has looked the other way for decades as cosmetics products with carcinogenic substances have been sold to consumer

Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - US consumers are starting to wake up en mass to the devastating truth that the cosmetics products that they have been using for decades and the baby powder they use on their children several times per day are completely unregulated and probably contain chemicals that could cause cancer. A blockbuster documentary titled "Toxic Beauty" is circulating throughout theaters in Canada and the US, trashing government regulatory agencies that Americans and Canadians assume are testing and approving the cosmetics products that find their way to store shelves. Talcum powder cancer lawsuits are handled by top national attorneys with vast experience and a winning track record against big corporations and pharmaceutical companies.

According to The Daily Beast, the documentary interviews several scientists, one of whom is Dr. Rick Smith, Ph.D., Scientist, environmentalist, and Co-Author of Slow Death by Rubber Duck that slam regulators. According to the film, Dr. Smith is quoted as saying "I don't think it is possible to imagine a worse-regulated family of products than cosmetics, which is surprising given how intimately we use them." The film focuses on Johnson's Baby Powder and its link to containing asbestos and causing ovarian cancer and mesothelioma but also highlights the entire cosmetics industry which, unlike food or drugs, has been trusted to self-regulate for over 50 years. Women assume that the thousands of cosmetics products sold by the likes of Walmart, CVS, Rite Aid, and other reputable brand name retailers have been tested and that the ingredients in them are safe to use. Women developing various cancers ten, twenty, and thirty years down the road are astonished when they realize that no one and no agency has ever tested or regulated the ingredients in these products and consumers are now paying the price. Dr. Smith tells us that "this cosmetics issue is even bigger than the tobaccos industry because were talking about thousands of different chemicals." Another researcher interviewed noted that "skincare, haircare, and feminine care products have been associated with reproductive problems such as ovarian cancer, pre-term births, mercury poisoning, endocrine disruption and more." The film criticizes the cosmetics industry which presents their own version of the facts and usually refers the consumer to refer back to the product's label which says that the product is safe if used as directed. Cosmetic care companies fail to take into consideration that most of their products are used daily by consumers and that even a small daily dosage accumulates massive exposure over many years and decades.

Toxic beauty focuses on the ongoing Johnson & Johnson talcum powder debacle where over 12,000 individuals with ovarian cancer or mesothelioma claim that using Johnson's Baby Powder every day for decades contributed to their developing their disease. The focus is also on documents that show that Johnson & Johnson executives may have known for decades that their product may have been carcinogenic but did nothing to warn consumers except to tell them that their product was for "external use only," a position many cosmetic products from talc-based lipsticks and makeup default to. The US Food and Drug Administration has recently lifted its head out of the sand and tested several cosmetics products including Johnson's Baby Powder for being contaminated with asbestos a known carcinogenic and the result have come back positive.