Canary Cosmetics Reading Room

By Jane E. Allen
© 2002, Los Angeles Times
Antibacterial soaps, disinfectants and dust-free environments may be doing as much harm as good, we’re now learning. But for a nation that thinks the only good germ is a dead germ, going cold turkey on the microbe-killers is unlikely.
So scientists are trying to compensate for our obsession with cleanliness,even as they attempt to better understand how our allergy and asthma-wracked bodies may be the casualties of overkill.
Some researchers are trying to kick-start our immune systems by exposing them to microbes they wouldn’t otherwise encounter. Others are trying to help people who already suffer from allergy, asthma or autoimmune diseases.
"We are at a point where we know our original ideas - that germs were bad and dogs were bad for allergies - were oversimplified and not correct," said Dr. Marshall Plaut of the National Institute of Allergy and Infection Diseases.
But, he said, "we don’t know the right balance between bacterial exposure being harmful and bacterial exposure being beneficial."
What they suspect is that, by purging our environment of many germs and microbes, we’ve deprived our immune systems of the chance to recognize them as a natural part of the environment. When we do encounter such substances,in the form of bacteria, viruses, fungi, along with pet dander, dust, pollen and similar irritants, our bodies overreact. We wheeze and sneeze.
Asthma rates have soared in the last 20 years. Not only has the lung disorder become one of the most common diseases of childhood, it’s become increasingly fatal. At the same time, autoimmune illnesses such as Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease (a painful inflammation of the intestines) are all the rise.
Louise Varbanov, mother of a healthy 3-year-old, has been paying close attention to the recent reports on germs and illness. The Cresskill, N.J.,resident has taken a page from her Bulgarian-born husband, who was raised with a more casual attitude about dirt and germs.
"I keep my house clean, but I don’t keep it germ-free, and I purposely don’t use antibacterial cleansers," she said. "I think it will not allow him to develop immunity to things that we’re exposed to in the everyday world.
For thousands of years, men and women lived in a fairly contaminated environment, surrounded by a sea of bacteria and other microbes. Our bodies learned to sense their presence and respond appropriately. This ability, scientists have shown, becomes rooted in the first six to 24 months of life. By age 3, our bodies have learned all they need to know to unleash fighting cells against invaders.
But by insulating ourselves so well and interfering with early exposures that should set the body’s sensors correctly, we’ve disturbed the system.
Work from a growing number of research teams is reinforcing the hygiene hypothesis, which holds that exposure to microbes and getting infected with some of them strengthens the body’s natural immune system against allergies.
Without it, they contend, we’re more liable to see the part of our immune system responsible for wheezing, inflammation and other allergic symptoms run wild.
The theory has recently been expanded to incorporate autoimmune diseases too, in which the immune system goes into overdrive and begins attacking itself.
Most recently, European researchers, reporting in the Sept. 19 New England Journal of Medicine, showed that German, Swiss and Austrian children living on farms and exposed naturally to bacteria from animals had just half the allergies and less asthma than children of similar socioeconomic backgrounds living in villages.
Before that, U.S. researchers had shown in several studies that kids who are exposed to other children’s colds and infections in day-care have less asthma and fewer allergies later in life. Other studies have shown that kids who have a cat or dog from a very young age have less asthma and fewer
allergies than those who have grown up without pets.
However, Dr. Juan Celedon, a researcher into the genetics and epidemiology of asthma at the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, says this doesn’t apply if your mother has asthma.
He recently co-authored a study in the medical journal Lancet showing that exposure to high levels of cat allergen protected against wheezing in the first five years of life only in those children whose mothers did not have asthma. Exposing kids with asthmatic moms to high levels of cat allergen "was associated with higher levels of wheezing in ages 3 to 5."
He predicted that within 10 years, "we’re going to be able to identify things that are going to be protective and make some recommendations."
Dr. Fernando D. Martinez of the University of Arizona’s Respiratory Sciences Center, is among those looking to harness the power of microbes for the prevention of allergy, asthma and autoimmune disorders. Instead of constantly trying to battle the things that make us scratch, sneeze or cough, he wants to find approaches that would let us live more harmoniously with the plethora of microbes and animals around us.
Of course, exposing a child to the bacteria that protected farm kids in Europe is a tricky proposition because it could make them sick.
Instead, Martinez says: "What I want to find is a product that imitates exposure without having to go to the farms."
While he’s focused on prevention, others, like Dr. Eyal Raz, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego, are trying to find ways to help asthma and allergy sufferers. Raz is using synthetic DNA that can provoke or stimulate the immune system the way bacterial DNA does, but without making the patient sicker.
In essence, he said, "we tried to domesticate the dirt, to purify the dirt."
So far, his work is being done in animals, where Raz said it has succeeded in inhibiting diseases such as Crohn’s.
But all the strides taking place in the laboratory don’t mean we shouldn’t wash our hands before we eat or that we should bring the livestock indoors.
Nor does it diminish the power of clean water, sterile operating rooms and vaccination against childhood diseases to help most of us, unlike our ancestors, survive well beyond our first birthdays. Martinez tells parents to get a pet if they’d like, unless their child already is allergic. If they want to place their children in day-care early on, he advises them not to feel guilty about it, unless the child has so many recurrent infections that the pediatrician says it’s unhealthy. And if a child drops some food on the floor, it’s probably just fine to pick it up, wipe it off and eat it because "children are perfectly capable of eating non-sterilized food."
"Don’t pay too much attention to the excessive protection we have set as a rule," said Martinez, noting that kids living in Eastern Europe, where the rules are much more lax, have few allergies and little asthma.
Varbanov, the New Jersey mom, even takes a laissez faire approach to the colds and viruses her son picks up in day-care and preschool. "You’re kind of toughening them up, so when they get into grade school, they’re less likely to take sick and fall behind."

