Grecian Formula marketer Combe likens the process and calculations that informed FDA’s final rule against lead acetate to “a child’s game of telephone.” Environmental Defense Fund warns that if FDA grants Combe’s request – which the NGO suspects is unavoidable – it intends to cross-examine the company’s witnesses about consumer complaints and their handling in the firm’s past.

On par with 2017, the Personal Care Products Council was tracking more than 300 state bills last year with potential implications for its members, including measures ultimately enacted by California and Hawaii to deter cosmetic animal testing and ban environmentally questionable sunscreens.

Despite repeated stakeholder assertions of being “closer than ever” to modernizing cosmetics regulations, the 115^th Congress ended with reform legislation stranded in committee. The Personal Care Products says midterm elections diverted lawmakers’ attention from unresolved issues, likely including possible preemption terms to put a lid on growing state and local requirements.

The Florida island city could be the next jurisdiction to prohibit the sale of oxybenzone- and octinoxate-containing sunscreens. Industry maintains that available science does not clearly link the ingredients to coral decline, with the Personal Care Products Council asking to present before the Key West City Commission at its January meeting.

Health Canada and Canada’s environmental agency issued a draft screening assessment Dec. 8 identifying talc as potentially hazardous to consumers when used in cosmetic powders that may be inhaled or products applied to female genitals. Finalization of the assessment in its current form would trigger risk management actions.

J&J shares are down nearly 12% since Reuters reported Dec. 14 that the firm has known for decades about toxic asbestos in its Johnson’s Baby Powder talc. The news outlet’s probe turned up nothing that hasn’t been raised by plaintiff attorneys, but throws the central issues of contention into high relief for its global audience.