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Adios parabens
Just read another garbage review of parabens toxicity- citing Darbre and breast cancer. Whereas the battle for this safe and effective preservative has largely been lost to the politically-correct, clean-beauty racket, I am compelled to offer below the valid criticism of Darbre’s profoundly flawed work - this from a review by renowned toxicologists who also concluded for parabens comments below. You are informed - repeat the false claim at your own ethical compromise.
…. worst-case daily exposure to parabens would present substantially less risk relative to exposure to naturally occurring EACs in the diet such as the phytoestrogen daidzein.” (beans are higher risk)“.
“The most notable deficiency in the study by Darbre et al. (2004a) is the absence of control tissues. While cause and effect are still impossible to infer from such studies, a finding of equal paraben concentrations in normal (i.e., tumor-free) breast tissue would have essentially negated the key finding from this study. Another aspect of the Darbre et al. (2004a) study that confounds interpretation is the highly contaminated nature of the blanks, in some instances with higher paraben concentrations than that measured in breast tumor tissues. ..”
To the last - the solvent Dabre used to extract parabens from breast tissue - was CONTAMINATED with parabens.
Golden, R., Gandy, J. and Vollmer, G., 2005. A
review of the endocrine activity of parabens and implications for potential
risks to human health. Critical reviews in toxicology, 35(5), pp.435-458 -
11 Replies
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What really surprises me is that no one to my knowledge has tried to replicate Dabre’s study, done properly, to prove that the study is fatally flawed as are the conclusions drawn from it regarding parabens. If it mattered to me, as in … I manufacture parabens, it would be worth the investment instead of just arguing about it on the Internet and losing the battle for minds in the process.
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Some guy said: “Fake statement requires 5 mins to claim, but debunking requires hours”. Fearmongering is being sold profitably that’s why we have all these “natural”, “organic” etc. It is much easier to use different preservative than fight with all the articles and people on the internet.
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You’re missing my point. If you are a manufacturer of parabens, your product line is under attack. it is not a matter of an end user simply using a different preservative. It is a fight for the future of your paraben preservative line. The only way to counter the misperceptions about parabens is to present accurate, scientifically-valid information. But, too late, this controversy is now nearly 20 years old.
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I think @PhilGeis summed it up pretty well, but also assuming a company did sponsor the research & shows that parabens aren’t a problem. Would anyone believe it?
CIR and SCCS are already independent groups who have said these ingredients are safe. That’s not convincing to paraben phobes. I can’t imagine a study sponsored by a company that sells parabens would convince anyone.
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The Drabre study is irrelevant “science” - even if repeated with even a little rigor.. There are recognized toxicologic methodologies and those are what SCCS and FDA consider.
Why suppliers do not repeat Darbre? Parabens are commodity specialty chemicals of little significance to their suppliers bottom lines. Primary here is Clariant - a ~10 billion chemical company whose motto is “Greater chemistry for people and the environment” - has done nothing.
And “science” is not the answer. Safety-in-use of formaldehyde releasers is not in technical question. As J&J microbioligists and toxicologists correctly argued internally before giving up for their baby shampoo formulation - there’s more formaldehyde in a pear than in use of the product.
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pity the natural/organic /”clean” options do not replace the efficacy of the conventional safe combinations on priority chemical lists.
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Parabens are a dead issue … it’s been 20 years since the Dabre study and the time to have responded would have been 20 years ago. When was the last new cosmetic product introduction that contained parabens in the last 5 years … I can only think of one.
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Right, and we can trace the increased recalls with that transition.
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True, but if the manufacturers of parabens aren’t going to fight their own battle, no one else is going to do it for them. Looks like they decided to not worry about growing and maintaining the market for parabens and just let the line wither away over time.
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I respect your knowledge of the technology and market - but think we have a different perspective on the risk of clean beauty and non conventional systems in general.
Some history. We (the micro/tox/analytical guys at major companies) were real concerned for the Darbre BS science and its implications. Our managements, sensing opportunity, were lukewarm and they and the primary industry organization funded research that was conducted in a scientific manner with no marketing of results. Our companies are driven by marketing, and marketing wanted removal of parabens/formaldehyde releasers/isothiazolinones et al. Some major companies even announced internally - some publically - ill advised commitments to do so. Faced with the lack of effective alternatives in context of in-use data base for consumer risk and realities of high speed/high volume product , none were met.
Looking back, I doubt that repeating Darbe’s nonsensical work would have made a difference. The story rapidly exploded with EWG et al. and the internet - there was an eager audience for the sky is falling story , not for the nevermind it’s not. That said, the tox/analytical folks were reticent to repeat the childish Dabre work.
If you were to ask the managers for micro/safety, analytical involved, they’d say #$$#$4 marketing and the useless industry org (you know the 4 letter abbreviation) screwed the issue.
As you prob know, this was just the 1st of many Darbre disaster is parabens publications, youtubes and Uk talk show appearances .
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Growth or not - preservatives are specialty chemicals none of the big chemical companies saw as much more than a distraction and would shed when they went through various downturns. In the last 2 years, Lanxess and Arxada consolidated the lines across categories.
With MoCRA, we’ll see if the eye of newt/toes of frog stuff can afford to generate their own data to “substantiate safety” - or will we see them disappear like grapefruit seed extract.
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