Our Transparent Vetting Process: for Protection not Pink
Protect Our Breasts shares information online and offline at various events on college campuses. Maybe you joined our community at one of these events and received a safer-alternative product to counter the often felt, “But, everything causes cancer, why bother?” How is it safer? We have a strict vetting process to confirm our safer-alternative products do not contain known endocrine disrupting or carcinogenic chemicals in either the ingredients or the packaging.
We are fortunate to be served by a science advisory of great repute in organic certification, endocrinology, personal care ingredients and green chemistry. Without these individuals reviewing the products we share with students, we would hardly be in line with our values and mission of choosing safer products. Why not just plain “safe” versus “safer”? According to our green chemistry experts, two benign chemicals may turn hazardous in the manufacturing process and without doing a specific analysis of an assay, it may be difficult to determine whether or not a reaction has occurred. Our vetting process is on a continuum for this very purpose – to try to move towards a truly “safe” vetting procedure. For now, we review ingredients for organic and similar certifications and the packaging safety data information to insure no chemicals (such as BPA) may be leaching into the item. For more information: https://protectourbreasts.org/about/
As it is October, you may be wondering why Protect Our Breasts does not participate in the classic awareness building centered on the color pink and the pink ribbon. We encourage awareness, as seen by our Voices of Awareness campaign – posts on social media from our various chapter members. However neither the color pink nor the ribbon insure a product is a safer alternative. As a matter of fact, there are a number of companies using the color and/or ribbon on their labels that also have endocrine disrupting or carcinogenic ingredients in their products. We believe this confuses consumers and counters the efforts to prevent the disease, particularly when companies do not share the cancer-causing ingredients (ie. fragrance).
We value transparency as a priority. We model this with our rigorous vetting process and by not using the color pink nor the ribbon. We all deserve to have the information to make safer choices…for protection, not pink.
