Here We Goop Again

The Dirty of Lying

I was pointed to an article on the Goop website. If you recall, goop is a website set up and run by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and is rife with pseudoscience. This website, or rather her pseudoscientific beliefs, have gained a lot more media attention over the last 6 months. From, sex dust to bone broth there is nothing this woman cannot cure with organic, natural ‘chemical-free’ ingredients. The post I was pointed to was an article entitled ‘The Dirty on Getting Clean’. If you can be bothered to read it, you will see it is just really a ploy to promote brands and misinformation, as far as I am aware.

"Something about this didn’t sit right with Gregg Renfrew, who found that the more she learned, the more she realized what she didn’t know—and the more scared, and angry, she became"

Well, what didn’t she know? A whole lot it turns out, and it appears she didn’t actually learn that much either. She released a brand called ‘Beautycounter’ to free our skin of toxic chemicals – whatever the hell that means, dose makes the poison – all chemicals are toxic at the right dose – kind of getting bored of saying this. Of course she wouldn’t know any of this, she has no formal scientific education or training, but hey, why not weigh in on it anyway. 

Fabricated statistics

One sentence really annoyed me, and it is a common theme within pseudoscientists pushing an agenda; fabricated statistics. We are all prone to saying fallacious statistics in our everyday life “9/10 I do it” or “90% of the time” – that’s fine, it is only everyday hyperbole, and no one is regulating that. When you have a platform however, it gets a little sketchy. People are listening, reading and watching your every word. Even sadder, people are listening to it and running with it as fact. 

“80% of the chemicals in personal care products have never been tested for safety,” she explains. “It’s an unconscionable fact, and we all deserve better.””

Okay, that sounds like something people would believe. Is it true? Well, lets look at what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says on cosmetics. They state that they as it is not a food or a drug, meaning they don’t have legal authority over it (with the exception of colour additives). However, they can, and do, enforce legal action on products that are not in compliance with the law. So, if you manufacture a product, you can put whatever you want in it providing it isn’t a food or a drug, they have a point in that. However, to market and sell the product, you must ensure it complies with:

• The ingredient and the finished cosmetic are safe under labeled or customary conditions of use
• The product is properly labeled, and
• The use of the ingredient does not otherwise cause the cosmetic to be adulterated or misbranded under the laws that FDA enforces.

The first point is the one I was expecting, basically saying, you cannot put anything in there that is going to harm anyone. Fair enough, I’ll take the cyanide out of this is now. So then comes the statistics, are 80% of the chemicals in personal care products unregulated? Hmm, I can’t find any actual authority on that, not one scientific paper, not one shred of evidence. Not one. I type in an array of sentences to find this, all I get is links to this article or other articles by Greg Renfrew, and she’s definitely not an authority on this subject. So, until she provides a list entailing 80% of the ingredients in cosmetics are unregulated, this is a blatant fabrication. 

Ridiculous Claims

Where there’s pseudoscience there follows the increased risk of cancer, autism and any disease you cannot cure without organic extracts. Yes, she genuinely claims autism is on the ‘rise’.

“One in two men, and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer,” Renfrew explains, “while one in three kids will be diagnosed with ADHD, asthma, autism, or allergies.” She goes on to add: “What’s happening in our genes, physical environment, food supply chain, and cosmetics is a complicated dance. But our skin is our largest organ—it’s silly to assume that toxic chemicals we already know are linked to health problems, or chemicals that are understudied, aren’t having profound effect on our health, especially when so many illnesses are on the rise.”

Yes, it is a complicated dance. A dance you have not bothered to learn. This is fearmongering at its worst. If you use cosmetic products that aren’t purchased from my “safe” regulated company, then you will get cancer or autism. Excellent. She doesn’t back this up with any scientific information at all. The actual statistics on autism are about 1 in 100, not 1 in 3. Then we have to call into question the reason for the small increase in registered austism cases. A lot more people are aware of the condition and it is a lot more regularly diagnosed on the 'spectrum' compared to 16 years ago. It could be that more people are being diagnosed with autism, not that more people are having the condition.

