If one hops into the Way-Back Machine and plops down in late 18^th century France, one is apt to re-discover that fixture of high school European history known as The French Revolution.  Few would argue that French monarchy was a system worth endorsing.  But how quickly we forget what replaced it – a radical left-wing action that resulted in a secular Democratic republic that was a wee bit authoritarian.  Actually, if memory serves, there was this thing called The Committee of Public Safety – a virtual dictatorship run by crazy Robespierre that resulted in the Reign of Terror.

There’s a great quote from Robespierre to justify the use of violent repression, “Terror is nothing else than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible”.   Hmmmm.  Terror = Justice.  Now just slip the word “Social” in there before “Justice” and you can see where I’m headed.  But just so I can complete this parallel, Robespierre arranged to have even his allies executed so he could run the show himself, with his power assisted throughout the countryside by the Jacobin Club aka Popular Societies aka ACORN.

While the MSM spins about the “non-violent, non-Anti-Semitic non-racist #Occupy Movement”, your intrepid journalists here at The Bigs have uncovered tons of evidence that demonstrate just the opposite. Indeed, plans are in the works to….what’s the word?….terrorize the opponents of the People’s Revolution aka Obama’s #Occupy Movement. The result of all this violence was The Thermidorian Reaction – a swing back to the Right following the revolution.   I repeat, to the Right.

Let’s jump forward into modern day: 1968.  The country was being torn apart by protests.  Lyndon Johnson decided not to seek another term.  A power vacuum was created in the Democratic Party, and once again the Left ate its own at the Democratic National Convention.  Richard Nixon ran on a platform of restoring order.  He won.  Thermidorian Reaction.

The Reign of Terror, it is noted, actually executed far more workers and peasants – about 70% of those murdered by most accounts.  As we’ve seen, the Leftist-driven revolutions often go down in self-consuming flames, and are even being egged-on to their doom by their organizers.

Flashforward to present day.  Here’s the thing about Americans: most of us just want to be left alone to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We want a job, a family, friends, neighbors, entertainment, a vacation if we can afford it, to save a little for retirement, and to enjoy ourselves.  Most Americans reject extremism on either side of the political spectrum.  Most Americans are much, much smarter than they are ever given credit for, have a very strong sense of right and wrong, know when the country truly is headed in the right direction or the wrong direction, know excess when they see it, and are fair-minded.

In other words, Americans get it.

And one thing they cannot, and will not, abide – the thing that trumps all else — is social unrest.  But rather than blame it on the intended target, they will look at the protestors and they will know that they are of the same ideology and party as the one in the White House.

They will shake their heads.  “You idiots.  You guys are the ones in power and you’re complaining?”

And they will blame it on the guy in charge – Barack Obama.

Whomever the GOP candidate will be just needs to point this out, and the 21^st Century Thermidorian Reaction will sweep him into power, probably by a larger margin than anyone currently expects.

Mocking the mainstream media, Gov. Palin said, “I call them dumbarses.”

Gov. Palin continued:

They, thinking that by trotting out this old Gingrich divorce interview that’s old news — and it does feature a disgruntled ex, claiming that it would destroy his campaign — all this does, Sean, is incentivize conservatives and independents who are so sick of the politics of personal destruction, because it’s played so selectively by the media, that their target, in this case Newt, he’s now going to soar even more. Because we know the game now, and we just won’t put up with it. Good call, media.

Good call, Sarah Palin. Debate after debate, it has been Newt Gingrich who has hammered the MSM on its preferential treatment of Barack Obama and his liberal agenda. And many conservatives across America are eating it up.

Starved for passionate expression of how the political and social dictates of the Obama “regime,” and its closely allied Media, have attempted to oppress and ridicule American voters with conservative leanings, Newt has let everyone know that the battle is on. He has articulated conservative ideas like no other candidate, though the other candidates may embrace those ideas themselves.

Those who actually get caught up in the rehash of Newt’s past marriages are missing the point. When it comes to moral character, American voters can either believe what the former speaker has said, about his call to forgiveness and reconciliation–or not. They can either heed Gov. Rick Perry’s endorsement statement, that admits to Newt’s imperfections, while it also points to the power of redemption–or not.

For three years, Americans have been faced, on almost a daily basis, with an overreaching president who has beaten them down. He has wagged his authoritative finger at them, on almost a daily basis, chiding them for seeking prosperity, scolding them for their intrinsic belief in the freedom of the individual, and filled with angry reproach when they speak of America’s exceptionalism. This president has apologized to leaders of other nations- some of them America’s enemies- for what he considers to be America’s greedy excesses and overly inflated pride.

