Your Lipstick: Made With Cow Brains

[Guest guest]

Ananda Vrindavana (dd) (Vrindavana Gurukula - IN)

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Your Lipstick: Made With Cow Brains

 

 

 

Here's the bad news: Cow brains may be an ingredient in your lipstick.

The good news? The FDA is banning it.

 

The Food and Drug Administration has told cosmetics makers they can

no longer use brain and spinal cord tissue from older cattle in lipstick,

hair sprays, and other products, reports The Associated Press. The fact that

they were used at all will likely surprise millions of women who use these

products daily. And that's not the only surprise: The new FDA regulations

still allow use of these animal tissues in cosmetics as long as they come

from younger cattle.

 

The ban on cow brains and spinal cord tissue from cosmetics is aimed

at preventing a fatal human variant of mad cow disease, called

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, from reaching people. Also known as bovine

spongiform encephalopathy, mad cow disease causes the brains of infected

animals to waste away. There is no cure for animals or humans.

 

"While the risk is small, if there does happen to be an ingredient

from a BSE-infected cow, the consequences would be incredibly drastic,"

Rachel Weintraub, assistant general counsel of the Consumer Federation of

America, told AP. She noted, for example, that sprays could contain animal

protein that could be inhaled.

 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest warns consumers that

it's virtually impossible to tell from reading the label if cow brains or

spinal cord tissue are included in the ingredients. Caroline Smith DeWaal,

head of food safety for CSPI, urged the FDA and cosmetics' manufacturers to

publish a list of ingredients that could contain bovine material so

consumers will know whether they should throw out older cosmetics that could

be harmful.

 

AP reports that cosmetic manufacturers insist they already require

their suppliers to certify that the cattle-derived ingredients sold to them

are free of materials that carry BSE.