She goes on to mention in a recent ‘study’ they found parabens in breast tumours at the same concentrations as in cosmetics. Because that’s how the body works. And she doesn’t even link to the study, she links to an interpretation of the study. Same concentration as in cosmetics is an absurd notion, anything that goes in at a certain concentration, is the same as when it is detected? We don’t even use that in forensic toxicology for a reason, your body breaks things down and excretes them. Not to mention, are all parabens at the same concentration throughout cosmetics? The study was published in Journal of Applied Toxicology titled Concentrations of parabens in human breast tumours, they conclude:

These studies demonstrate that parabens can be found intact in the human breast and this should open the way technically for more detailed information to be obtained on body burdens of parabens and in particular whether body burdens are different in cancer from those in normal tissues.

Using 20 subjects, that’s a conclusion alright. More work needs to be conducted looking into “the burdens of the body” – cannot even fathom what that means. The study does not even show that parabens cause cancer or even that are at all harmful, just that they were present. Even more, they didn't even have a control group. They just looked at parabens in the bodies of 20 deceased humans. What about possible paraben levels in normal tissues?

What are these 80% of chemicals?

It gets you thinking, right? If she is so quick to announce this revelation she has found out, she should surely publish this. Well, I can’t find any published ingredient list that holds any water with how nasty these chemicals actually are and/or if they are unregulated. In fact, I find the opposite, such as lists of chemicals in them and the efficacy. Here is a list of common chemicals used in cosmetics, which have studies into toxicity and LD50 (lethal doses) – just don’t use more. Lest you forget, even water, caffeine and alcohol have lethal doses. Everything does. Sadly, and to my disgust, this is why we have animal testing, to test the cosmetics on animals to see if they are affected. I am, by the way, in no way condoning this, it is genuinely vile.

Chemikillz

I wrote a post on a company called Lush recently, more accurately, two pseudoscientists who use big chemical names to fearmong. Which is exactly what is carried out in this post on goop. There is very little substance to the claims and no scientific evidence to back this up. Using chemical names makes things sound scarier than they are. We all know dihydrogen monoxide is water, but the chemical name sounds much more terrifying. There is genuinely no need for this, other than to market and promote your own business. She weighs in on how chemicals in our cleaning products are harming us. Saying don’t use plastics with type 3, 6 or 7. I can only imagine she is getting her ‘scientific’ information from Mercola, who claims that PVC (plastic 3) can make men turn into women as it is a “gender-bending” chemical. Seriously. 

 

"Phthalates are one of the groups of "gender-bending" chemicals causing males of many species to become more female."

Then we have authoritative speculation:

 

“Non-stick cookware may be coated with Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a chemical that may cause cancer,”

May or does? I may get hit by a car, should I go outside? I don’t see anything in the way of scientific evidence, once again, to say that PFOA causes cancer, and neither does she. She recommends you use fabric shower curtains because the volatile organic compounds enter the air, complete with a link to the centre for health, environment and justice – although the link doesn’t work.

Conclusion

Chemicals are all around you, you consume them every. Single. Day. You do this in order to stay alive. When people who have absolutely zero scientific knowledge or training to spot pseudoscience or manipulated/fabricated statistics have an ‘opinion’ (no matter how bloody authoritative they put it across) on these matters, I implore you not to listen. If you do listen, then research. There is a hell of a lot of good that comes from raising questions, but when you get an answer to that question that doesn’t conform with your pre-conceived notions and you get all campaigny about ‘truth’ and ‘cover ups’, then we have an issue. There is ample science out there to dismiss these claims, yet businesses have been built around it, based on fearmongering. Maybe, just maybe I’m on the wrong side of this, just think how many millions I could make by selling ‘chemical-free’ bullshit.