FDA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Food and Drug Administration has received dozens of reports over a decade about hair-straightening treatments that contain the carcinogen formaldehyde and can sicken salon workers and customers with burning and blisters in the nose and throat, nausea, and flulike symptoms.
Yet six years after a consumer-safety group petitioned the agency to ban the products, the FDA has taken little action and said recently it is still studying the issue. At least 15 hair-straightening brands banned in other countries remain on the market in the U.S., and environmental and consumer groups have taken the FDA to court to force action.
Now, through a combination of that litigation and Senate legislation with wide support from the cosmetics industry and consumer groups, the regulator may soon gain new powers to regulate such beauty products…
At least 10 leading cosmetics makers now are backing a bill in the Senate sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Susan Collins (R., Maine). The companies include Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal SA, Revlon Inc. and Unilever NV. The companies in general seek the predictability and a kind of seal of approval that comes with FDA regulation; U.S. drug companies for years have thrived partly based on that FDA imprimatur.”
-Thomas M. Burton and Michelle Hackerman, “Congress Weighs Expanding FDA Power to Regulate Beauty Products,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 18, 2017 12:57pm