Americans are looking for someone on their side–an advocate, if you will–someone who can lead the charge against those who would wish to destroy those ideals and ideas that made America great. No doubt, like the rest of us, Newt Gingrich is far from perfect. But his passion for those American values, and his unmatched ability to articulate them, has captured the hearts and spirits of many conservative Americans.

Cross-Posted: TobyToons (Conservative Political Cartoons)

SAFE. End of story.

Please read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 [Editor: Please link to each]

Contrary to recent media reports, the Brazilian Blowout hair treatment is safe for use.  Here is a review of all the studies done on Brazilian Blowout.

Oregon OSHA:  Pass

Federal OSHA:  Pass

Health Sciences Associates:  Pass

Dr. James Haw – USC: Pass

FDA:  Conducted no studies

ChemRisk: Too much product used = faulty study

Brazilian Blowout passed every single properly performed study for both state and federal short-term and long-term exposure limits, known as the Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL – an 8-hour time-weighted average) and Short-Term Exposure Limit (STEL – a 15 minute exposure measurement).

So why the witch hunt on Brazilian Blowout?  The answers are simple:

1) Government Bias

As described in Part 1 [Editor: Please link], Oregon OSHA is guilty of :

• Equating methylene glycol with formaldehyde in contradiction of all accepted scientific nomenclature methods.  Doing so allowed them to…
• Claim extremely high levels of formaldehyde in the product.
• Ideological bias, as at least one scientist who authored the study aligns himself with a hardcore Liberal Senator known as an environmental activist.
• Editorializing what should be a neutral scientific report, thus demonstrating its own bias.
• Deliberately taking samples longer than 15 minutes and applying those results to 15 minute periods.
• Issuing a false and misleading press release that did not report the product actually passed the PEL and STEL tests.

As described in Part 2 [Editor: Please link], Federal OSHA is guilty of:

• Collecting a 35 minute air sample and reporting it as a 15 minute sample.
• Negligently allowing that sample to be included in their analysis.
• Using that faulty sample to declare the product unsafe.
• Issuing a false and misleading press release that did not report that the product actually passed all PEL and STEL tests.

As described in Part 3 [Editor: Please link], Rep. Earl Blumenauer is guilty of:

• Not performing his own due diligence to verify Oregon OSHA’s or OSHA’s results.
• Failing to properly consider other exculpatory studies
• Asking the FDA to ban a safe product
• Issuing a false and misleading press release that declared a safe product to be unsafe.

"Shall I regulate this, too?"

Also as described in Part 3, the FDA is guilty of:

• Relying on Oregon OSHA’s and OSHA’s faulty results.
• Not performing its own tests.
• Caving to political pressure from Rep. Blumenauer
• Ignoring its own chemical nomenclature methods that distinguish methylene glycol from formaldyhyde.
• Issuing a warning letter for a safe product
• Issuing a false and misleading press report that a safe product is unsafe.

Lesson: Once you get dragged into the government regulatory labyrinth, you’re screwed.  The government, in its zeal to “protect citizens”, has no obligation to engage in an honest assessment of your case.  Even worse, they will tar and feather you publicly, either by design or incompetence.  In the case of Oregon OSHA, it appears to this reporter to be entirely by design. In the case of OSHA, it appears to be incompetence at best, and withi malicious intent at worst.

A government regulatory agency cannot, by definition, create anything.  It can, at best, only determine that a business is “in compliance” – a neutral stance.  All other scenarios are negative for a business.  In other words, all government can do is destroy.  In this case, a business is, at best, being destroyed by incompetence and, at worst, maliciously.

The company has no legal recourse whatsoever, and the regulatory bodies have no accountability whatsoever.  Do we need regulatory authorities?  Yes — for blatantly egregious violations.  None exists here.  Yet by the same token, we need a check and balance on a regulatory entity’s mistakes (at best) and ideological bias that has intent to harm (at worst).

2) Media Bias

As I’ve proven through this series, the media has trumpeted every negative aspect of this story.  They have paid no substantive attention to the company’s side of the story at all.   At best, this is sloppy journalism — in which media outlets deliberately focus on fear to sell newspapers and boost ratings.  At worst, this is yet another example of the media siding with Leftist interests and big government — just like the endless examples of the same exposed at BigJournalism.com for the past two years.

Again, looking at the big picture, media coverage like this serves nobody.  All it does is destroy, and facilitates the government’s purpose to do the same.

Bottom Line

The Brazilian Blowout company, GIB LLC, is a small business.  If they get hurt, so do their employees.  Stylists, who enjoy substantial revenue from these expensive treatments, may have lost clients and income during a terrible recession.   Clients lose whatever substantial personal benefits they receive from the product should they be scared away from it — and they must be substantial as the product is so popular.