They found a link between high exposure to everyday products such as bleach and air freshener in women during pregnancy, or shortly after birth, and wheezing and asthma in their young children.

Children exposed to these products had up to a 41 per cent increase in the risk of persistent wheezing by the age of seven, and had slightly lower than normal lung function.

Experts behind the study, which looked at more than 7,000 families and is published in the European Respiratory Journal, are uncertain about which chemicals are to blame, although previous research suggests fumes called volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, could be responsible.

More than 1.4million British children have asthma. Rates have shot up four-fold since the 1970s.

The latest study was headed by Dr John Henderson, an expert in paediatric respiratory medicine at Bristol University.

He said small children coming from cleaner homes might be more likely to develop asthma.

"We think that is perhaps due to irritant effects of the chemicals on the child after birth, which may cause inflammation of the airways leading to development of asthma," he said.

"This research points to direct effects of chemical-exposure on lung development or irritation of the airways after birth."

Researchers found the most commonly used household chemicals included disinfectant and bleach - used by more than four in five mothers - and window cleaner, air fresheners and aerosols, found in two-thirds of homes.

Others included carpet cleaner and white spirit.

They found higher levels of VOCs in homes where there was greater use of products such as air fresheners and aerosols.

There was a link between higher exposure of expectant mothers to household chemicals for persistent wheezing in offspring, equivalent to a 41 per cent increase overall.

Lung function was also slightly worse among children of mothers with high exposure before birth.

Comment: Canary Cosmetics products contain no fragrance, pthalates, parabens, lead or petrolatum.

You wake up in the morning and plod into the shower. You massage shampoo and conditioner into your hair. You scrub soaps and gels across your skin. Emerging from the shower, you may rub on any number of potions, powders, and lotions: deodorant; hair de-frizzers or gels; moisturizers to apply on your face, under your eyes, and on your legs.

Many of you ladies will also apply makeup: foundations, powders, mascara, and colours across your eyelids, cheeks, and lips. Some women may spritz on perfume or some men, cologne. You should, of course, not forget to brush your teeth.

By the time you walk out of the bathroom, you may have sprayed, slathered, and coated your body with over a dozen different products. And if you’ve ever read the back of your shampoo bottle, you know that many products contain a long list of barely pronounceable ingredients. It’s not exactly light reading. Have you ever stopped to wonder about those lengthy, hyphenated chemical ingredients? What are they? What do they do? Are they healthy or dangerous?

Are beauty products only skin deep?
Only about 11% of personal care product ingredients have been tested for safety. That leaves about 9,000 untested ingredients lurking in the personal care and cosmetic products you use everyday. The list of some 10,000 ingredients includes allergens; irritants; and possibly human carcinogens, neurotoxins, and hormone disrupters. Others on the list are just plain puzzling.

