BUSSINESS INFORMATION

Talk about a phrase that doesn't roll right off the tongue... "Pretty Products For Healthy People Minus Many Lousy Chemical Substances" is something a company called Best in Beauty would like you to remember. Their mission it is to increase awareness about potentially harmful ingredients in cosmetic products, and each word in the phrase is supposed to remind you of a sketchy chemical. We ran their list by independent cosmetic chemist Jim Hammer and dermatologist Jeannette Graf to see what's really worth worrying about:

"Pretty" is for "Phthalates": "Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP) has been found by the FDA to be safe and effective in making nail polish flexible and resistant to chipping," Graf says. "However, since DBP has been banned in some countries, most polish manufacturers no longer use it."

"Products"is for "Propylene Glycol": This is widely used as a humectant (a substance that draws water to the skin), and at the very worst, "may cause some skin irritation," Hammer says. Otherwise, the FDA has found that the levels used in cosmetic skin-care products are well within the safe range.

"For" is for "Formaldehyde": "Formaldehyde is a carcinogen, but most issues come from breathing its fumes," Hammer says. In beauty products, like nail hardeners, the liquid form is used--and formaldehyde is far less toxic in that form, adds Graf. "The FDA and CIR (Cosmetic Ingredient Review) have concluded that, in the levels used in nail-hardener products, it is safe for the vast majority of consumers." The one beauty use it isn't necessarily safe in, Graf says, is Brazilian hair straightening treatments.

"Healthy" is for "Hydroquinone": "This is a very effective skin-lightening agent, widely used in many products," Hammer says. "However, based on some evidence in rodent studies that it may cause cancer, the FDA has proposed a ban on its use in over-the-counter products." Graf adds that most dermatologists believe hydroquinone is safe at the levels used in cosmetic products. "The rat studies were done with intravenous hydroquinone--not topically, as humans use it--and the doses were very high," she says.
"People" is for "Petroleum": "The most widely used petroleum products in cosmetics are petrolatum and mineral oil," Hammer says. "Petrolatum is safe for use, but has a negative stigma attached because it's derived from crude oil, and seen as harmful to the environment."

"Minus" is for "Mercury": Mercury has antibacterial properties that can help prevent eye infections. "But it can be toxic, so according to the FDA, it can only be used in trace amounts in certain eye products, including mascaras and eyeliners, when no other preservative can be used," Graf says. "It is otherwise outlawed in any cosmetic product."

Additional info on Mercury and your diet.

"Many" is for "Mineral Oil": "Mineral oil has received a very bad rap. It was vilified in the 1950s when the mineral oil was industrial-grade and extremely pore-clogging," Graf says. "Today, cosmetic-grade mineral oil is quite elegant and non-irritating as well as non-clogging." Adds Hammer, "It is a very good moisturizer because it forms an occlusive covering over the skin."

"Lousy" is for "Lead": "The FDA has looked at the lead levels in lipstick and found that they are well within non-toxic levels," Graf says. According to Hammer, "If any trace lead is present from the use of other minerals, the amounts are small enough not to worry about."

"Chemical" is for "Colorants": "Cosmetic colorants are strictly regulated by the FDA and have been determined to be safe for use at the levels found in cosmetics," Hammer says. "Some individuals may experience particular sensitivity to certain ones, for example FD&C Yellow #4"

"Substances" is for "Sodium Lauryl Sulfate": "It's just internet paranoia," says Hammer. "This is a very effective surfactant, in many cases derived from coconut, used in shampoo, body wash, even in toothpaste. " Graf adds that, despite the rumors, sodium lauryl sulfate "is not linked to cancer."

Hair is considered one of the most defining aspects of human appearance. Hair loss, or alopecia, in women is often met with significant emotional distress and anxiety (Cash, Price, & Savin, 1993). Clinicians play a key role in providing women with a thorough evaluation, a specific diagnosis, evidence-based treatment options, and counseling. In this review article, a systematic approach to history taking, examination, and diagnosis of hair loss is provided. Specific types of hair loss are discussed in the context of disturbances of the hair cycle, damage to the hair shaft, and disorders affecting the follicle. Lastly, recommendations for effectively counseling women with hair loss are provided.