The Brazilian Blowout product is safe for use by clients.

The Brazilian Blowout product is safe for use by stylists.

Ignore the government.

Ignore the media.

Get your hair straightened.

Contrary to recent media reports, the Brazilian Blowout hair treatment is safe for use.

Today I’ll present contrasting studies on the product, to show the difference between a properly performed study and a botched one — and how the media reports on each.   A reminder on what we’re looking at: The controversy regarding Brazilian Blowout centers around the amount of formaldehyde allegedly released during a treatment.  A harmless alcohol known as methylene glycol is in every bottle of Brazilian Blowout solution.  During a treatment, methylene glycol can be converted to formaldehyde in tiny amounts when it reacts with water.

OSHA has two important safety limits: The Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL – an 8-hour time-weighted average) and Short-Term Exposure Limit (STEL – a 15 minute exposure measurement).  Both are measured in parts per million (ppm).

First, we look at the correctly performed study, and the media’s coverage of it.

Do It Right

Dr. James Haw is the director of Environmental Studies Program and the Ray R. Irani, Chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp., Professor of Chemistry at the University of Southern California. His work has been published 170 times in peer-reviewed journals.  he’s been lecturing all over the world for 30 years.  He’s been the recipient of 45 grants over the same time period, including one from the E.P.A.  His credentials are impeccable.

He recently visited two Los Angeles salons and conducted fully documented, rigorous scientific testing using the same methodology as OSHA.  The results of the study yielded formaldehyde exposure levels to be almost non-existent.

“The least advantageous way to use my data to estimate the stylist’s 15 min STEL is to imagine that the entire dose of formaldehyde measured over 35 min. was actually delivered in a single15-minute exposure.  This worst-case interpretation results in a value of 0.054 ppm, well below the OSHA limit of 2 ppm.  …The worst possible 8 hour time-weighted average exposure from these data…leads to an 8-hr. time-weighted exposure value of 0.026 ppm , well below the OSHA PEL of 0.75 ppm”.

For the second salon, the STEL was measured at 0.160ppm, well below OSHA’s limit of 2 ppm.  The PEL was measured at 0.052 ppm, well below the OSHA limit of 0.75ppm.  The entire study has been posted on the company’s website.

Here’s the media coverage of Dr. Haw’s study:

Do It Wrong

Now, a just-released study by the San Francisco-based private chemical consulting firm ChemRisk is, in my opinion, so blatantly and fundamentally flawed that it should never have been made public.  This is not the first time a ChemRisk study has had questions raised about it.  The company got caught in a big scandal involving PG&E a number of years ago.

Dr. Jennifer Pierce, the senior industrial hygenist for ChemRisk who authored the study, conducted a pro-bono test in a Chicago salon to see just how much formaldehyde is released in a treatment.  A stylist, identified by Dr. Pierce as “having been trained in the Brazilian Blowout treatment”, conducted four treatments on a mannequin with a human hair wig of medium length.  However, ChemRisk botched the most important part of the entire experiment.

The stylist used two ounces of Brazilian Blowout solution when the instructions called for half that amount.

The result was that 2.35 ppm of formaldehyde was released, over OSHA’s 2 ppm limit, grossly overstating the amount of formaldehyde released by the Brazilian Blowout treatment, which is what you might expect when one uses way more product than directed.

How could this simple mistake get past ChemRisk?  Didn’t they read the instructions on how much Brazilian Blowout solution should be used?

Dr. Pierce told me in a telephone interview that she obtained the bottle of Brazilian Blowout solution from a third party vendor and that “the bottle had no instructions on it, there was no instructional insert, and no external instructions were provided…so we relied on the stylist’s training as to the correct amount”.

Bad move.  The stylist used more of the product than is prescribed. Medium-length hair treatments are instructed to use 1 ounce, or 2 capfuls.  She used two ounces.  Indeed, instructions for the proper dosage are included in an online video on Brazilian Blowout’s website, which the stylist had access to and had been trained to follow.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Even worse, the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene (JOEH) is publishing this faulty study.  Not only did ChemRisk blow it, but a group of “expert scientists” reviewing the work didn’t bother to track down the facts.  Wow, if this is all it takes to get media attention and publication in a scientific journal, I’m going to do a study on the dangerous effects of what happens when two hydrogen atoms are covalently bonded to a single oxygen atom!

And wouldn’t you know it, this is the same Journal that published the scandal-plagued PG&E study, and later had to retract it.  Of course, it took them 9 years to do so.  I wonder how long it’ll take for this debacle to get pulled, as it should.

Dr. Haw weighed in on the ChemRisk study in his paper, as well.

