UK PM Sunak visits Washington to strengthen ties, watch baseball – having already struck out on trade deal

‘I don’t drink coffee, I take tea’ – the quintessential Englishman in, well, D.C. Paul Faith/WPA Pool/Getty Images

Garret Martin, American University School of International Service

Alongside meetings with President Joe Biden, U.S. business leaders and members of Congress, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will take in a baseball game during a Washington trip that starts June 7, 2023. He may be given the honor of throwing out the first pitch; many at home will be hoping he doesn’t drop the ball.

It is a high-stakes visit for Sunak, his first to Washington since becoming prime minister in October 2022. The British leader will be keen to showcase his close relationship with Biden. And he will want to underscore his more stable and pragmatic foreign policy, in contrast to his predecessors, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Yet Sunak, despite being prime minister for less than a year, is under great pressure. His party remains far behind in the polls, less than 18 months before the next general election is held in the U.K.

He has little time to burnish his credentials as a leader, and Washington may not be the most fertile ground to do so. Bilateral relations between London and Washington have been thorny in recent years, and three topics illustrate the challenges – and possible opportunities – ahead for Sunak: trade, Northern Ireland and security.

The forgotten trade deal

Sunak and Biden will have a busy agenda during talks due to take place in the Oval Office on June 8, but one topic will be conspicuously absent. As a Downing Street spokesperson confirmed prior to the trip: “We are not seeking to push a free trade agreement with the U.S. currently.”

This is in stark contrast to what Sunak’s Conservative Party manifesto had touted in the 2019 general election – the second to take place since a 2016 referendum upset the U.K.’s trading setup by triggering the country’s exit from the European Union.

The document promised that in a post-Brexit U.K., 80% of trade would be covered by free trade agreements within three years.

Negotiations for a trade deal with the U.S. began in 2020 under the Trump administration, but made limited progress. The pandemic, and the question of access of U.S. agricultural goods to the U.K. market, further disrupted talks. In particular, U.K. concerns about differing food standard practices in the U.S., such as chlorine-washed chicken or hormone-treated beef, complicated discussions.

Yet the broad ideological shift in American attitudes toward trade proved the main obstacle. Since taking office, the Biden administration has consistently expressed its skepticism of emulating past free-trade agreements. According to the administration, these deals have too often ended up impoverishing American workers, while enriching multinational firms.

That shift on trade policy is not limited to members of the administration. Both Democrats and Republicans, even if for different reasons, have become more critical of unfettered globalization.

Don’t expect the U.S. to throw a lifeline on trade any time soon. Yui Mok/Pool Photo via AP

In lieu of any breakthrough on a trade deal between the two countries, the U.K. has been focusing efforts on striking deals with individual U.S. states. In particular, the U.K. government hopes Rishi’s visit can pave the way for closer partnerships with California and Texas.

But these will have only a modest impact at best, when the U.K. economy is forecast to grow by only 0.4% in 2023.

The shadow of Northern Ireland

With trade unlikely to further cement U.S.-U.K. ties, Sunak will also have to navigate the divisive question of Northern Ireland. There is still strong bipartisan support in the U.S. for the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland. This reflects the historic role played by Democratic and Republican administrations in helping to mediate and implement the accord.

In that context, the U.K.’s exit from the EU served only to fuel tension between London and Washington. Brexit negotiations lingered for many years because of the sheer difficulty of reconciling conflicting pressures over the status of Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. but borders the Republic of Ireland, which remains an EU member state.

Throughout the prolonged Brexit process, American politicians across the aisle repeatedly expressed their concerns to the U.K. government. They emphasized the need to avoid measures that could restore a hard border on the island of Ireland. Among those airing such views was Joe Biden, who warned in 2020, “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit.”

Biden’s deeply rooted emotional attachment to Ireland has hardly abated since he has been in office. His recent visit in April, for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, was rich in personal significance and symbolism.

Most of the trip was viewed as a homecoming, with Biden visiting his ancestral roots in Ireland. His time in Northern Ireland was brief in comparison, with only a terse meeting with Sunak. And if the message was not sufficiently clear, later remarks by Biden at a fundraiser left little doubt as to the president’s feelings. He went to the island of Ireland “to make sure the Brits didn’t screw around” with the region’s peace process, he said.