Hair is considered one of the most defining aspects of hu man appearance. Through out history, hair length, style, and color have been used to make statements about virility, sexuality, religion, military status, and more. Alopecia, or hair loss, is a common and distressing problem and is often met with feelings of grief and a lost sense of "self" (Cash et al., 1993). Women with alopecia must not only face the loss of their hair, but they often feel isolated, embarrassed to seek care, and may be frustrated by misdiagnosis or poor treatment options. Clinicians play a key role in providing women with a thorough evaluation, a specific diagnosis, evidence-based treatment options, and counseling.

During our lifetime, each hair follicle undergoes continuous cycles of growth (anagen), resorption (catagen), and rest (telogen). The portion of hair that is seen is called the hair shaft. That which is below the surface of skin is the follicle. Hair loss can occur due to disturbances of the hair cycle, damage to the hair shaft, or disorders affecting the follicle. A systematic approach to the patient with hair loss will enable the clinician to classify and diagnose the hair problem accurately in the majority of cases. The correct diagnosis is based on a detailed history, physical examination, and in some cases, scalp biopsy and pertinent laboratory tests. With the appropriate diagnosis, proper patient counseling and treatment can be initiated (Han & Mirmirani, 2006).

More article ....

I've long heard rumors that the fine particulate dust used in laser printer toner cartridges may be a health risk. It certainly makes sense: Not all of that stuff can stick to the paper, and if you've ever spilled toner you know there's no way it can be good for your lungs. Now a controlled study is confirming the information, saying that 30 percent of all laser printers tested emit dangerous particles described as "causing lasting damage on the scale of inhaled cigarette smoke." These tiny particles lodge deep in the lungs and can lead to anything from lung irritation to full-on cancer.


The tests come from an Australian technology university and were conducted in a "large open-plan space," and found that printers could increase particulate matter in the air by up to 400 percent.


While I'm still trying to obtain the list of high vs. low particle emitters from the university, there appears to be a lot of variability among machines and even among different toner cartridges. New cartridges, for example, produce more particle matter than old ones. Printing graphics pages also produces more particle matter than text, since more toner is used, and obviously, air quality gets worse the more pages you spit out. I'll post the full list of printers tested here (or a link to it) as soon as I can obtain one.

The upshot is that printer emissions should potentially be regulated much the way that auto emissions are, but even in the absence of government intervention, use common sense around your printer: Limit use when possible (tell the guy that prints out every single email to cut it out), sequester printers in their own rooms and away from workers, ventilate offices appropriately, and have your own air and printer tested before it becomes a serious health problem.

Source: tech.yahoo.com

High levels of secondhand smoke on the job can double nonsmokers' risk of developing lung cancer, and those who inhale it at work long-term face a 50 percent higher risk, researchers said on Wednesday.
Scientists led by epidemiologist Leslie Stayner of the University of Illinois at Chicago combined the results of 22 studies on secondhand smoke conducted in the United States, Canada, Europe, India, Japan and China.
Writing in the American Journal of Public Health, they said that for nonsmokers who were highly exposed to secondhand smoke at work, there was approximately a 100 percent increase in lung cancer risk.