Take nanoparticles, for example. These microscopic flecks of metal or ceramics go by compelling names like crystals, beads, or microspheres. Manufacturers have added nanoparticles to over 100 known products, including sunscreens, concealers, and lip pencils. Far from washable, nanoparticles have the ability to burrow deeply into body tissues and travel to the brain and into red blood cells. Long-term health impacts of these tiny metals are unknown and virtually untested. Sounds like something you’d want to steer clear of, right? Definitely, say some researchers.

This is not to say that cosmetics ingredients are an immediate threat to your health and safety, but you should stop and think about your own personal care and cosmetic habits. Remember: all of those cleansers, moisturizers, and perfumes don’t just wash away down the drain. Your body can absorb some of the chemicals, which may accumulate over time, and the long-term impact of many of the chemicals on the human body is still scientifically uncertain.

Until government regulating bodies are required to test the safety of all cosmetic products, you may wish to consider the following recommendations.

Overcome product addiction
Oh, how the cosmetic aisles tempt us. All of those colourful bottles, all those amazing scientific-sounding claims of ageless beauty, and those promising words of wonder - revitalizing, brightening, rejuvenating, enhancing, and contouring. Next time you feel the urge to snap up the latest and reputedly greatest new product, ask yourself, "Do I really need this?" Chances are you already have a half-used bottle of something like it sitting on the shelf at home.

Go to your bathroom and tally up the products you use on a regular basis. If you’re using more than 15 items in one day, you may be a product junkie. Think about scaling back your whole personal care routine. Do you really need to subject your hair to that intense leave-on conditioner everyday and follow it up with a shine treatment and a smoothing serum and a styling gel?

Become a label-scanner
Beauty buyers, beware. The scientists and cosmetic industry reps continue to argue about the health and safety impacts of cosmetic ingredients. While they duke it out, you as a consumer can decide for yourself if you want to use products with some of these hotly contested ingredients:

Organic: Pick up a product with the word "organic" on it, and you might feel comforted. Ah, you think, it must be made from the pure bark of some sapling tree from the rain forest. Organic is no assurance of purity in cosmetics, and currently no standards govern labels claiming "organic" benefits.
Fragrance: The word "fragrance" should give you pause, too. In the US, labels don’t have to list the ingredients of "fragrance," while in Canada, manufacturers can choose to list fragrance ingredients or to use the ambiguous term "parfum." Fragrances may mask the presence of phthalate, a suspected reproductive toxin. You may also consider freeing yourself from fragrances due to the high potential for allergic reactions and skin irritations.
Phthalates: Mentioned above, phthalates show up most often in nail polishes, perfumes, deodorants, and hair sprays. Phthalate compounds are sometimes listed by sneaky acronyms: DBP, DEP, DEHP, BBzP, and DMP.
Parabens: Thank goodness for preservatives! Without them, our makeup and lotions would go rancid. Some preservatives may do as much harm as good. Parabens, a common cosmetic preservative, can cause skin allergies and can mimic naturally produced estrogen, a fact which has perpetuated the fear of breast cancer with paraben use. There are studies that show the presence of paraben in breast cancer tissue, but the proof of the link between paraben and breast cancer is inconclusive. The research has sparked much heated debate. Still, there are many paraben-free alternatives if you’d like to dodge potential risks all together.
Lead: Lead is a known neurotoxin, meaning it can cause learning and behavioural disorders, and you may smear trace amounts of it onto your lips everyday. In a study of 33 randomly-selected brand name lipsticks, more than half contained lead. And these are big names you’d know. Though the amount of lead in each tube of lipstick is very low, think about how many times you apply and reapply lipsticks everyday. Unfortunately, this is one of those ingredients that don’t turn up on the ingredient labels. So, what’s a glamour puss to do? Seek out brands that note lead-free ingredients or visit the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics website to read more about the issue.
Petrolatum: Wow, this stuff is in a lot of products - everything from shampoos and conditioners to Styrofoam and gasoline. Yep, the stuff you put in your tank you may be rubbing into your scalp. Petrolatum (or petroleum, petroleum jelly) and its byproducts go by many names, and they have sparked contamination concerns and been linked to increasing the risk of developing skin cancer. In general, petrolatum is considered to be safe in humans.
http://chealth.canoe.ca/channel_section_details.asp?text_id=4437&channel_id=2003&relation_id=11995

http://www.naturalnews.com/z022976.html

(NaturalNews) The concept of home is universal, shared among not only the cultures of the world but much of the animal world as well, from nesting birds to burrowing rodents, to sea creatures to snails that are born with a home on their back. For most of us, animals included, home is a place to rest our weary heads, raise our young, and stay protected from the elements.

