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How EWG is Transforming Transparency in Beauty and Personal Care · Skin Anarchy

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, welcome back.
• 0:02
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• 1:29
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• 1:39
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• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let me know what you think, and stay tuned for this awesome episode.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in the OTC product space.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, without saying anything, I think all of you can recognize the work that EWG has done over the years.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so today I want to welcome Ken Cook, who is the co-founder and president of the EWG.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Ken.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: It is truly such an honor to host you.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Doc.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to be here.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it's it's really cool to be able to talk to you because for many years, you know, even before I started this podcast, I was always following the EWG, you know, following what you guys are doing and just so amazed by the progress you were able to make, you know, in the years.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't wait to dive into that.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd love to learn about you, Ken.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like where did it all start?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, where did everything begin and the ideas?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, where did it come from to create this organization?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, thanks for having me on.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm tickled to be able to spend some time with you and um talk about this issue that we're both um so deeply concerned about.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, I I started off um getting interested in the environment in high school and did an independent study uh semester in high school, which was very unusual where I went to high school.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: There were two of us who did it, um, where we read books and wrote stuff.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the two books I read were The Closing Circle by Barry Commoner and The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich, the sort of 1969 hot books that you would read if you were interested in environmental stuff.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was interested in environmental stuff because I liked I liked thinking about issues uh from, I didn't know it at the time uh to describe it this way, but from an interdisciplinary perspective, I liked the idea of having a basic knowledge set that would allow you to explore economics, science, you know, in all its dimensions, politics, policy.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just like that synthesis that environmentalism to me represented, much more than regulating rogue industries or uh even documenting uh problems and complaining about them.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was more this search for solutions in an ecological way, looking at systems, looking at all different perspectives.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that that was high school.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I continued it through college.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I uh graduated and uh got my master's degree in soil science, I went to uh Washington, D.C.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: and started working on policy issues.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, um, I worked at for the government for a while, the Library of Congress.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Then I started uh EWG after a stint at uh other nonprofit groups, started what became environmental working group in the early 90s.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole idea of EWG was to bring this um appetite for fresh sources of data, a fresh look at information, making it newsworthy and understandable to people.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and from there, I just I was lucky to hire a bunch of really smart people.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Smart people that started skin deep, smart people that started verified, smart people that helped us work on pesticide issues and farm subsidies.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I've just uh I've been um I've been privileged to be able to work with this incredibly talented group of folks over now 31 years.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how it started.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's so that's really cool though, because you know, I think when you started this work, I mean, I I can tell you, you know, my my father went to school and got a PhD in environmental sciences as well.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he worked a lot with, you know, in his PhD with a lot of environmental things and um dairy science, especially.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember him talking to me that there were not a lot of things in place, you know, in terms of regulations.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: There were not a lot of a lot of understanding wasn't there, you know, just like for scientists, even like there it was a lot of stuff that you had to kind of navigate through and to try to understand.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I guess one of my biggest questions is, you know, what were some of the big holes that you saw at the time, especially when you started working on the federal level, you know, what were some of the big policies that you really wanted to shape and bring forward or anything that you can remember that started?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, well, you know, to going back to the to the theme of doing original work, I mean, one of the things that we sort of developed early on as a perspective is what what is the what's the understanding that we've gained as a result of the passage of all these environmental laws that produced before they produced regulations or anything that was incumbent on industry to uh to comply with, before that they produced information and data.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: One of the great accomplishments of the environmental movement is that the laws that were passed in the 70s and 80s, we kind of stopped after the mid-90s and didn't pass, don't modernize environmental laws anymore.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: But those bedrock laws, Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, Toxic Substances Control, Act Superfund, go on and on, Endangered Species Act.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: They all collected by law the information that was required to make regulatory decisions.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that repository of information under each one of these statutes, sometimes administered by different agencies or different parts of the same agency, water, air, and so forth, all compartmentalized at EPA.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: When you step back from it, it goes to, I think, probably your dad's dilemma, which early on, we didn't have these data.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: As scientists, we always want more.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: We never have enough.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure uh he he probably, you know, even with advances, he probably felt like there was more that was needed.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: But that data became very important to the founding structure of EWG because we hired database programmers and we started building databases.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get to get to our our our topic here, I think, our central topic, because one of the databases we decided to build was on personal care products.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I wish I could claim that this was my insight.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in fact, not only was it not my insight, I wasn't sure it was a good idea.