Sunak did win some praise for the recent Windsor Framework, which addressed some of the tension over Northern Ireland. But he has yet to solve the prolonged boycott of power-sharing institutions by the pro-U.K. Democratic Unionist Party.

Nonetheless, Sunak will have his work cut out for him to convince Biden that the U.K. can play a constructive role in further stabilizing Northern Ireland.

Better off sticking to security and China

Trade and Northern Ireland will likely bring little joy for Sunak. He will, however, be on far more fertile ground when the discussion shifts to the realm of security.

The prime minister has signaled on many occasions his very close alignment with the U.S. insofar as tackling China. At the recent G7 summit in Japan, Sunak defined Beijing as “the biggest challenge of our age to global security and prosperity.” And the March 2023 signing of the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal in San Diego further confirmed the U.K.’s tilt to the Indo-Pacific.

Regarding Ukraine, the U.K. has frequently been at the vanguard of providing support and new weapons to Kyiv. In May 2023, Sunak announced a plan, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, to build an “international coalition” to help Ukraine acquire F-16 fighter jets.

Britain also led the way in being the first Western country to supply long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine. This was after being the first country to agree to deliver battle tanks to support the Ukrainian army. And that bullishness reportedly played a key part in convincing Washington to lift its objection to sending F-16s to Ukraine.

The alignment in the field of global security will undoubtedly help Sunak’s attempt to ingratiate himself with Biden. But the harder test will be whether this convergence between Washington and London can extend to NATO.

The alliance will hold a crucial summit in Lithuania in July, where it will discuss longer-term plans to support Ukraine. That will include the thorny question of offering NATO membership to Kiev, which does not yet have unanimous support among members.

Even without talk of a trade deal, in terms of agenda items on Sunak’s visit, the bases are loaded. It is questionable whether he can hit a home run though.

Garret Martin, Senior Professorial Lecturer, Co-Director Transatlantic Policy Center, American University School of International Service

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

5 Tire Tips for Safe Summer Driving

As temperatures rise during the summer months, the friction from your vehicle’s tires rolling, turning and braking combined with higher pavement temperatures could lead to potential trouble while on the road.

While added variables like increased traffic due to summer travelers, construction, sun glare and unpredictable weather can all increase your risks, knowing the condition of your vehicle and one of its most important components – the tires – can help keep you safe on the roadways. Whether you’re traveling across the country for vacation or just across town, consider these tire safety tips from the experts at your neighborhood Discount Tire store.

Know Your Tires’ Age
The older your tires, the higher their risk for failure. As tires age, the rubber becomes hard and brittle, losing elasticity and strength. The age of your tires can be found by checking the Tire Identification Number stamped on their sidewalls. Any tire that’s more than 6 years old should be replaced, but tires should generally be replaced in sets of two or four to help ensure even wear and maximum safety.

Check Your Tread
Tread depth, which refers to the amount of tread on a tire, determines a vehicle’s safe stopping distance and impacts handling and traction. More tread equals better road grip and shorter stopping distances. To easily check your tread depth at home, stick a penny upside-down in a tread groove. If President Lincoln’s entire head is visible, your tread is worn beyond what tire experts recommend as safe – less than 4/32 inch – and it’s time to replace your tires. If you need assistance, visit a store like your local Discount Tire, which offers complimentary tread checks in seconds using its mobile tread depth detection system.

Get Pressure Right and Check It Often
Low tire pressure can lead to poor handling and gas mileage, excessive wear and overloading. To stay safe on the road, remember to check your tires’ air pressure at least once a month, especially before any long-distance trips, as the impacts and pressures of bumps and turns can lead to normal air loss. Temperature changes also affect air pressure – for every 10 degrees in ambient temperature change, the tire air pressure changes 1 pound per square inch (PSI). For the most accurate reading, check your tires when they’re cool. You can find the manufacturer’s recommended tire pressure on a sticker in your car’s door jamb or in your owner’s manual.

Rotate Often
Tires wear differently depending on their location on the vehicle and should be rotated every 6,000 miles to spread wear as evenly as possible and maximize handling, traction and stopping power. If you notice uneven wear, tires may need to be rotated more often. If you utilize seasonal tires, Discount Tire offers all-season tire changeover, which ensures your vehicle has the best possible traction during each season.

