Stiffer U.S. Cosmetics Regulation Urged; Injuries Cited

After two years as a wig stylist, Edith Khatami, a cosmetologist from San Francisco, began to experience memory loss, nausea and dizziness and she had trouble with breathing, vision and balance.

“I can’t remember things I did just a short while ago,” Khatami said. “I have to write everything down.”

Khatami, who blamed her condition on her exposure to ingredients in the hair sprays and other products she was using in her work, was one of a series of witnesses who urged Congress Thursday to regulate a largely unregulated industry--the $17-billion-a-year cosmetics business.

“How many more people have to get sick before the government does something about it?” Khatami asked. “It’s not fair. It’s not right. If the government doesn’t care, who will?”

Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the House Small Business subcommittee on regulation and business opportunities, said that hospital emergency rooms reported treating 47,000 cosmetic-induced injuries in 1987. More than 151,000 such injuries occurred in the three years from 1985 to 1987, he said, and 2,300 persons had to be hospitalized.

‘Regulatory Vacuum’

“I think it is enormously important that we understand the health and safety consequences of the regulatory vacuum in which this huge and growing industry exists,” he said.

The Food and Drug Administration does not have the authority to require safety testing of cosmetics, as it does for food and drugs, and it can remove a product from the marketplace only after it has been proved dangerous.

Manufacturers are not required to submit lists of ingredients to the agency, nor must they notify the FDA when they place a new cosmetic product on the market. They are required to label retail cosmetic products with lists of ingredients, but no such requirement applies to products used by professionals.

Members of Congress have made several unsuccessful attempts over the years to increase regulation of the cosmetics industry.

The Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Assn., which represents the industry, issued a statement Thursday in response to the Wyden hearing, saying that it is “committed to ensure the safety of its products” and insisting that “personal care products are among the safest of any consumer products and are used confidently by millions of persons on a daily basis.”

Voluntary Testing

The trade group said that cosmetics manufacturers conduct their own testing of product ingredients. Their voluntary policing, “combined with federal regulatory authority . . . are proven, effective mechanisms for assuring the safe use of cosmetic products.”

Kristie Smith disagrees. Shortly after she enrolled in beauty college in 1984, Smith, now 24, began to have trouble breathing--a problem that worsened over time. She dropped out of beauty college after 10 months, when she was diagnosed as having irreversible occupational asthma.

Beth Shulman, international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, said that the experiences of Smith and Khatami are not isolated instances of cosmetics-related injuries.

“They’re but two examples of a myriad of cases I’ve heard of traveling around the country,” she said. “This is a problem that is happening everywhere. . . . This is not just a few people who are hypersensitive to these chemicals.”