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was the insight of a great scientist on our team in the early 2000s.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she was with us for for many years, but it in the early 2000s, she decided we needed to build a database of ingredients and personal care products.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason she decided we needed to do that was a study that came out of the Centers for Disease Control.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Several scientists did a study of phthalates and found them um in elevated levels in the blood of women of childbearing age.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the CDC scientists speculated in their paper, they didn't know for sure.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Again, back to your dad's point, right?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: We never, we never quite fully know.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: But back to your dad's point, once you dig into it a little bit, what we found out was that it likely came from personal care products.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I as an environmentalist, I think of smokestacks, I think of effluent coming out of factories, I think of runoff of farm fields.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's the environment, right?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: But Jane's insight and backed by her research was that, hey, you know, there's an exposure route here that comes through our drugstore or, you know, comes through our favorite place to shop for shampoo or nail polish or whatever.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's the that's the source of the contamination.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's worrisome enough that the CDC did a study on it, population study, and found reason to be concerned about women of childbearing age with this chemical in them.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So she said, why don't we why don't we find out what personal care products these phthalates are in?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we did that.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: We built a database.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think it had maybe 10,000 products in it.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: We found it mostly was in nail polish.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of a lot of products had already gotten out of the phthalates chemistry, but we we we found a concern.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: But then she looked at the label on these personal care products and and asked the very logical scientific question what's the rest of this stuff?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: What about these chemicals?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a a short hop from that question to how do how are they regulated?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's when we learned that the for personal care products like uh food additives and like uh cleaning products and a lot of other consumer-facing uh environmental exposures, the system behind them is largely one of self-regulation.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: You could put pretty much anything into a personal care product.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll send you a link so you can read it directly on the FDA website.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: FDA does not do pre-market testing of ingredients or products.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they don't have safety limits on ingredients.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: They don't even really review all of these chemicals that go into personal care products.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's largely largely up to the industry to decide what to put in, in what applications, which ones can be used near the eye, which ones can be used on hair, which ones wash off, which ones don't.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: This whole world was amazing to us that you could have this intimate contact with thousands of chemicals, hundreds for most people in the course of you know, course of a year, um, and and not even have robust dossiers on individual chemicals, much less the combination of them that were present, right?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: You might have three or four or five neurotoxic agents, chronic exposures, low, you know, low-level uh risk in the short term, uh, but we're thinking about the long term, which is what the CDC scientists were concerned about with phthalates.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, so we built this database.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jane built it uh with my colleague uh Chris Campbell and several others on our team.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: We had the ability from the early 90s when we hired uh database programmers to build databases.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we created what is now Skin Deep with 100,000 products and I don't know how many thousand ingredients in it, and we started rating the ingredients and the products as best we could.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: With, you know, again, if you don't have a regulatory system that requires submission of data to support the inclusion of an ingredient in a product, or you don't have to look at the final product and see what its hazard profile might be.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's not required by any law.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Don't have data as a result, you know, um, or you have a lot less.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how Skin Deep came about.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: That we and so we have this big database, now we have an app.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think that's what brought you to our doorstep.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's just that's the story.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I I just one more thing.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: The hardest problem we had to solve when we first launched Skin Deep was convincing journalists that this was the regulatory system in place, that that FDA, in fact, did not review ingredients, did not, in fact, set safe limits, did not do pre-market testing of products at all.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really hard for reporters until we sent them to the FDA website that said all those things.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because like us, uh or at least like me, uh, I mean, Jane Hooligan was the woman, uh, the person with the insight.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I didn't think of this as an in as the environment.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now, of course, and Skin Deep was a big part of it, we think of the environment as uh the environment of everyday life and the exposures that we experience.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um food, personal care products, things off-gassing in the home, home cleaning products that you have under your sink.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: All of those to us are are now uh fundamental areas of interest and concern.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how can we focus on that, even as we're concerned about air pollution and you know, drinking water contaminants and all the rest?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's this environment of everyday life and consumer products that um has been one of one of the areas that we've really pioneered.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I think that's you know, uh thank you for your for your great work and your including this podcast, because it really is worth realizing as a an expert, uh a leader in the uh personal care product uh world, head of a trade association said to me one day, she said, you know, before Skin Deep came along, Ken, and you're really good at your work, but before Skin Deep came along, women thought they were putting on makeup.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And now they think they're putting on chemicals.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's so true.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I would second that a hundred percent.