Inspect Your Trunk
Many new vehicles have replaced spare tires with tire inflation kits that include puncture-coating sealants, air compressors and even run-flat tires. Check to see what equipment your vehicle contains to assist with a flat or tire failure and make sure you have a roadside assistance plan in case you find yourself in need of help with flat repairs or replacements.

For additional tire safety tips, to locate a store near you or schedule a service appointment, visit discounttire.com or use the mobile app.

SOURCE:
Discount Tire

How to Choose the Right Car Seat

As a parent, one of the most important purchases you’ll make for your child is a car seat. It’s important to choose a car seat that properly fits both your child and your car, as car crashes are a leading cause of death for children ages 12 and younger, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As your children grow, you’ll need to change the mode of their car seat to accommodate their weight and height. There are four recommended stages of child restraint usage: rear-facing harness, forward-facing harness, belt-positioning booster seat and seat belt. Different car seats offer different varieties of these modes of use, so families can choose a product that fits best with their child’s needs.

For example, the Graco 4Ever DLX Grad 5-in-1 Car Seat is a first-in-market seat that provides added longevity and value with its kid-centric design that accommodates children from 4-120 pounds and up to 12 years of age. The car seat features five modes of use to help children through each stage, including a rear-facing harness, forward-facing harness, both high-back and backless boosters and a removable seat belt trainer. Additional features include a space-saving slim design, SnugLock technology for quick and easy installation, a 10-position headrest and harness, removable inserts and rotating cupholders.

To help choose the right car seat for your child with safety top of mind, Graco curated a stage-by-stage guide to help meet first-time and growing family needs, following guidelines set by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Stage 1: Rear-Facing Harness
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children should remain in a rear-facing car seat in the vehicle backseat for as long as possible, until they reach the specified weight or height limit of the car seat for optimal protection while riding in the car.

While many parents bring their children home from the hospital in an infant carrier, which is a portable seat with a stay-in-vehicle base, designed specifically for newborns and small babies, there are other rear-facing options. Convertibles and all-in-one seats have higher weight limits than infant carriers, allowing children to remain rear-facing up to 40-50 pounds.

Stage 2: Forward-Facing Harness
When children outgrow their rear-facing car seats, they should be buckled in a forward-facing car seat with a harness and top tether in the vehicle backseat until they reach the maximum height or weight for the seat, typically around age 5-6.

Stage 3: Belt-Positioning Booster Seats
Once children outgrow their forward-facing car seats with a harness, they should be buckled in a high-back belt-positioning booster seat (for children 40-100 pounds) to provide added neck and head support followed by a backless belt-positioning booster seat (for children 40-120 pounds) in the backseat until the vehicle seat belt fits properly across their laps and shoulders without a booster seat, which usually occurs between 9-12 years old.

Stage 4: Seat Belt
Approximately 31% of parents transition their children from a high-back booster directly to a vehicle seat belt, according to a survey fielded by Ipsos. To ride safely, many children need assistance with seat belt fit until age 8-12. The 4Ever DLX Grad 5-in-1 Car Seat features a removable Seat Belt Trainer that helps guide the seat belt into the correct position to help keep children safer for longer while still allowing them to feel like big kids.

Once the seat belt fits properly, children no longer need to use a booster seat. This means that they can sit all the way back against the vehicle seat with knees bent at the edge of the seat, the lap belt sitting low on their hips and upper thighs (not the stomach), the shoulder belt fitting across the collarbone and sitting flush with the torso – they can stay seated this way for the entire ride.

To learn more and find the right car seat for your child’s needs, visit gracobaby.com.
SOURCE:
Graco

The US has a child labor problem – recalling an embarrassing past that Americans may think they’ve left behind

Lewis Wickes Hine, ‘A little spinner in a Georgia Cotton Mill, 1909.’ Gelatin silver print, 5 x 7 in. The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P545), CC BY-SA

Beth Saunders, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

At the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Special Collections, where I am head curator, we’ve recently completed a major digitization and rehousing project of our collection of over 5,400 photographs made by Lewis Wickes Hine in the early 20th century.

Traveling the country with his camera, Hine captured the often oppressive working conditions of thousands of children – some as young as 3 years old.

