For the first time in nearly 50 years, FDA to examine asbestos testing for talc powders and cosmetics.
In a written report, the government panel said the talc industry’s standard test methods have “long-recognized shortcomings in specificity and sensitivity.”
One of the most significant recommendations from the expert panel is that mineral particles found in talc products small enough to be drawn into the lungs, even those the industry would not call asbestos, should be counted as potentially harmful. The expert panel said both asbestos and look-alike minerals are suspected of causing “similar pathological outcomes,” so the “distinction is irrelevant.”
The U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have limited exposure to asbestos on the job and in the air to reduce cancers since the 1970s when the hazard was well established. Ain December showed that, during the same period, the FDA downplayed health concerns, including possible asbestos contamination, in talc powders and cosmetics and deferred again and again to manufacturers.
David Michaels, a former OSHA administrator during the Barack Obama administration, said he welcomed the public discussion because even small amounts of asbestos are unacceptable in easily-inhaled consumer products. “I hope the national attention given to this issue will help insulate FDA from pressure from corporations that manufacture cosmetics and personal care products, who are likely to oppose the newly-recommended testing protocols,” said Michaels, a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health and author of a book, “The Triumph of Doubt,” which examines corporate influence on science.
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