The researchers adopted the previous studies' definitions of high exposure, based on factors like the numbers of smokers present in the workplace and actual amounts of smoke exposure.
Lung cancer risk for nonsmokers exposed for 30 years to secondhand smoke on the job jumped by 50 percent. Nonsmokers exposed to any secondhand smoke in the workplace experienced a 24 percent increased risk that rose based on level and duration of exposure, they said.
"We believe that our study provides the strongest evidence to date that smoking in the workplace does present a substantial risk to workers -- and particularly to workers who are working in highly exposed areas such as bar workers or restaurant workers," Stayner said in an interview.
The researchers said a lot of the evidence for an increased lung cancer risk caused by secondhand smoke has come from studies of nonsmokers married to a smoker. Previous studies also had not broken down the increased risk caused by secondhand smoke by level of Secondhand smoke, also called passive smoke and environmental tobacco smoke, is smoke from a cigarette, pipe or cigar and smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers that is inhaled by nonsmokers.
In addition to cancer, it has been linked to respiratory problems and asthma in nonsmokers.
Stayner said the findings lend further credence to efforts in many communities in the United States and throughout the world to ban or limit smoking in the workplace.
For example, tighter smoking restrictions take effect this week in France, with bans in offices, stores, schools and hospitals.
Cafes, bars and restaurants will have until January 2008 to comply. In cafes and restaurants, smoking will still be permitted in hermetically sealed rooms without any services
exposure, they said.

Indonesia will declare bird flu a national disaster, giving the government access to special funds to combat the disease that has killed 63 people nationwide, the planning minister said.
"It has become an epidemic," Paskah Suzetta told reporters on Wednesday in Jakarta, where authorities were preparing for the compulsory slaughter of thousands of backyard chickens as part of high-profile efforts to fight the H5N1 bird flu virus.
"The president has indicated he will declare it a national disaster so money can be allocated from the state budget's disaster fund," Suzetta said.

Indonesia, which has tallied more than a third of the world's human deaths from H5N1, has come under criticism for failing to crack down on bird flu when it first appeared in poultry stocks nearly four years ago.
The virus is now endemic in chickens almost all over the country and, despite optimism late last year that it may have been contained, it killed six people in the last month.
Many of the 63 people who have died lived near the teeming capital, home also to more than 100,000 backyard chickens, ducks, doves and song birds.
Authorities gave residents weeks to voluntarily get rid of their birds and were set to go door-to-door in some neighborhoods on Thursday to make sure the order had been carried out, Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso said.

"I will show no tolerance," he said after meeting with mayors, health and husbandry officials. "Chickens found running loose will be immediately killed, the sick ones thrown into a fire and the healthy ones given to owners to be fried and eaten."

The effectiveness of the slaughter campaign remains to be seen, however, amid fears that many residents will hide their birds or that corrupt officials will be susceptible to bribes. The crackdown will also have to reach well beyond the capital.
Past efforts to carry out mass slaughters have failed in part because the cash-strapped government said it could not afford to compensate bird owners. By declaring the disease a national disaster, it would no longer have such an excuse.
Bird flu remains hard for humans to catch. But international experts fear it may mutate into a form that could spread easily between humans and potentially kill millions around the world.
Indonesia is seen as a potential hotspot for that to happen

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration wants to reduce rates of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS, and part of the strategy is the aggressive promotion of free condoms. Officials say more people will use them if they have jazzy packaging.

One idea is a subway theme, with maps on the wrappers.

"Brands work, and people use branded items more than they use nonbranded items, whether it's a cola or a medicine even," Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said.

New York hands out 1.5 million free condoms each month, or about 18 million a year. Hundreds of organizations get free condoms from the city and distribute them at health clinics, bars, restaurants, nail salons, nightclubs and even prisons.

Widespread free distribution started after Frieden became health commissioner in 2002 and found that the city's STD clinics were limiting each patient to just a small number.

"I thought that was nuts -- of all the people you'd like to have an unlimited supply of condoms, it's people who have an STD," Frieden said. "Condoms work; they're just not where they need to be as often as they need to be."

There is even a bowl of condoms outside Frieden's office.

More than 100,000 New Yorkers are living with HIV and AIDS. AIDS remains the third-leading cause of death among New Yorkers under 65.

The number of condoms distributed by the city multiplied several times over after the health department launched its online ordering system in 2005.

