Neutrogena is owned by Johnson and Johnson - which just payed out on a case relating to cancer from baby-powders [1]. Combined with Neutrogena being more or less _very high_ in benezine content and J&J having a very deep suite of cancer treatment drugs [2]... This seems like a horrific story of a self-fulfilling product pipeline. I know they're a giant organization and suggesting conspiracy is a bit insane but I can't help but think I'll be avoiding J&J and all their subsidiary brands actively from here on out. At very least, their quality control for one of the biggest manufacturers on earth is awful.<p>1: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/health/baby-powder-cancer.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/health/baby-powder-cancer...</a><p>2. <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/johnson-johnson-stock-pipeline-cancer-drugs-51621521358" rel="nofollow">https://www.barrons.com/articles/johnson-johnson-stock-pipel...</a>
I found this article through a friend of my wife's who is a skincare expert.<p>Check your cabinets. I actually found the Neutrogena lotion that we use in the table of affected products!<p>List of affected products: <a href="https://www.valisure.com/wp-content/uploads/Valisure-Citizen-Petition-on-Benzene-in-Sunscreen-and-After-sun-Care-Products-v9.7.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.valisure.com/wp-content/uploads/Valisure-Citizen...</a><p>List of unaffected products: <a href="https://www.valisure.com/wp-content/uploads/Attachment-A-Table-5-of-Valisure-FDA-Citizen-Petition-on-Sunscreen-v2.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.valisure.com/wp-content/uploads/Attachment-A-Tab...</a>
So this is bad, obviously, but I want to plug Valisure and consumerlab both. For whatever reason there’s so little testing out there for both generic drugs and vitamins and supplements, and both of these guys really do have our backs. I’m very happy to support both to be doing what I feel like the FDA with more funding should be doing themselves.
So going through the list i see Neutrogena a lot. Neutrogena is owned by Johnson and Johnson. Sun Pharmaceuticals owns Banana Boat, Coppertone is owned by a German company called Beiersdorf, CVS Health is the next largest brand to show up and it owns these subsidiaries:<p>CVS Pharmacy, MinuteClinic, CVS Caremark, CVS Specialty, Drogaria Onofre, Longs Drugs, Navarro Discount Pharmacies, Accordant, Coram, Omnicare, Wellpartner, EncompassRx, Aetna, Grupo DPSP.<p>These parent companies should be held responsible for the products their subsidiaries produce.
My family recently went through the search for a decent sunscreen and settled on this link for useful info about which sunscreens have nasty chemicals: <a href="https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/</a><p>Our search was not exhaustive (and I can't really vouch for the link that was used) so if you have a better link, please don't keep it a secret.
On a related note: <i>Benzophenone Accumulates over Time from the Degradation of Octocrylene in Commercial Sunscreen Products</i><p><a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrestox.0c00461" rel="nofollow">https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrestox.0c00461</a>
"Epidemiologic studies and case studies provide clear evidence of a causal association between exposure to benzene and acute nonlymphocytic leukemia and also suggest evidence for chronic nonlymphocytic leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia." [1]<p>"There is probably no safe level of exposure to benzene, and all exposures constitute some risk in a linear, if not supralinear, and additive fashion."[2]<p>"on marine vessels benzene air concentrations typically range from 0.2–2.0 ppm during closed loading and 2–10 ppm during open-loading operations" [2]<p>[1] <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Benzene" rel="nofollow">https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Benzene</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4360999/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4360999/</a>
Gasoline has around 2% Benzene in it, by the way. That’s 20,000ppm vs 6ppm for the worst offenders here. Crazy we let teenagers pump this stuff and then the rest of us just breathe in the fumes.
Pretty interesting. Some of the products where benzene was detected don't even have anything volatile on their list of active ingredients. "Ethical Zinc Lotion", is just supposed to be 22% zinc oxide, with no Octocrylene, Oxybenzone, etc.
I've reduced using sunscreen a lot by wearing a hat with a wide brim, and long sleeve shirts when I expect to be outside for a while.<p>Yeah I look stupid in the hat, but one advantage to growing older is one quits worrying about that. Besides, my aussie outback hat has grown on me :-)
Initially when I read these low ppm concentrations, I wasn’t concerned. However even a 1 ppm exposure to benzene in air over an 8 hour workday has been shown to be harmful. Hopefully the FDA cracks down on this...