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: You guys, I mean, Ken, the work that the EWG has done, like for me, I will I will tell you, personally speaking, from a consumer standpoint, you know, also obviously with a science background, it's even more meaningful, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: For me, because I look at it and I'm like, how did we like how did people not realize, you know, that you were having literal chemicals that were creating these products?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yes, beauty and and all these wonderful spaces that we like to indulge in, you know, they're wonderful.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're playgrounds for exploration and creativity, but health is at the center of all of it.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's at the at the end of the day, consumers, like for me, it was always like that.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Even when I was a child, I used to think, like, well, what is this stuff?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is it?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like like a little kid exploring chemistry.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, that's really what it comes down to.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that the EWG, like what you guys did and how you've innovated the space, it's really done exactly what you just said.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: But also, I think it's made it a lot more interesting, also as consumers, you know.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we we can now look at a product and say, I want to know, you know, what do these words mean?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like the organic chemistry terms, you know, and the bad ingredient list.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you want to explore and understand why do these things matter?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Why do they have to be in my formulation?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if they don't have to be in there, get them out of here.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like that's that whole movement.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can't even put into words how meaningful that is.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's you really, you guys, you just completely changed the game.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it's it's just the truth.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and I want to ask this as a follow-up is how do you see us now?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know we've made a lot of strides in like, you know, in the industries of beauty and skincare and you know, these OTC products that we love, but how do you see it evolving even further, especially now we have AI, we have all these things.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you have all these databases that you guys have created and these wonderful resources, but how is how do you see this uh evolving even further?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great question.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think if you think about it as a series of uh steps that a a newcomer to this issue might might encounter, one would be the awareness moment that you just described so well.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: What is all this stuff?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And do I need it?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we're we try and be very careful about um not judging people for personal care products they use, how they use them, how they make them feel.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you used a great word as kind of a playground, is the one of the best ways I've heard it described as something that should be playful, should be a source of creativity and enjoyment in the partaking of these personal care products, right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I I love that the lightness of that, right?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, but at the same time, and that's the second step, once you see all these things, do you, you know what, what do you do?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to continue using things that uh have ingredients in them that may have raised concerns, may even be banned in some countries, um, and that maybe you just don't need, right?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you get the the playfulness, the experimentation, the choice wedded to health?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and that step is really interesting because what has happened with clean beauty over the years, even though there's no definition, we have our own definition at EWG, it's in our EWG verified program, very rigorous set of standards for what we consider to be really clean beauty.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's been amazing for us to discover how many entrepreneurs, how many companies out there they can be in a small startup setting, they can be part of a big corporation, how they want to do things differently.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to uh continue to make the kinds of products with the kinds of ingredients that they've used in the past.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And there's enough technical advance, there's enough official curiosity informed by scientific know-how and the ability to formulate all the other elements to making a great uh personal care product.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're launching these things into the marketplace in a way that's shifting the whole thing.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to shift a huge percentage of the marketplace in order to see an impact.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we have seen it time and time again, where you know, people come to our website, we get about a thousand people an hour come to and more come to the app.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we didn't know that that was going to happen, that people were going to shop according to our databases.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: We thought we were going to build databases and go to Capitol Hill and say, does this look right to you that all these things are in cosmetics and they're not adequately regulated?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Separate story on how that process unfolded.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: But but the the immediate impact, we started seeing people on Amazon listing the EWG rating uh when they were commenting on a product they had purchased.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is uh this is green on EWG, or don't buy this, it's yellow or red, or whatever it might be.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Once we saw that happening and saw companies then responding to it and saying, hey, you know, we we're not a nonprofit, we're a for-profit, but we're pursuing the same mission.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want sketchy chemicals in our products.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And once that started unfolding, and there have been many pioneers that preceded EWG that felt that way anyway.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean to suggest that we were uh, you know, that it was all us by any means.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: But what I think what Skin Deep did, it gave people an outlet to be evaluated against all the other products in a way that incentivized people to try for something that was better or encouraged people to ask the question do you really need to use this product every day, or do you need to use it at all?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I was just did an interview with a pediatric uh endocrinologist who recently studied the effect of certain chemicals on the brain cells that help determine the onset of puberty.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, a very nerdy, detailed, interesting, fascinating study.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end, when I asked her, what do you say to a like a girlfriend of, you know, who has kids or um comes to you and says, Well, you've just done this study that uh suggested that maybe some chemicals could be implicated in early onset of puberty.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And those that early onset is um sometimes has health effects associated with it.