Volume 7: Medicines and Cosmetics
1. Introduction and overview
Cosmetics

1.25 Chapter 8 looks at how cosmetics containing bovine material were identified as a potential pathway for the BSE agent and the way that was followed up.

1.26 The chapter starts by describing the legislative framework under which the safety of cosmetics was regulated, and under which legislative measures to deal with any risk posed by BSE would have been taken. This framework was different again from that governing food and medicines safety and was implemented by a different Department: the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

1.27 We describe the different products involved and the action taken to deal with them. Collagen used for cosmetic purposes initially raised concern but was deemed to be adequately covered by Medicines Act provisions. Other widely used ingredients, which were considered intermittently, were tallow and gelatin. General advice from both SEAC and the EU was followed on these products.

1.28 The main items of concern were 'exotic' products such as anti-ageing creams, some of which it was thought might use high-risk materials such as brain, thymus and placenta.

1.29 We review the action taken by DTI when this risk was first drawn to its attention in early 1990. Guidance was promptly issued to manufacturers who were members of the Cosmetics, Toiletries and Perfumeries Association (CTPA), in accordance with advice that had been sought from DH.

1.30 We also consider the handling of the BSE risk associated with cosmetics thereafter. SEAC proposed in 1990 that revised guidance should be issued, but in the event this was not done until 1994. The chapter identifies a number of factors that led to this delay, including a confusion of roles between DTI, DH and the CTPA, and entanglement with the slow processes of developing EU-wide guidance.