Association Responds to NYT Article

Yesterday's article in The New York Times regarding Wen hair care and inaction by the US Food and Drug Administration, caught the attention of many players in the personal care space, including the Personal Care Product Council (PCPC). Today, John Hurson, executive vice president, government affairs, Personal Care Products Council issued the following response:

“For more than seven years, the Personal Care Products Council (PCPC) and its member companies have worked collaboratively with Members of Congress to modernize federal regulatory oversight for cosmetics and personal care products. While we believe that personal care products are the safest product category regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), given the industry’s scientific rigor and commitment to safety, we also support modernizing cosmetics legislation to ensure FDA has the appropriate funding, resources and administrative authority to oversee our products for the 21st century. We believe that well-crafted, science-based reforms will enhance our industry’s ability to innovate and further strengthen consumer confidence and trust in the products they use every day.
 

“As part of our ongoing commitment toward this modernization, PCPC and its member companies support a core set of principles that should guide a national standard for legislation and the dynamic collaboration between legislators, industry and other stakeholders, which is essential to achieve a shared goal of ensuring consumers can continue to trust their products – products that contribute to overall well-being. These principles include: 

⦁    Creating a strong national program for the uniform FDA safety regulation of all cosmetics in the United States. 

⦁    Requiring manufacturers to substantiate the safety of cosmetic products and ingredients and provide that substantiation to the FDA upon request. This substantiation should utilize widely accepted scientific principles and established scientific ingredient reviews such as the Cosmetic Ingredient Review.

⦁    Creating an FDA program authorized to review the safety of individual cosmetic ingredients and trace constituents found in cosmetics, in a timely manner, utilizing widely accepted scientific principles. 

⦁    Establishing mandatory foreign and domestic manufacturing establishment registration and ingredient reporting by manufacturers for all cosmetic products sold in the United States.

⦁    Requiring mandatory reporting by manufacturers to FDA of serious and unexpected adverse health events experienced by a consumer from a cosmetic product marketed and used in the United States.

“We appreciate Congressional leadership to create a more contemporary regulatory system for the cosmetics and personal care sector and look forward to continued dialogue with Members of Congress and relevant stakeholders to further strengthen federal cosmetics legislation.”