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And her answer was, well, maybe just use soap and water.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's so you know, we're we're not anti, we're not anti fragrance.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: We want to disclose.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: We we we urge caution.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: We we're not anti any particular ingredient to the extent that we think it's gonna cause an acute problem, unless you already know you're sensitive.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: To it.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's more like, you know, if you stand back and look at these products full of chemicals that absorb in your body, your largest organ, your skin.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we now have biomonitoring studies.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: We did some of the early ones that found these chemicals in teenagers and women, just like the CDC did.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want to think about what you're applying to yourself, whether you need it, weigh the playfulness, the benefit you get from it, how you feel, how how you feel you look, whatever these things may be, all human, very human dimensions of you know everyday experience.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe you want to think about simplifying.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want to use up the product that you've got and then try something that scores better at EWG or is one of our verified brands that really passes through the ringer because we ask for all kinds of information that's not on the label from these companies.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: That to me is the progression we're seeing, Doctor.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Remarkable.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's remarkable.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what you said is so hard-hitting because it really does boil down to well, you have to make a choice at one point, you know, in terms of consumer consumerism to me is like it's really fueled a lot by just impulsivity, you know, and that's okay.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think I know mine is.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know mine is.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know, mine is too.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I'm like, okay, I get it.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're human and we have the human nature, that's how it is.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, it really is about what you were saying, where what do you want on your skin?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like it is going to impact your health.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is going to matter at the end of the day.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that I mean, for me, I think the EWG has introduced transparency on a level that never existed before.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's really where I get very, very enamored by what you guys are are doing and have done because consumers, I think, personally speaking, I think that the problem that we are facing even now is that we truly want transparency.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like we want to understand what is that chemical?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is it?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Where does it come from?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we need it?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like is it for the texture of the product?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is it for the efficacy of the?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, tell us, you know?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's where I think it it becomes more of like not just on a brand level, which it obviously should be, because brands should take a lot more responsibility, in my opinion, in terms of what they're putting out there, but also for consumers to take responsibility of I don't need that in my product.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't need that extra whatever you think this is adding to my experience.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'll take just if I'm buying makeup, I'll just I'll take it as long as it has the pigment that I want.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what I mean?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's if it's a lipstick, if it's doing its job and giving me that red shade I want, I'm happy with it.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need the extra crap, you know, like I don't need it.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where I think you've handed us options.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you it's like giving options to people and saying, you have more than one choice, you know, there are there are ways to go about it.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So from that, I think, you know, I'm I'm very intrigued with the skincare aspect.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: I won't lie, you know, you had mentioned this earlier in the interview, where in terms of how ingredients interact, and I really want to ask you about this, you know, when when it comes to like profiling these ingredients, I mean, what is the process of trying to figure out how they interact?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know the data, like I know the publications that exist right now, like on if you go on PubMed, there's not a lot of information out there, you know.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not on mixtures, not on, no, not at all.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Not in any realm of chemical regulatory policy, whether it's pesticides or toxic substances that are regulated, you know, that come out of industry that you know might be used in construction or automobile manufacturing, whatever.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: No, that uh we we are still at a very primitive level uh where we're looking at chemicals one at a time.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we don't look very hard even at those, and we never look at the combinations.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: We tested umbilical cord blood some decades ago and found um, you know, in in a group of 10 uh cord blood samples, we found uh hundreds of chemicals.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And in in some instances, there were, you know, dozens of neurotoxic agents, dozens of carcinogens.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Are they ever added up?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you're exposed before you even come into the world to all of these um at very low levels, but still um we don't look.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's considered to be, you know, sort of impossible.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: We we now have with AI and machine learning and uh computational uh methods that um are utilized in uh endocrinology and increasingly in epidemiology, we you know, we're we're getting a little bit closer to understanding the potential of mixtures to perhaps be of concern, but we're not there yet.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's no regulation, uh no regulatory system out there that looks at these chemicals in combination.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so from our standpoint, uh when we evaluate uh personal care product ingredients, we you know, we've sort of developed our own system and we we're the the first to admit it has shortcomings.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the first shortcoming is if you're not required to submit data that's public to an agency or some other source that is accessible about the hazardous properties of the chemical or the lack of them, if you're not required to have that data, um, it's it's pretty hard in some cases to evaluate a substance that's in a personal care product.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: We we do our best to look at the independent literature.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, you know, we're we're looking at an exposure study that was an oral dose and we're concerned about the ingredient in a skincare product.