As I’ve worked with this collection over the past two years, the social and political implications of Hine’s photographs have been very much on my mind. The patina of these black-and-white photographs suggests a bygone era – an embarrassing past that many Americans might imagine they’ve left behind.

But with numerous reports of child labor violations, many involving immigrants, occurring in the U.S., along with an uptick in state legislation rolling back the legal working age, it’s clear that Hine’s work is as relevant today as it was a century ago.

‘An investigator with a camera’

A sociologist by training, Hine began making photographs in 1903 while working as a teacher at the progressive Ethical Culture School in New York City.

Between 1903 and 1908, he and his students photographed migrants at Ellis Island. Hine believed that the future of the U.S. rested in its identity as an immigrant nation – a position that contrasted with escalating xenophobic fears.

Based on this work, the National Child Labor Committee, which advocated for child labor laws, hired Hine to document the living and working conditions of American children.

Lewis Wickes Hine, ‘Trapper Boy, Turkey Knob Mine, MacDonald, West Virginia, 1908.’ Gelatin silver print. 5 x 7 in. The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P148), CC BY-SA

By the late 19th century, several states had passed laws limiting the age of child laborers and establishing maximum working hours. But at the turn of the century, the number of working kids soared – between 1890 and 1910, 18% of children ages 10 to 15 were employed.

In his work for the National Child Labor Committee, Hine journeyed to farms and mills in the industrializing South and the streets and factories of the Northeast. He used a Graflex camera with 5-by-7-inch glass plate negatives and employed flash powder for nighttime and interior shots, hauling upward of 50 pounds of equipment on his slight frame.

To gain entry into factories and other facilities, Hine sometimes disguised himself as a Bible, postcard or insurance salesman. Other times he’d wait outside to catch workers arriving for or departing from their shifts.

Along with photographic records, Hine collected his subjects’ personal stories, including their ages and ethnicities. He documented their working lives, such as their typical hours and any injuries or ailments they incurred as a result of their labor.

Hine, who considered himself “an investigator with a camera,” used this information to create what he termed “photo stories” – combinations of images and text that could be used on posters, in public lectures and in published reports to help the organization advance its mission.

Lewis Wickes Hine’s photograph of three young fish cutters working at the Seacoast Canning Co. in Eastport, Maine. National Child Labor Committee collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Legislation follows

Hine’s muckraking photographs exemplify the genre of documentary photography, which relies upon the perceived truthfulness of photography to make a case for social change.

The camera serves as an eyewitness to a societal ill, a problem that needs a solution. Hine portrayed his subjects in a direct manner, typically frontally and looking straight into the camera, against the backdrop of the very factories, farmland or cities where they worked.

By capturing details of his sitters’ bare feet, tattered clothes, soiled faces and hands, and diminutive stature against hulking industrial equipment, Hine made a direct statement about the poor conditions and precarity of these children’s lives.

Lewis Wickes Hine, ‘Group of newsies selling on Capitol steps, April 11, 1912.’ The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P2904), CC BY-SA

Hine’s photographs made a successful case for child labor reform.

Notably, the National Child Labor Committee’s efforts resulted in Congress establishing the Children’s Bureau in 1912 and passing the Keating-Owen Act in 1916, which limited working hours for children and prohibited the interstate sale of goods produced by child labor.

Although the Supreme Court later ruled it and a subsequent Child Labor Tax Law of 1919 unconstitutional, momentum for enshrining protections for child workers had been created. In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established restrictions and protections on employing children.

The National Child Labor Committee’s project also included advocacy for the enforcement of existing child labor regulations, a regulatory problem reemerging today as the Department of Labor – the agency tasked with enforcing labor laws – comes under fire for failing to protect child workers.

A young picker carries a large sack of cotton on her back. Lewis Wickes Hine/Library of Congress via Getty Images

The ethics of picturing child labor

A recent surge of unaccompanied minors, primarily from Central America, has brought new attention to America’s old problem of child labor and has threatened the very laws Hine and the National Child Labor Committee worked to enact.

Some estimates suggest that one-third of migrants under 18 are working illegally, whether it’s laboring more hours than current laws permit, or working without the proper authorizations. Many of them perform hazardous jobs similar to those of Hine’s subjects: handling dangerous equipment and being exposed to noxious chemicals in factories, slaughterhouses and industrial farms.