It is human nature to create a sense of home, even when transient or homeless. When I backpacked the world, a photo from home, a colorful scarf, and a small cup with a flower were enough to mark my new territory as home. Our sense of home makes us feel safe, comfortable, and grounded in our identity. Without it, we can feel uncertain, vulnerable, uncomfortable, unsettled. Nothing in life will feel exactly right if we don’t have that home base to start from.

So what about the growing sector of our population - now estimated to be between 12.6 percent and 33 percent¹ - that suffers from some form of environmental illness, which can include sensitivities to chemicals found in everyday products and building materials, mold, sound, light, electricity, vibrations, and extremes of temperature? Reported as the "new homeless," ² those with severe chemical sensitivity often find themselves living on the fringes of a chemically addicted society - in refurbished Airstream trailers, tents, and cars, in long-forgotten fields, miles from civilization.

What most people don’t realize, unless they get sick themselves and feel the effects firsthand, is that the typical American home is built with materials laden with toxic chemicals. The most common are formaldehyde (found in plywood, particle board, and other pressed wood products that are used to make furniture, cabinets, shelves, and counter tops) and solvents (used in oil-based paints, stains, wood preservatives, carpet glue, and other adhesives that release dangerous fumes containing volatile organic compounds). Many homes are full of electrical pollution caused by problems with wiring, large appliances, cordless phones, and the now-ubiquitous WiFi and other computer and cable TV transmission systems. Homes that are designed to be hermetically sealed trap indoor pollutants and create an environment ripe for mold growth.

Even if a person with chemical sensitivities were to have sufficient resources - the finances, knowledge, energy, time, and wherewithal - to build a "safe" house for him- or her-self, there is the persistent problem of neighbors. Wafts of their fabric softeners, air-polluting particulates in smoke from fireplaces and wood stoves, ambient pesticide drifts, gas-powered exhaust-spewing lawn appliances, and those Sunday barbecues all threaten the safety and health of those with allergies and other environmental sensitivities.

What others may perceive as mere complaining is, to a person with chemical and environmental sensitivities, an actual physical - and, for that matter, emotional - threat to their well-being with each exposure to someone else’s chemicals. Reactions can range from the uncomfortable - fleeting headaches, nausea, and/or dizziness - to the near fatal. Some even go into seizure, others experience a profound brain fog that can last for days, weeks, or even months, and still others have suffered heart failure when exposed to a specific trigger. We are not talking about simple allergies here; we are talking about brain inflammation, failure of enzyme detoxification systems, and profound immune-mediated responses.³ There are some who have even died from the progression of chemical sensitivity,^{4, 5, 6} which typically affects several organ systems and can eventually lead to organ failure.

The most common response from individuals when told that their universally accepted actions (using fabric softener, wearing perfume, having a summer barbecue) are harming someone else is anger and defensiveness: "That’s their problem, not mine. I’m not going to change my actions. They need to move or protect themselves better." This is the same type of thinking that allows wealthier folks to feel smug and protected in their gated communities, while outlying districts wallow in their higher crime rates; that self-important "It’s your problem not mine" attitude. What many fail to see is that we are always part of a larger community. If we choose not to take everyone’s needs in our community into consideration, it will come back to us eventually.

All language is a longing for home -Rumi

If individuals are not willing to curb their use of toxic chemicals and EMF-emitting devices, the growing ranks of the chemically and electrically sensitive will be forced out of the workplace and onto disability benefits, where they will burden the community as a whole. If individuals are not willing to curb their use of toxic chemicals and EMF-emitting devices, animals and plant life will continue to bear the toxic brunt, resulting in more species’ mutations and extinctions, imbalances of our precious biodiversity, and pollution of our food sources. If individuals are not willing to curb their use of toxic chemicals and EMF-emitting devices, their children will continue to suffer from early exposure to estrogen-mimicking chemicals implicated in a host of childhood illnesses⁷ and low-level radiation, which has been thought to be linked to childhood leukemia and other diseases.⁸ If we choose not to take the needs of everyone in our communities into consideration (human and nonhuman, adult and child, rich and poor, powerful and vulnerable, alike), it will come back to us eventually.