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: So there's probably a leap there.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're not happy with that, but there's no data on the skincare application in many cases, or fill in the blank if something washes off, what you know, what's the effect of that versus something you keep on your skin all day?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there's better information on that.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's proprietary.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's no requirement for a company to provide that data to any publicly accessible source.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you put your finger on it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Transparency.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: We do try and be transparent, including transparent when we don't know.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we say, I just, we just we just don't have data.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have a score, uh, an element of our scoring system.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's, you know, it's it's tricky because sometimes we just we don't want to condemn chemicals we know nothing about, and we don't want to condone, right?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's the right call.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, increasingly we're thinking, well, maybe we just decide if that chemical is important in that formulation.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we for the first time, and we're playing around with this right now.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm breaking news here, maybe.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe we'll just designate a product as uh unscorable by us, right?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just to let people know that there are gaps that would be nice to have filled, but aren't likely to be filled anytime soon and aren't required to be filled by government regulations.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: So transparency, super key, alternatives, simplification, uh, those are other elements where we like to think we're not finger wagging, yeah, judging.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're saying, look, whether it's pesticides and produce, some uh worrisome ingredient that's under regulatory scrutiny in personal care products or in food or whatever.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're just saying you should take a look at the possibility of avoiding exposure.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, because the the likelihood that we'll do a full-blown risk assessment that is fully accurate and timely uh is slim uh for a lot of these substances in a lot of their applications.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Again, whether it's food or cleaning products, something you rub on your countertop.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there are just so many data gaps.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Your your dad would be right at home with the data gaps, right?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, he already, he already, you know, tells me that honestly, it's I think you two would have a great conversation.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: So what do you do in the absence of data, right?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's nothing you can do, and it's like it's just guessing at that point.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's another thing, is like, you know, I think when it comes to certain things, I mean, now, as you know, Ken, we have Mokra, you know, and their FDA is trying, I think.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not fully sold.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh nothing against the FDA.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know they know what they're doing, obviously, but I just it's because of what we were just talking about.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's not enough data, you know.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: How do you regulate an area that you simply don't have studies?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know the toxicology around this stuff, you don't know the, you know, in terms of like bioavailability of these chemicals, you know, and the time frame they're available in your system, you know, in terms of what damage they're actually doing.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, my question is like, how do you feel about MoCRA?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think MoCRA is going to run into these same problems and these same issues that we're discussing right now.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, we worked on uh what became Mochra for many years.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: It it uh we had some elements of reform that did make it its way, their way into law, into MoCRA.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're we were very you know happy about that, but a lot of elements did not.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we just could not get to the finish line, even though we were work actually working with the personal care products uh industry, many leading companies.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some of them wanted to go further than um the majority of the companies did.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we kind of got stuck with with compromises.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, what's new?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's Washington, it's politics, right?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this is very much political.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, my feeling is that we have to keep putting pressure on the agency to make the most of this new law.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Industry certainly doing it.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there hasn't been a large constituency outside of EWG, uh, Women's Voices for the Earth, another great organization, breast cancer prevention partners, a number of others who have done great work on personal care product policy.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not a huge, not a huge uh contingency of organizations that have the time and effort to devote to this.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um effective, they've been amazing, and I'm happy that EWG's made some contribution too.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it, you know, it's it's really important to keep the agencies uh, you know, feet to the fire.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to do.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think that it's a combination of trying to make the most of this law that was passed a couple of years ago after years and years of effort, and what we can make happen in the private sector and in the marketplace.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you were asking me to weigh which one has the more impact right now, I would say it's consumers' demand for safer, healthier, transparent formulations of their products as opposed to the FDA.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I haven't given up hope.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: We'll never give up uh expecting the government to do its job.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in personal care products for many years did not.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you look at the FDA, and I know you know this, that's an agency, given your profession, you know fairly well.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a medical device or it's a drug, there's a lot of money at FDA.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: If it's food, personal care products, not so much.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: These are the weaker links.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, even though it's the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, um, cosmetics have not gotten the attention uh that they deserve, in in part because there's no fee on cosmetics manufacturers uh to the FDA to pay for approvals or reviews, as there is for drugs and medical devices, right?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the the money is a factor in having the staff that can do the work.