Paraben Information by Pamela Reade of Honey & Herbs Ltd.
Pamela Reade; Honey & Herbs Ltd.
When I first read the paraben stories I like you was alarmed and set out to find out as much as I could. I spoke to many scientists and cosmetic chemists and they were amazed to read the articles as they had heard nothing. These are people that are working in the industry and have available to them research from around the world.
Parabens have been used in skin care for over 70 years. They have been shown to be safe and very effective and have the least allergic reaction of all the preservatives studied.
When water is added to a formula the formula must be preserved in some way. To not preserve it adequately would put the consumer as risk.
If you were to use a lotion, cream or wash that was infected with bacteria and that cream, lotion or wash went into a cut on your skin you could get a severe infection. In the worst possible scenario you could die. A cream can be infected and you would not know. It can look O.K. and smell O.K. but still be full of bacteria.
The world cosmetic scientists are searching for a natural preservative but to date and effective one has not been discovered.
There are some companies that say they use grapefruit seed extract ? all trials done by us and many other companies have shown this not to be an effective broad spectrum preservative.
The only brand that has seemed to work has been shown to contain parabens. The Food & Drug Administration in the States is currently investigating this company.
The synthetic parabens used are nature identical meaning that they are chemically identical to parabens in nature. In the plant world, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and its derivatives are commonly found in various vegetable foods, such as barley (meaning we would find parabens in bread), strawberries, blackcurrants, peaches, carrots, onions, cocoa beans, vanilla, corn, flax seed oils; further, in foods prepared from fruit juices, grapes, yeast extract, wine vinegar and also cheeses.
A lot of research on parabens was done from 1960 to 1970 and a conclusion drawn after finding parabens in animals and humans “that all respiring vegetable and animal species required 4- hydroxybenzoic acid is a natural vital ingredient to aerobic, it is no foreign substance to them”.
The inherent belief that natural products are automatically safe is very wrong. Nature wages chemical warfare on a massive scale and just a few examples include; cobra venom, botulin from Clostridia, atropine from deadly nightshade, digitalis from foxglove, solanine from green potatoes, oxalic acid from rhubarb, psoralens (mutagenic) in parsnips and peas, tyranine in cheese. The list is endless.
A synthetic nature identical preservative allows that preservative to be standardised something nature cannot do and able to be used in very small amounts.
Pierre Perrier, director of regulatory and scientific relations for Parfums Christian Dior and LVHM Perfumes and Cosmetics - who sits on the Agence Francasise de Securite Sanitaire (the French public health agency) who has been working in the industry for over 30 years.
It is very hard to explain the difference to the public between hazard and risk. In some cases if you applied more than 100 litres of a substance a day, there would be a hazard. When the euro bank notes appeared there was great concern about red colouring of the 10 euro note. Environmental groups said it was carcinogenic. The German government promptly issued a statement. “O.K.” is said “It would be extremely dangerous if you ate more than 400 notes a day”.
The tests the articles refer to are from Leeds University in the UK
They took methyl and butyl parabens and fed them orally to rats - no effect was found. They then injected large doses under the skin of rats. Butyl paraben was found to be approximately 100,000 weaker than oestradiol* when injected under the skin.
- oestradiol - The most potent oestrogenic hormone secreted by the mammalian ovary. Synthesised and used to treat oestrogen deficiency and cancer of the breast.
This is point that has attracted interest and needed to be put into context.
The lowest observed effect level (LOEL) of butylparben was indicated by the published results to be 200mg/kg/day, administered by subcutaneous injection. Assuming that in normal, topical use butyparaben is totally absorbed through the skin, this means a 60kg human being has to use 24kg of a cosmetic/toiletry product containing 1% butyparaben in a single application! Compare this dosage with a more realistic 5g of product containing 0.01% butylparben, the actual effect may be scaled down by a further factor of approximately 50,000. this gives an overall effect 5,000,000,000 times weaker than oestradiol!
This does not take into account that butylparaben is rapidly metabolised to produce a completely inactive p-hydroxybenzoic acid. Further the weak oestrogenic activity of butylparben found under the exaggerated conditions of the Routledge et al study was less than documented for a range of substances of plant origin, some of which form part of the human diet. The documented activities of these more potent (but still weak, compared with oestradiol) , phytoestrogens have not been proven to be associated with any adverse effects in man, and may even exert some protective effect against certain oestrogen cancers. Chemists tell us that there is more oestrogens in our drinking water.
The second lot of research done by the same group of people took samples of breast tumour tissue from 20 women undergoing surgery at the Edinburgh Breast Unit in Scotland. They found parabens in that breast tissue. They also tested breast tissue from the same women in a healthy part of the breast. They also found parabens in that tissue, however they decided to discount that finding as they believed the samples may have been contaminated by handwash containing parabens used by the technicians.
Cornell University studied this research and are very critical of it. They state:-
“That this study does not show that parabens caused the tumours. They did not study breast tissue from healthy women so they had no control group. Samples were contaminated. There was also a problem with their analytical method. The study was originally done because the authors wanted to find out if underarm deodorants increased breast cancer as most tumours are found in the upper breast area.
Which in itself was strange as most deodorants are preserved with alcohol and not parabens.
They did not make any attempt to find out the source of the parabens in the breast tissue. As we eat parabens every day naturally, also parabens are present in some medicines we take they would probably find we all have parabens present in our bodies. They did not interview the women whose samples they took. There were no reports of age, no information on lifestyles so it is not known if the parabens were from food or via topical application of a variety of personal care products.
Recently Feb. 2005 a report from Brussels (Belgium) states that after viewing the reports and trials they have come to the conclusion that there is no evidence of demonstrable risk for the development of breast cancer caused by the use of underarm deodorants containing parabens, They conclude that the research done by Darbre and Harvey (Leeds University) shows gaps and lacks concerning a possible link between underarm cosmetics and breast cancer: deficiencies in the study design (lack of control tissue when measuring concentrations of parabens in breast tissue , blank samples contaminated with parabens, ) existing epidemiological data indicate the absence of an association between underarm, cosmetics & breast cancer.
The SCCP also notes that in a report issued in September 2004 and titled “Notes on Parabens in Food, Cosmetics and Consumer Products” The Danish Institute of Food & veterinary Research came to the conclusion that there is no indication to support any casual relationship between parabens in underarm cosmetics and the development of breast cancer.
Recently a New Zealand company that has long marketed their products on having no parabens was involved in a court case in Germany. They made product for a German company who advertised it as having no parabens or synetheic preservative in the formulas.
A German competitor tested the products and they were found to have parabens.
The company say they did not add parabens and say the parabens are in the products naturally from the plant oils used!
Posted in: Alternative Healthcare | Cancer Information | Civic and Political Action | Cosmetics | Harmful Chemicals | Natural Skin Care | Product Reviews | Recommended Reads Tags: cosmetic, fixative, Harmful Chemicals, harmful ingredients, ingredients, paraben, shelf-life, skin, skin care
Trackback URL for this post
August 11th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Thank you for this article. I am a small company which makes personal care products and am glad to have a response to the people who vehemently attack my products for containing minute amounts of parabens. I explain that it is their safety I am concerned about but they simple assume I am a marionette whose strings are being manipulated by some evil empire Dow Chemical or some such. The attack on parabens are reaching urban legend myth status and are causing the generation of new preservative systems. All fine and good. But it is also good to get the truth out there about parabens and the fact that no substantial links have been made with regard to breast cancer and paraben use.