The truth is that industry’s use of chemicals is on the rise, as is our own use of chemicals in home and personal care products, triggering a rise in environmental illnesses. The issue of a safe home will continue to be a problem - and might even become your problem. We are in need of a complete overhaul of the architecture and design industries, including how these subjects are taught in our schools. Even the "green" bandwagon many have jumped on does not completely address the issue of toxicity when it comes to building materials. Ask any person with environmental sensitivities who has tried to build green.

In an effort to better understand the basic housing needs for those with environmentally based sensitivities, I surveyed eighteen families who had built housing for someone with moderate to severe chemical and/or electrical sensitivities.⁹ What became clear was that what was good for the environment (using sustainably managed woods, renewable energy sources, etc.) was not necessarily good for people.

Case in point: Wood-burning stoves are commonly used in sustainable residential projects, making use of a local, renewable resource, and yet wood is one of the most polluting sources of heat. Gerd Oberfeld, M.D., an epidemiologist from the public health office in Salzburg, Austria has said, "I saw very strong and significant associations between tonsillitis, frequent cough, pseudo-croup, exercise-induced wheeze, food allergies and wood smoke exposure in our school children. I think that wood smoke is one of the most harmful air pollutants we have on earth."¹⁰

Many eco-villages require chemical-free lifestyles of their members and would make ideal communities for those with chemical sensitivities; however, their frequent choice of wood-burning stoves as a heat source unfortunately removes them as a housing option. It’s my hope that the designers, builders, and community planners of this world take heed of this discrepancy between green and non-toxic and start changing the way our homes are built.

The health effects of today’s common construction materials on those with environmental sensitivities are not to be taken lightly. This is a serious issue affecting millions of people worldwide, and the numbers are growing. Not just affecting those with asthma, respiratory disease, and environmental sensitivities, or vulnerable populations like the elderly and children, the toxic burden created by indoor air pollution impacts us all. The issue isn’t just about assisting those with special needs. This is really about building the kind of world we all want to live in.

There is one thing we can be sure of: if we do not start cleaning up our world, nature will do it for us in the form of an unpleasant - to put it lightly - collapse of our ecosystem. All the signs are pointing in that direction. It’s imperative also that we stop further polluting our planet. I would love to see a proliferation of chemical-free, electrical-free, pedestrian-based communities that return to an agrarian way of life using natural farming methods, providing for the needs of all their members, including the non-human ones. Only then can we ensure that all of us sharing this planet will have a safe place to call home.

This essay was first published in the November/December 2007 issue of DESIGNER/builder: A Journal of The Human Environment (http://www.designerbuildermagazine.com) , an independent and nontraditional magazine that brings social justice and issues of equity to the debate over the built and human environments.

Notes:

1 Pamela Reed Gibson and Amanda Lindberg, "What Do We Know About Multiple Chemical Sensitivity?" ((http://www.mcsresearch.net/Conferencepa…) .

2 Rhonda Zwillinger, "No Safe Haven," E: The Environmental Magazine, Volume IX, Number 5, September/October 1998, (http://www.emagazine.com/view/?1003) .

3 William J. Rea, M.D., "The Environmental Aspects of Chemical Sensitivity," Japanese Journal of Clinical Ecology, 3.1 (1994): pp. 2-17, ((http://www.aehf.com/articles/env_aspect…) .

4 Kim Palmer, (http://www.alerg.com/kimpalmerstory.html) .

5 Cindy Duerhing, (http://www.ciin.org/pages/04-fund.html) .

6 Dan Allen, (http://www.wtv-zone.com/infchoice/mcs/allen.html) .

7 Jennifer Bogo, "Children At Risk: Widespread Chemical Exposure Threatens Our Most Vulnerable Population," E: The Environmental Magazine, Volume VII, Number 5, September/October 2001, (http://www.emagazine.com/view/?1074) .

8 National Safety Council, "Sources of Non-Ionizing Radiation," (http://www.nsc.org/issues/rad/nonioniz.htm) .

9 Julie Genser with Melinda Honn and Greg Conrad, "Safer Construction Tips for the Environmentally Sensitive," 2007, ((http://planetthrive.com/cgi-bin/members…) .

10 Gerd Oberfeld, M.D., "International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood," ((http://burningissues.org/car-www/medica…) .

About the author
Julie Genser is the founder and director of www.PlanetThrive.com , a grassroots community for personal wellness with a focus on the health-environment connection.