News

There’s a new study out from the New England Journal of Medicine, showing that “repeated topical use of products containing lavender oil and/or tea tree oil may cause prepubertal gynecomastia, a rare condition resulting in enlarged breast tissue in boys prior to puberty, and for which a cause is seldom identified.” Part of the reason we keep our products fragrance-free is because of the growing concern that essential oils — even ones as seemingly benign as lavender and tea-tree oils — may carry a significant enough level of estrogenic activity that they affect children. This new study is an indication of the...

No matter how you voted on Tuesday, the sight of President-Elect Obama addressing the crowd in Grant Park in Chicago offered a new and inspirational hope for the nation — underscoring the idea that anyone can be anything they want to be in this country through hard work and perseverance and good ideas. From watching Obama’s speech on Tuesday night, I sense that he thinks it’s more important to get to work than to celebrate this historic win. We do face a lot of issues. I’m particularly concerned, of course, with the safety of products we use, and protecting consumers...

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been at Expo East, one of the premiere natural products trade shows in the nation, held in Boston this year. It was an incredible success, and I’m appreciate of everyone I got to meet while I was there. One thing that struck me on the way home, as I went over the reactions to the baby line, is that the packaging issue is becoming increasingly important for retailers. Consumers are being more aware of the dangers of estrogenic activity chemicals, and packaging is no longer an afterthought. When government officials and retailers...

There’s been so much focus on Bisphenol A lately (including on this blog) that it’s almost easy to forget the dangers of phthalates — which are also contained in plastic resins and can also disrupt hormonal activity. USA Today (courtesy of Liz Szabo, one of my favorite reporters out there right now) just posted news of this troubling report from Environmental Research. The study ties phthalates to incidences of abnormal genitalia in baby boys. What I find most troubling about the report is that phthalates are in relatively common items and can then find their way into “drinking water, breast milk, and household...