>It's not food or a drug - you don't put it into your body at all.
facepalm
Do you really think those products you are rubbing around your skin every day and sniffing up your nose don't get absorbed by your skin and lungs!!? I mean they make drugs that can be rubbed on like lotion, as well as medications that can be delivered in patch form and your telling me "well it isn't going in your body so it won't directly affect you."
We don't know yet. There are thoughts that triclosan might cause endocrine disruption. but I don't know and I don't think the science has been done yet. The FDA wants to find out. This is GOOD. The FDA should be doing more to vet the cosmetics industry which is mostly a wild west at the moment.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics explains:
http://safecosmetics.org/section.php?id=75
The agency charged with oversight of cosmetics, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has no authority to require pre-market safety assessment as it does with drugs, so cosmetics are among the least-regulated products on the market. The FDA does not review – nor does it have the authority to regulate – what goes into cosmetics before they are marketed for salon use and consumer use. In fact, 89 percent of all ingredients in cosmetics have not been evaluated for safety by any publicly accountable institution.
Ironically, most consumers believe the U.S. government regulates the cosmetics industry the same way it regulates food and drugs sold in this country to make sure they're safe. The truth is, no one's minding the store when it comes to shampoo, skin moisturizers, baby products, lipstick or any other personal care product.
The FDA’s own Web site explains its limitations:
“FDA's legal authority over cosmetics is different from other products regulated by the agency .... Cosmetic products and ingredients are not subject to FDA premarket approval authority, with the exception of color additives.”
The emerging evidence on the body burdens of chemicals in the American people, as well as the new science on how small exposures to these chemicals can add up to harm, suggest that there is no health-based rationale for the difference in regulatory powers between the different FDA divisions.Here's a link about formaldehyde in hair straighteners:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-governme...
Josimov began to realize it was her life that was changing. Her progression of symptoms mirrored hundreds of other stylists – the burning eyes and sore throats followed by chronic runny noses. Respiratory infections settled in for months, accompanied by scabby blisters in the nose. With prolonged exposure came the asthma-like wheezing and shortness of breath.
After Arce's exposures, she started getting rashes, headaches and sore throats. Now she coughs up bloody mucous and is on two inhalers. Marino would get nauseated and dizzy, and would have to stick plastic bags in her purse in case she had to throw up in public. She was diagnosed with asthma and sinus infections.