While the content of Hine’s photographs remains pertinent to today’s child labor crisis, a key distinction between the subject of Hine’s photographs and working children today is race.

Hine focused his camera almost exclusively on white children who arrived in the country during waves of immigration from Europe during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. As art historian Natalie Zelt argues, Hine’s pictorial treatment of Black children – either ignored or forced to the margins of his images – implied to viewers that the face of childhood in America was, by default, white.

The perceived racial hierarchies of Hine’s era reverberate into the present, where underage migrants of color live and work at the margins of society.

Workers protest outside a Popeye’s restaurant in Oakland, Calif., on May 18, 2023, after reports emerged of the franchise exploiting child labor. Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images

Contemporary reports of child labor violations offer few images to accompany their texts, graphs and statistics. There are legitimate reasons for this. By not including identifying personal information or portraits, news outlets protect a vulnerable population. Ethical guidelines frown upon revealing private details of the lives of children interviewed. And, as Hine’s experience demonstrates, it can be difficult to infiltrate the sites of these labor violations, since they are typically kept secure.

Digital cameras and smartphones offer a workaround. Beginning in 2015, the International Labor Organization urged child laborers in Myanmar to become “young activists” and use their own images and words to create “photo stories” – echoing Hine’s use of the term – that the organization could then disseminate.

Photographs of child labor in foreign countries are far more common than those made in the U.S., which leaves the impression that child labor is someone else’s problem, not ours. Perhaps it’s too hard for Americans to look at this domestic issue square in the eyes.

A similar effect is at work when viewing Hine’s photographs today. While they were originally valued for their immediacy, they can seem to belong to a distant past.

But if Hine’s photographic archive of child laborers is evidence of the power of photography to sway public opinion, does the lack of images in today’s reporting – even if nobly intended – create a disconnect?

Is the public capable of understanding the harmful consequences of lack of labor enforcement when the faces of the people affected are missing from the picture?

Beth Saunders, Curator and Head of Special Collections and Gallery, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

Why UK inflation is so high compared to EU and US and what to do about it

Price rises are slowing but inflation remains persistent. Ink Drop/Shutterstock

Edward Thomas Jones, Bangor University and Yener Altunbas, Bangor University

Britain has a bigger inflation problem than either the US or the eurozone, according to Bank of England policymaker Catherine Mann.

The latest official UK inflation figures show UK price rises have slowed from double digits to 8.7% for the 12 months to April 2023. But this is still above the 8.2% rate forecast by the Bank of England earlier this year.

The UK rate is also nearly double the equivalent US rate and significantly higher than the eurozone’s 7% rate of inflation for April, which slowed to 6.1% for May.

All three regions experienced the economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic. EU countries and the UK struggled with dramatically rising energy prices due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. But two UK-specific issues are exacerbating the country’s inflation woes: the adverse economic shock of Brexit, and the UK’s reliance on its financial services sector.

As a result, interest rate rises by the Bank of England will not be enough to reduce inflation. The UK government should also play a role by rebalancing the post-Brexit economy away from financial services towards other traditional industries such as manufacturing.

Interest rates are a blunt instrument for fighting inflation, but they continue to be central banks’ main tool. They affect the economy in several ways. The most obvious is in reducing demand for goods and services by increasing the cost of different forms of debt (such as mortgages).

But interest rates also affect whether businesses can meet their debt repayments and reduce the value of the collateral they provide to banks to secure their loans. This weighs on banks’ balance sheets and so interest rate increases adversely affect the financial sector because it there is a greater risk that these borrowers won’t be able to repay their loans. This is why an oversized financial sector creates headaches for the Bank of England when it tries to tackle inflation.

The UK’s industrial past

In the 1950s, the UK had a balanced economy more evenly distributed between manufacturing and the service sector. Manufacturing (including gas, electricity and water utilities) contributed over 40% of total UK economic output in the 1950s while the service sector accounted for 50%. The UK was responsible for a quarter of world trade in manufacturing.

The government of the day prioritised production for export, making the UK a leading shipbuilder, and a European hub for producing cars, coal, steel and textiles to sell to other countries. Science-based industries, such as electronics, computers and engineering were also taking off in the UK, and the country benefited from this third technology revolution.