A friend of mine developed a shit free sunscreen.<p>It’s pretty good:<p><a href="https://new-layer.com/collections/sunscreen" rel="nofollow">https://new-layer.com/collections/sunscreen</a>
A related point: check how close you (and your kids especially) live/ work/ go to school near a gas station. Benzene exposure from living near a gas station is surprisingly high and there's a definition cancer correlation.
I sure hope no one is throwing out their skincare products.<p>- 2 ppm is a “best guess” on a safe limit. It’s not like 1 ppm is benign and 3ppm means you’re dead<p>- 2ppm is an incredibly small quantity of benzene. 3x a very small quantity is cause for concern (why is it there), but not much of a health hazard<p>- your roasted coffee has a ton of poly aromatic hydrocarbons in it, some of which are carcinogenic and nobody worries about their daily cup of coffee<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4933506/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4933506/</a>
Sunscreen is FDA regulated so maybe there will be a crackdown. I think they'd prefer people wear sunscreen unless they can otherwise coverup though so I am sure there is a line.
Noob chemistry question: lots of sunscreens have oxybenzone in them. Could there be some bad quality control with the chemical engineering that's turning it into benzene?
Haven’t seen anyone point this out but it helped me filter out anything in my cabinet pretty quickly: none of the sunscreens with >2ppm benzene have SPF <50. In fact there’s only one actual sunscreen in high end of the list with SPF 50, the rest are 60+. Interesting that this also seems to correlate, in addition to the spray and brand trends.
Concerning since, "<i>Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Water Resistant and Non-Greasy Sunscreen Lotion with Broad Spectrum SPF 100+</i>" is <i>the</i> #1 best-selling sunscreen on Amazon. Maybe I'll just stick to my CeraVe for now.
I'm quite surprised that some mineral sunscreens contain benzene too... I thought the only use of benzene would be as a reactant in the synthesis of some of the chemical sunscreens only.
Seems like if this is true, it's something that shouldn't be behind a paywall. Does anyone have a list of the affected products? The actually research data and details I certainly support being behind a paywall however. Actually upon a quick google found the direct links to the files that list the products that are and are not contaminated. Glad that most all EltaMD (the most popular on Amazon are not effected but a couple models are).
It seems to me that it's been proven over and over again that market pressure has insufficient power to ensure consumer safety or product efficacy. That argument is often a tactic to blame the victim for corporate malfeasance or carelessness. For example, you should actually look up what happened to the woman who spilled McDonalds coffee on her lap instead of believing all of the '90s sitcom jokes about it.<p>A powerful government is needed to check the power of corporations and there need to be consequences for the corporation and its leaders which cause actual harm, so they don't just treat it as another cost to their business.
The FDA concentration limits are generally <i>very</i> conservative. Is there any evidence that concentrations this low (at most 6ppm) are actually harmful, given that this is through skin contact rather than inhalation?
Most of the high concentrations are in sprays, which makes some intuitive sense, as they sunscreen has to be suspended and propelled, which I imagine takes some fancy chemicals to do. Most neutrogena lotions are fine for example.
I don't understand why people are so eager to slather chemicals on their skin, when we evolved with the sun and it's not hard for most people to avoid sun burn. You just have get sun exposure on a somewhat regular basis (healthy to do anyway) and acclimate between seasons (ie, don't go abruptly from no sun to all the sun).
I don't have a sense of how big a deal this is, but I had a totally random thought I after I read this:<p>> FDA currently recognizes the high danger of this compound and lists it as a "Class 1 solvent" that "should not be employed in the manufacture of drug substances, excipients, and drug products because of their unacceptable toxicity ... However, if their use is unavoidable in order to produce a drug product with a significant therapeutic advance, then their levels should be restricted" and benzene is restricted under such guidance to 2 parts per million ("ppm").<p>This reminds me of a story I heard about Kosher Coca-Cola. They had designed it such that its impurities were below a certain threshold. (Googling it now, the ingredient in question was glycerin derived from non-Kosher beef tallow.) However, the consulting rabbi explained that the threshold only applied to accidental impurities; you can't put them in on purpose.