Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service
OTTAWA — Health Canada has found lead in some lipsticks for sale in Canada, but the agency says the levels do not pose a health risk for consumers.
The government decided to test lipsticks after the U.S. group Campaign for Safe Cosmetics released a report last October titled “A Poison Kiss: The Problem of Lead in Lipsticks.”
Twenty-one of 26 samples tested at Health Canada’s product safety laboratories contained lead levels of 0.079 parts per million to 0.84 parts per million.
One lipstick sample had 6.3 parts per million, while the remainder contained no detectable levels of lead.
The Canadian results were worse than the American study. Of the 33 samples tested in the United States, 13 contained no detectable traces of lead.
In the U.S. tests, the highest lead content found was 0.65 ppm (L’Oreal Colour Riche True Red), in excess of the 0.1 ppm limit for lead in candy established by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The American study prompted the state of California to decide that any lipstick containing five parts per million or more would require a safety-hazard warning to consumers; the state law prohibits companies selling products in California from exposing individuals to chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity without a warning label.
Canada, however, uses 10 parts per million as its safety threshold, which is the international standard set by the United States Pharmacopeia for lead impurity for oral products. Health Canada says this standard is “conservative” and “protective of consumers,” including younger girls.
Health Canada acknowledges its lipstick tests showed “one anomaly that seems to be higher than the others” at 6.3 parts per million. But even factoring in a margin of error of 2.9, “the sample still met the 10 ppm limit,” the department said in a statement.
“It was deemed to be negligible risk and to meet acceptable standards for sale.”
Health Canada would not disclose the brands of the samples, citing confidentiality.
Lead and lead compounds, proven neurotoxins, are prohibited ingredients in cosmetics in Canada, but impurities exist in the environment that may be found in the raw materials or be acquired during the manufacturing process.
Colour additives, which are sometimes used to colour lipstick, also contain lead.
Health advocate Carol Secter isn’t comforted by government assurances about lead levels in lipstick, pointing to a growing body of scientific evidence suggesting there is no safe level of lead in the blood.
“One application at a very small level is unlikely to cause you any serious harm or no harm at all. But the lead built up in your body doesn’t dissipate. And you apply it everyday and many times a day. It’s not the one-time exposure that’s the problem,” said the president of the Breast Cancer Action Montreal who oversees its safe cosmetics campaign.
But Dr. Ray Copes, medical director of environmental health at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, said the lead levels found in the lipsticks in the Health Canada tests don’t concern him.
“In terms of exposure and health risk, it’s hard to get worked up, compared to other sources of lead exposure that are occurring everyday,” said Copes, an epidemiology professor at the University of B.C. and a specialist in risk assessment and lead exposure.
“If I was concerned about lead exposure in the population, and we are, I sure wouldn’t be looking at lipstick as the most promising place to look to reduce those exposures. I’d be looking at how lead gets into the food supply.”
© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2008
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