Washington, D.C. – Johnson & Johnson, one of the world’s largest personal care product companies, has announced a groundbreaking new initiative to reformulate many of its personal care products, including baby shampoos and lotions, to remove chemicals of concern to consumers.
“EWG applauds J&J for being a pioneer among the major personal care product companies and taking these bold steps to put their customers’ health first. We know this initiative was years in the making and that it wasn’t easy. We look forward to working with the company as it continues to lead the market, and we hope other companies will follow – soon,” said Ken Cook, President and co-founder of EWG. “Johnson and Johnson is a company that listens to its customers. That’s always good business, and in this case it’s also good for public health and the environment,” added Cook, who called Johnson and Johnson executives earlier today to congratulate them on the initiative and thank the company on behalf of EWG’s more than 1.2 million supporters.
“While the Food and Drug Administration and Congress have done nothing to help protect people from problematic ingredients in personal care products, J&J has taken concrete steps to provide products with fewer chemicals of concern,” Cook added.
“As encouraged as we are by this leadership initiative by Johnson and Johnson, we firmly believe that consumers shouldn’t have to depend on voluntary actions of good corporate actors to improve the safety of personal care product ingredients. That’s why we need Congress to adopt measures that will ensure that all consumer products are free of harmful chemicals linked to cancer and other health risks,” Cook said.
Millions of consumers have come to rely on EWG’s Skin Deep database, which provides an easy-to-use online guide to ingredients in more than 70,000 personal care products.
Since June 2007, consumers have visited Skin Deep 30 million times and viewed more than 347 million pages of information about personal care products and ingredients. Before Skin Deep came online, consumers had no way to find out whether the ingredients in personal care products could be harmful to their health.
EWG also congratulated its colleagues at the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics for pushing the personal care products industry to improve the health and safety of its offerings.
