"Many best-selling, scented products contain dangerous chemicals that aren't listed on their labels".

That's the opinion of researches who studied the chemicals in 25 of the best-selling air fresheners, laundry detergents and cleaning products.  The report, published in the journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review is eye-opening and revealed:

  • 133 different chemicals were found in the tested products and 25% of the chemicals were already classified as toxic by at least one federal law
  • One-third of the products have at least one chemical that the EPA classifies as a carcinogen and the EPA says no exposure to these chemicals is safe
  • All of the products tested by the scientists are best-sellers or widely known
  • Products marked "Green" or "Organic" also contained dangerous chemicals
So who's to blame?  Of course, the companies producing these consumer products are the main culprits.  As far as I'm concerned, the executives of these companies who knowingly put carcinogens in consumer products should be shot.  However, ethically challenged companies are nothing new as discussed in the recent post on fish farms raising fish in sewage water. 

The other entity responsible for the harm these products are causing, is the federal government and, specifically, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  The FDA is tasked with the role of protecting us from dangerous consumer products.  Yet, despite a multi-billion dollar budget, the FDA can't even keep carcinogens out of the most popular consumer products sitting on the shelves of our stores. 

Making this problem even worse is the overwhelming majority of the population believes that since the government is in charge of testing consumer products, that automatically means they're safe.  What I wrote in the fish farm post, applies here as well:

Perversely, they're not safe because the U.S. government is in charge of testing it.  If the FDA didn't exist, independent testing companies would fill the void.  Consumers, knowing they were responsible for eating safe food buying safe products, would only buy products if they were tested by an independent lab they trusted.  Sort of like how AAA reviews hotels and gives them their seal of approval, if they meet certain requirements.  As such, your local grocery store would hire ABC Lab Corporation to test their seafood consumer products and would put the lab's seal of approval on the package, if the food consumer product was deemed safe.  It it turned out ABC Lab wasn't doing a good job of testing, they'd go out of business and a competent competitor would fill the void.  That's how capitalism works.

Some (many?) large corporations are criminal enterprises literally getting away with murder.  This couldn't be done without the malfeasance of the FDA which unfortunately makes us complacent, not safe.



Many Scented Cleaning Products Contain Toxic Chemicals