But advances in science-based industries did not happen soon enough to balance out a collapse in employment in manufacturing in the UK from the 1960s onwards. By 2011 around 80% of British workers were in service industries and only 10% in manufacturing. Various factors explain this decline in manufacturing jobs, including routine jobs being replaced by robots and computerised systems, rising imports from China and other emerging countries, and government policy.

In the 1970s, the government championed economic policies geared towards a housing boom and the financial hub of the City of London. The British public were told their future lay in working with their brains and not their hands. De-industrialisation policies were instigated by UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher and continued under Tony Blair and David Cameron.

These policies were presented as economic modernisation that would improve workers wages and society as a whole. Even the Labour government, traditionally associated with the working class, was convinced the future lay in the knowledge economy and embarked on making Britain a global service provider.

The City of London. Richard M Lee/Shutterstock

The rise of the City of London, and the finance, insurance, and real estate industries, under both Conservative and Labour governments has changed the economic trajectory of Britain. For example, the City has sucked the best-educated people out of other regions and careers and into high-salaried London-based jobs. People who might have become scientists or engineers became bankers or hedge fund managers instead.

So, even though the City generates £85 billion per year and employs over 580,000 people, it is not a goose that lays Britain’s golden eggs but rather a cuckoo in the nest. It has crowded out other sectors that traditionally allowed the whole country to prosper.

And the UK financial sector is now causing another problem: its dominance has made it more difficult for the Bank of England to control inflation because of the concerns about how higher interest rates will weigh on bank balance sheets.

Tackling ‘stubborn’ inflation

This is why monetary policy alone will not be able to tame UK inflation. The bank has spoken about the difficulties it has faced in anticipating the recent rise and persistence of inflation. But advancements in statistical techniques and computation power have improved the ability to forecast inflation. On the other hand, unexpected government policies and the structure of the UK economy may have presented more of a challenge.

The bank’s models had little chance to account for the political turmoil and strategy changes resulting from Brexit. For example, trade has become significantly more difficult between the UK and EU following Brexit, reducing supply and pushing up prices. There are also more people from the EU leaving than arriving in the UK, putting pressure on wages in particular sectors and adding to the inflation problem.

Brexit, coupled with the oversized UK financial sector, makes the Bank of England’s job of controlling inflation so much harder. The government needs to rebalance the UK economy, with science-based industries playing an important role. This would ensure the Bank of England could adjust interest rates to tackle inflation, without having to worry about how it affects the over-sized financial services sector.

Edward Thomas Jones, Lecturer in Economics / Director of the Institute of European Finance, Bangor University and Yener Altunbas, Professor of Banking, Bangor University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

The ugly side of beauty: Chemicals in cosmetics threaten college-age women’s reproductive health

Many types of makeup contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Charles Gullung/The Image Bank via Getty Imagges

Leslie Hart, College of Charleston

Walk through the personal care aisles of your local store and you’ll see dozens of products that promise to soften your skin, make you smell better, extend your lashes, decrease wrinkling, tame your curly hair, or even semi-permanently change the color of your lips, hair or skin.

Remember the adage “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is”?

Many of product promises like these are based on chemicals that can also be hazardous to your health, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals that can interfere with fertility and reproduction, fetal growth and infant development.

That’s a big concern, because these products are heavily marketed to young women in the years before they might consider starting a family.

Recent studies have demonstrated that college-age women use cosmetic products at higher rates than other groups. Additionally, many of these young women are unaware of the health risks from frequent use of popular products containing contaminants of emerging concern. And finding cleaner alternatives often means paying more.

Cosmetics designed to be free of endocrine-disrupting chemicals are often more expensive. Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images

As an epidemiologist who has fought my own fertility battles, I study exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in everyday products, such as cosmetics, shampoos, lotions and plastics. I have been working to raise awareness of the health risks to young people and encourage prudent use of cosmetic products.

Unregulated and potentially risky

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the term “cosmetic” can include deodorants, perfumes, lotions, nail polish, shampoos and other hair products, as well as eye, lip and face makeup.

