Hair Dyes Essay
Drugs and Hair Dyes
Note: the following case is copyrighted and may be copied and used only by current users and owners of the textbook, BUSINESS ETHICS: CONCEPTS AND CASES by Manuel Velasquez.
In January 1978, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was considering a regulation that would require hair dyes containing the chemical 4-MMPD (4-Methoxy-M-phenylenediamine sulfate) to carry the following label:
Warning: Contains an ingredient that can penetrate your skin and has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
The warning promised to have a significant effect on the sales of the major manufacturers of permanent hair dyes, including Clairol, Cosmair, Revlon, Alberto-Culver, Breck, Helene Curtis, and Tussy. The …show more content…
This prohibition was written into the law when a powerful cosmetic lobby convinced Congress in 1938 that hair dyes should be exempt from any law controlling cosmetics.2 Moreover, the cosmetic industry contested the validity of the NCI tests on the grounds that the large doses of 4-MMPD administered to animals in the tests were "the equivalent of a woman drinking more than 25 bottles of hair dye a day, every day of her life." FDA officials countered that because of test expenses, researchers must expose a few animals to large doses in order to determine the risk of exposing many humans to small doses. After a prolonged legal battle with the cosmetic industry, the FDA succeeded in imposing the proposed warning …show more content…
However, the companies refused to recall the old hair dyes that they had already distributed to retailers and that would continue to be sold over counters for several years. They would affix no warnings to these dyes.
The response of Revlon differed somewhat from that of other manufacturers. Revlon removed the offending 4-MMPD from its dyes and replaced it with a 4-EMPD (4-ethoxy-M- phenylenediamine sulfate), a substance with a chemical structure almost identical to 4-MMPD, but one that did not yet require a warning
Note: the following case is copyrighted and may be copied and used only by current users and owners of the textbook, BUSINESS ETHICS: CONCEPTS AND CASES by Manuel Velasquez.
In January 1978, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was considering a regulation that would require hair dyes containing the chemical 4-MMPD (4-Methoxy-M-phenylenediamine sulfate) to carry the following label:
Warning: Contains an ingredient that can penetrate your skin and has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
The warning promised to have a significant effect on the sales of the major manufacturers of permanent hair dyes, including Clairol, Cosmair, Revlon, Alberto-Culver, Breck, Helene Curtis, and Tussy. The …show more content…
This prohibition was written into the law when a powerful cosmetic lobby convinced Congress in 1938 that hair dyes should be exempt from any law controlling cosmetics.2 Moreover, the cosmetic industry contested the validity of the NCI tests on the grounds that the large doses of 4-MMPD administered to animals in the tests were "the equivalent of a woman drinking more than 25 bottles of hair dye a day, every day of her life." FDA officials countered that because of test expenses, researchers must expose a few animals to large doses in order to determine the risk of exposing many humans to small doses. After a prolonged legal battle with the cosmetic industry, the FDA succeeded in imposing the proposed warning …show more content…
However, the companies refused to recall the old hair dyes that they had already distributed to retailers and that would continue to be sold over counters for several years. They would affix no warnings to these dyes.
The response of Revlon differed somewhat from that of other manufacturers. Revlon removed the offending 4-MMPD from its dyes and replaced it with a 4-EMPD (4-ethoxy-M- phenylenediamine sulfate), a substance with a chemical structure almost identical to 4-MMPD, but one that did not yet require a warning