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, the important thing going forward is this blend of action at the government level, can be state and federal.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Many states have taken steps.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: We've worked on a lot of laws in California that have gotten PFAS chemicals out of cosmetics and banned dozens of sketchy cosmetic ingredients that the FDA would never get to.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they're banned in California as a result of our work here in the state legislature.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those are those are important areas to continue working in.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we have lots of colleague organizations around the country who are doing that, uh, that we're proud to work alongside.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the most important step is for people to have that wake-up moment, Doc, where they realize they're putting on chemicals, not just makeup.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so, where do you go from there?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: How can we help people on that journey?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: How can we help them make decisions that allow them to have all the benefit of a wonderful personal care product?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: We hope these healthier ones will be democratized.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: We hope they'll be affordable and available to more and more people.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: We need to expand the clean beauty sector to make sure that's happening because if it doesn't, frankly, EWG is not interested.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to have a boutique practice here at EWG that approves some products, some chemicals for people who can afford to spend extra money.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: We want it to be everywhere.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's a that's a lot of work we've got uh ahead of us.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think that this consumer-driven market change model in personal care products is going to be as important as anything governments do over the next five years.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, it makes a lot of sense.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think with that, I I really want to ask you this question because it's it's something I wonder about a lot is this idea of like global safety when it comes to this concept.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it I I'm curious because the East seems to be so far advanced when it comes to certain technologies that they're incorporating in like skincare products, for example.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um let's look at sunscreens, you know, sunscreens have gone from like very primitive level to very advanced now in the east, you know, where you don't even know anymore that you're putting on a sunblock.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's really cool stuff.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm just curious, like, you know, what's your opinion about these emerging technologies and like how do you think they're gonna play a part in this effort to regulate and bring transparency?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you think that it's gonna be something we adopt in the West?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Or I mean, just your thoughts on it.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I mean, I I think in in many cases it gets adopted without any uh friction, any transaction uh barriers, right?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a uh a company in Korea might be marketing something in the US that has superior properties.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in other cases where we've tried to legislate the FDA to do something like approve or at least review um skincare products uh uh with sun protective qualities uh that are legal in Europe but aren't allowed here.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've not made much progress because companies haven't submitted the data that's required.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to, they want to keep using the stuff we now have.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it has gotten better in many ways.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh particularly, for example, the mineral sunscreens.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you put them on, you know, 10 10 years ago or even less, you know, you you you look pretty white.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now they they they offer the the broadband uh protection UVA UVB, it's balanced.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and it's uh has this great efficacy.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can put it on and not feel like um it's the kind of thing that a kid wouldn't object to.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let me put it that way, right?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, yeah.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that I think that is a big part of the future here.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: But again, um what will drive that, I think, more than global standards or even the different standards in different uh regions or nations.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think what will drive that more than anything else is consumer demand for safer, healthier ingredients.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: People will find these safer, healthier ingredients.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: I like to think we are of help as they conduct that search.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big benefit to Skin Deep and to the EWG Verified Verified Program.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the fact of the matter is, this individual uh decision making multiplied by millions, and again, with a thousand people an hour coming to our website, uh, you know, they're they're shoppers.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're not coming because they're interested in cosmetics policy or growth standards.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what do I wear?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and the next step is, you know, just tell me what's okay.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even want to learn about the bad stuff.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to learn anything about cosmetics.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to find a source I can trust that says, this is clean beauty.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's so easy for all of us to get wrapped up into our own world, our own criteria, our own value judgments, our own science.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to forget that most of the world doesn't have time or interest.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: They just they just want to know, EWG, um, we hear it all the time.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: What what do you wash your hair with, Ken?
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: What would you use on an on an infant uh with diaper rash?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: What would you, what would you buy to clean your countertops?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've we've taken those personally and said, well, you know, we're we're gonna try and give you our best honest answer with as much transparency as we can manage, including transparency when we don't know, when the information's imperfect.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is what's driving in the consumer space now a lot of decisions that are happening deeper and faster to the benefit of public health.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think that that's the that's the true beauty of what you're doing, is that it is moving at such a fast pace, you know, because whenever I think of government and any like those kind of like big umbrella efforts, it's like so much time gets lost, you know what I mean?
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm uh you know this more than I could ever know.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you've worked with the government on so much, but it just it's kind of like disheartening, right?
