Sadly...Panel kills bill barring some beauty products.

Panel kills bill barring some beauty products
By Jessica Fender
The Denver Post
Posted: 03/02/2010 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 03/02/2010 01:59:27 PM MST

Some products the bill targeted are, from left: T/Gel shampoo; Johnston's Bedtime Bath; Just for Me Conditioning Creme; Soft-soap; L'Oreal hair color, and Old Spice deodorant. (John Prieto, The Denver Post)
Fifteen harmful chemicals, including formaldehyde and arsenic, will remain in beauty products in the state after a legislative panel Monday killed a proposal that would have prohibited the sale of toiletries and cosmetics that contain them.

Bill backers argued that while safe in the small doses at which the compounds appear in hand creams and shampoos, those traces accumulate over time and over multiple products.

The prohibition — pitched as a way to fight cancer and reproductive disorders — would have been the toughest of any state regulating cosmetics ingredients.

But several committee members protested that the science linking the products to cancer just wasn't there and that many of the problem

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chemicals appear elsewhere in the environment — sometimes occurring naturally.

"Nobody's been able to draw a causal connection between the use of cosmetics and cancer," said committee member Rep. Mark Waller, a Colorado Springs Republican who voted against House Bill 1248.

The legislation would have regulated the Colorado sale of beauty and personal-care products based on lists of chemicals that are banned in Canada and the European Union.

Companies found selling products containing lead, benzine, chloroform or the other substances would have been fined up to $100,000 under the bill, which failed 7-4 on a bipartisan vote.

University of Colorado-Boulder professor David Norris studies how chemicals in the environment affect organisms. He said that while personal products aren't the only source of dangerous chemicals, they're a good place to start.

"Nobody's exactly at fault," Norris said. "It's the aggregate of all these things."

Several opponents argued that chemists can find tiny amounts of the 15 chemicals in any number of products if they look hard enough, and the rules would have opened up companies to frivolous lawsuits.

California requires companies to publicly disclose products that contain chemicals that may cause cancer or reproductive problems, according to the policy research group the National Conference on State Legislatures.

Missouri and New York are considering similar rules and a handful of other states bar mercury from certain products, NSCL data show. None bans outright the sale of goods.

Colorado state Rep. Dianne Primavera, D-Broomfield, said there's enough evidence that some cosmetic ingredients can cause cancer to take preventive measures before definitive studies are done.

"You shouldn't have to be a chemist to shop for shampoo," Primavera said.

Jessica Fender: 303-954-1244 or jfender@denverpost.com









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