This is important to know, because unless these products are used to treat a condition, such as dandruff or perspiration, they are not federally regulated in the same way drugs are. That leaves it up to cosmetic companies to decide how to communicate product safety.

Personal care products contain many types of chemicals that manufacturers add for specific purposes, including some that can interfere with or disrupt the normal functioning of the endocrine system. For example, they commonly add UV filters like oxybenzone to protect skin from sun damage, phthalates to enhance fragrance, parabens and triclosan for their antimicrobial properties, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, to enhance durability.

However, not all of these chemicals are present in all products, so figuring out how to avoid exposure can be complicated. For example, in a 2021 review of studies detecting endocrine-disrupting chemicals in daily-use cosmetic products, phthalates were present in perfumes, shower gels, shampoo and nail polish. Parabens were detected in lotions, creams, shampoos, body wash, face cleansers and lipstick. Triclosan was detected in toothpastes, soaps and other cleansers. And UV filters were present in sunscreens, lotions, toothpaste, and lipstick.

Many of these chemicals can co-occur in products, putting consumers at risk of exposure to multiple chemicals at once, and sometimes without warning, as labels do not always list endocrine-disrupting chemicals among the ingredients.

Why are chemicals in cosmetics a health risk?

As you rub cosmetic products onto your skin, breathe in their scent or use them to brush your teeth, the chemicals found within can travel throughout your body, targeting your endocrine, nervous and cardiovascular systems.

When these chemicals are endocrine disruptors, such as phthalates, parabens, triclosan and PFAS, they can mimic naturally produced hormones or block hormone receptors. Their presence can result in abnormal hormone production, secretion or transport throughout the body.

These hormonal changes can lead to reproductive problems, including poor sperm quality, miscarriage and endometriosis. They can also lead to thyroid disruption and abnormal growth and development.

Neurological conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), cognitive impairment and depression have also been linked to chemicals added to cosmetic products. So have cardiovascular issues such as high blood pressure, insulin resistance and coronary heart disease.

The level of risk is often difficult to measure and depends in part on the amount of exposure, the type of chemical and how the chemical interacts with the endocrine system. One study of women ages 18-44 in Utah and California found increased exposure to a common phthalate was associated with twice the odds of developing endometriosis, which can be painful and interfere with pregnancy. In a meta-analysis of pregnant women with occupational exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, researchers calculated a 25% increase in the odds of low birth weight when mothers were exposed to more than one type of endocrine-disrupting chemical.

States are starting to ban these chemicals

Our study of college-age females found that, on average, young women use eight different personal care products each day that can contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals, but some report as many as 17. This is concerning, as the number of products people use has been linked to higher exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

Furthermore, 80% of the women we surveyed did not know whether their cosmetic products contained harmful chemicals.

Many young women aren’t aware of the risks chemicals in cosmetics can contain. Shannon Fagan/The Image Bank via Getty Images

Studies have found significantly higher exposure to phthalates and other chemicals among adolescent girls who wore foundation, blush and mascara than among those who did not. One found that when adolescent girls stopped using products containing endocrine-disrupting chemicals, the concentrations in their urine dropped by as much as 45%.

The European Union has led the way on regulating the use of these chemicals in cosmetic products, with U.S. policies generally lagging behind, but that’s changing.

Washington state recently passed legislation that bans PFAS, lead, phthalates, formaldehyde and other harmful chemicals starting in 2025 and creates new incentives for companies to produce safer products. New York banned mercury, a neurotoxin that can be used as a skin lightener, effective June 1, 2023. California, Minnesota and Maine also have broad restrictions on chemical additives in cosmetics.

While many cosmetic companies offer alternative products without endocrine-disrupting chemicals, they tend to cost more, which can put safer products out of reach of young people. I believe a national ban on the use of harmful chemicals in cosmetic products would be the most equitable means for reducing everyone’s exposure.

Leslie Hart, Associate Professor of Public Health, College of Charleston

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

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Scientists warned about climate change in 1965. Nothing was done.

PODCAST: A report to the US president sounded an alarm — humankind was ‘conducting a vast geophysical experiment’ by burning fossil fuels and filling the atmosphere with an ‘invisible pollutant.’ But a slick campaign by Big Oil led to confusion, politicization and dire consequences for the planet. (Season 3, Episode 1)

By Adam Levy