Individuals cannot order, but any organization or venue can request unlimited free condoms.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Two Indonesian women died from bird flu, a health official said Saturday, the latest in a flurry of cases in recent days to strike the country worst hit by the virus.
One of the women died late Friday, the other early Saturday, said Nyoman Kandun, the Ministry of Health's director general of communicable disease control. Both had been treated in the same hospital in the capital, Jakarta.
The cases underscore the threat posed by the virus in Indonesia, which was criticized for being slow to react to H5N1 when it first appeared in poultry stocks and among backyard chickens in 2004.

"We keep warning people to be careful in handling chickens," Kandun said. "The source of the virus is from chickens. As long as there are chickens around with bird flu, then it is dangerous for people living nearby."

The deaths bring Indonesia's tally of human fatalities to at least 61 -- more than a third of the world's total.
Earlier this week, a teenage boy and a 37-year-old woman died, also in Jakarta.
They were the first deaths from the virus in six weeks -- a lull that led some Indonesian officials to say they were succeeding in beating the disease. The World Health Organization cautioned that it was too soon to draw that conclusion.
Bird flu remains hard for humans to catch and has killed a relatively small number compared to the hundreds of thousands of people who die each year in developing countries from easily preventable diseases.

But international experts fear it may mutate into a form that could spread easily between humans and potentially kill millions around the world, including in wealthy nations that have so far been spared human cases.
Source: CNN

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Bird flu has infected a farmer in China's first human case in months, killed an Indonesian teenager and spread deeper in Vietnam in a flare-up of infections mirroring past winters.
A second Indonesian bird flu victim, a 37-year-old woman from Banten Province on Java island, was in hospital on Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
Most human victims of bird flu have contracted the virus from infected birds, usually chickens, ducks or geese and there is usually a surge in cases during cooler months when the virus seems to thrive.

The 37-year-old Chinese man from the eastern province of Anhui kept backyard birds, but as in other human bird flu cases in China there was no reported poultry outbreak in the area, raising questions as to how he contracted the virus.
The man developed symptoms of fever and pneumonia early last month and was discharged from hospital on Saturday, the state-run Health News said.

"In China, the challenge is now to identify where this virus is hiding and how it is circulating," Henk Bekedam, the WHO's China representative, told Reuters.
China has reported 22 human cases, including 14 deaths, since 2003 and, with the world's largest poultry population and millions of backyard birds roaming free, it is seen as a center in the fight against the virus.
Bekedam said that as vaccination rates for birds improve in China, detecting avian influenza becomes harder and harder, offering a possible explanation for why there was no reported outbreak where the farmer lived.
Indonesia has the highest human death toll from bird flu of any nation, and on Wednesday that number grew to 58 when a boy, from Tangerang near Jakarta, died, said the head of the Indonesian health ministry's bird flu center Runizar Ruesin.
The boy was admitted to hospital in the capital last week and deaths among poultry in his neighborhood had recently been reported, the WHO said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Muhammad Nadirin, another official at the country's bird flu center, said hospital staff had to take extra care washing the boy's corpse because of concerns the virus might infect them.

"He was washed using special protection methods to prevent contagion," but added he didn't know if it could be transmitted from human-to-human this way.
The H5N1 virus mostly affects birds, but it has infected 263 people in 10 countries since 2003, killing 157 of them.

Scientists fear the virus could mutate and spread rapidly between people, triggering a pandemic that could sweep the globe in weeks and possibly kill millions.
An adviser to the White House said on Monday the number of people that could die in a flu pandemic that matches the 1918-19 outbreak will be "very scary" and far higher than the 62 million deaths forecast by a recent study by Harvard University.
The 1918-19 "Spanish influenza" pandemic killed anywhere from 20 million to 100 million people.
In Vietnam, bird flu has been confirmed in a fourth Vietnamese province after tests on 70 ducks showed they had died from the H5N1 virus, a government report said on Wednesday.
The results of tests on ducks found dead at the weekend prompted health workers to slaughter around 1,800 more ducks in two communes of Kien Giang province in the southern Mekong Delta, the Animal Health Department report said.

The virus that first struck the delta region in late 2003 re-emerged last month. Vietnam has had no human H5N1 cases since November 2005.