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: In the and people are turned off by it.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: People, you know, how do I do it?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: What how do I participate?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Am I supposed to am I supposed to write a letter to the FDA?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what do I do?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like how do I get this moving?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's yeah, and and it's just easier, I think.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, to I mean, FDA says everything on the market is safe because it's on the market, and the industry that makes the stuff says if it's on the market, it's safe by definition.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we come in and and we say, if it's on the market, it's legal.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean it's safe.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in that gap is where we're trying to, you know, do our best.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to alarm people, we don't want to scare people.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're talking about, for the most part, long-term chronic effects.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: We just want to make sure people know that you're not crazy to want to avoid exposure.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there are options for doing so more and more all the time.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like that.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: I like that message.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that's so, so relevant, especially right now, because all I see can I don't know how much you are on social media, but let me tell you, for my end, whenever I look at social media, I get a little scared for the younger generations, you know.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: I really do.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's because um the teenagers now, they're just out there and they're playing with these products and they're and that's great in some ways, but like I yeah, I get worried.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: I do too.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's to think that there's not enough going on to like protect them, you know, it's just it's really a lot.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's right.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm I'm 73, so what I put on my skin is by definition less important with respect to chronic exposure because I ain't got that many chronics left, right?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm nearing the end of my chronic exposure risk zone, uh uh, however you put it.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh these young kids, um, and my I include my son, you know, uh, he's influenced by TikTok.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: He, you know, say, how about this?
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Should I buy this stuff?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it it is it is worrisome.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're no longer in an era of mass media, it's all these narrow channels, influencers, uh, you know, YouTubers, TikTokers, whatever it might be.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's impossible to keep track of them all.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, uh, we we know that some of the things that are on offer and that beguile our kids are not healthy or not safe.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I I do worry about that.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where you know, making the market move faster, make and making things that are cool that people want, uh, that make them feel good about themselves and personal care, um, make them feel like uh they're they're getting what they wanted out of a product, whether it's how it feels on their skin, how it makes, how it makes them smell, whatever it might be, not not to judge that, but just give people options that are healthier and safer where we can.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a it's a tricky business, uh, no question about it.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and yet it's it's so important and it's actionable by individuals.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: And to go back to the point, you know what, are you really asking people to participate in a FDA regulatory proceeding?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we do.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you get on our email list, we will ask you to weigh in, write a letter, uh, you know, make a phone call, whatever.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: But most people aren't gonna do that.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but most people are still using personal care products.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you how do you make a difference?
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you make a difference by telling them you're gonna try try your level best to give them information that they can use in their day-to-day lives that will move them down the exposure pathway to fewer exposures to chemicals of concern.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's basically what it comes down to for us.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we think with our advice across all these different consumer categories, food, personal care products, cleaning products, you can avoid thousands of exposure events a year.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Carcinogens, neurotoxins, chemicals that affect the endocrine system.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can avoid them.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: It we're building an industry.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you buy from a company that has, you know, done the right thing, you're moving the market just that increment to a safer midpoint.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're looking for.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's when I mentioned, you know, the importance of democratizing clean beauty can't for us, that's everything, but that requires us to move the market in that direction.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: We don't think it's likely that the regulatory agencies are going to make a leap.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: They'll occasionally ban something that's so bad, but by the time that happens, you know, damage is done at that point.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Damage can be done, yeah.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And especially these young people, uh, you know, my wife keeps telling me, I'm so glad we had a boy and not a girl.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you would have been out of your mind.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh with um, you know, with personal care products and fashion and so forth.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's it's it's hard enough, but um, yeah, I do I worry about I worry about those forces.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: I worry about um it it happening in such a confined, compartmentalized space that you don't have eyes on it.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: You we don't really know what might be happening um because information is so channelized.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, uh thank you for answering that because it's it's a very uh hazy subject right now.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people want to speak on it and about it, and but it's just what do you say?
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: If nobody knows anything about these things, and yeah, and that's where you know it's very challenging, I think, for consumers, especially parents.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine being a parent of like a nine-year-old right now and having to worry about this, you know.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's crazy.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's been such an honor hosting you, Ken.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for your time.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: This has been truly a pleasure for me, and thank you so much.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for skincare anarchy.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage people to follow all of your work through that uh through that channel and through this podcast.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's it's been a real pleasure and an honor to be on with you, doc.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go clean things up, right?
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you again so much.
• 46:01
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