“…ChemRisk studied formaldehyde exposures from use of various hair-smoothing products, which were applied in 2-ounce quantities (ca. 57 g).  That application quantity exceeds the largest amount reported here by over a factor of three and the lower amount by nearly a factor of five…substantial increases in the amount of product applied would result in…a multiplicative increase in formaldehyde emissions”.

MSM media coverage for ChemRisk includes L.A. Times, NPR, KTLA…ugh, I’m sick already and it’s already three outlets more than covered Dr. Haw’s study.

Study Proves The Opposite: BB is Safe

Dr. Haw’s study not only demonstrated that the product is safe, but ChemRisk helped prove that using too much product will skew formaldehyde results far higher.  They discredited their own study.  The conclusions are obvious:

Brazilian Blowout is safe.  The amount of formaldehyde released by a treatment is well below OSHA standards, and I’ll illustrate just how insignificant this formaldehyde exposure really is.

1.0 ppm means that in every kilogram of air, there is 1 milligram of formaldehyde.  See that little milligram cube below, and the gram cube next to it?  Every one thousand gram cubes has less than 1 tiny little milligram cube.

Media creates another Boogeyman

I found out all of this information in about 30 minutes, simply because I was familiar with the controversy and saw an L.A Times blog that offered the company’s perspective.  As for the blog’s author, Susan Carpenter, shame on her (and the Times) for not asking ChemRisk the hard questions, or even bothering to do the simple research.  Furthermore, if ChemRisk can blow it, anyone can, including Oregon OSHA — which is what Mr. Brady asserts. How about if Ms. Carpenter rediscovers true journalism.  I’ve already done the hard work for her.

I thought a journalist’s job was to seek out facts and present a balanced story, not parrot what a study says, stoke the fear of stylists and consumers, and wipe her hands of the matter.

But here’s the real story: this isn’t just about a faulty study and the media’s witless demonization of a perfectly safe product.   It’s about the thousands of stylists and salon owners across the country that have probably seen their income drop significantly because of sloppy journalism and sloppy science, stoking fear in their customers.  Fear is a powerful dissuader, and chemophobia can scare consumers away from a lot of things.

Yet the MSM is nowhere to be found whenever a study acquits the product.

Next time: I’ll wrap up the series, and provide analysis on what this story reveals about government, the media, and you.

Contrary to recent media reports, the Brazilian Blowout hair treatment is safe for use.

Oregon OSHA and Federal OSHA had already attacked Brazilian Blowout’s product, steering the media to focus on faulty aspects of their respective studies, and burying the truth  –  that the product does not release formaldehyde in amounts that exceed state or federal short-term or long-term exposure limits.

Enter Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D – 3 – OR).  Ontheissues.org labels him a “hard-core Liberal”, and you know what that means when it comes to anything involving chemicals or the environment.   Rep. Blumenauer sponsored nonsensical bills like HR 3311 that taxes drivers based on miles driven; a ludicrous bill to jump-start the funding of streetcars; a bill to establish under-the-radar death panels; a bill providing environmental education grants for outdoor experiences (huh?); and even one quashing free speech by attempting to ban a website promoting the perfectly safe Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.

So Rep. Blumenauer reads about OSHA’s nonsense in the media and, because he’s a politician, doesn’t do his research, either.  Nor does he bother contacting the company to get their side of the story.   Instead, he grandstands by penning a letter to the Food and Drug Administration asking that they recall the product — a product already proven to meet OSHA standards!

I asked Rep. Blumenauer’s press secretary, Derek Schlickeisen, about this approach to policy.  His assertion was that politicians “can’t have a chemist on staff”, and thus rely on OSHA’s scientists to bring incidents like this to light.  When I mentioned that the company-funded study by Health Science Associates showed formaldehyde levels below OSHA standards, he inferred that the study held little weight because it was company funded.

Yet why is it that OSHA’s results are given any more credibility, especially when OSHA caused a panic based entirely on a faulty sample?  Are we to believe that OSHA scientists are somehow free of ideological bias?  Kermit McCarthy, one of the authors of the Oregon OSHA study, “likes” hard-core Liberal Sen. Ron Wyden according to his Facebook page.  Why isn’t his bias questioned?  If anything, a government worker is likely more biased than a private company to insert bias, because his very job depends on his work generating a result that permits the government to do something.  Otherwise, the agency’s existence, and the employee’s, have no purpose.

The FDA: Where Nonsense Meets Politics

Now the drama turns to the FDA, which should operate as an independent agency, but doesn’t.  It’s a political entity, and when a politician writes them a letter, they have to do something.  So they take several months to decide what to do.  In the interim, the Cosmetic Ingredient Review Panel effectively came down on the side of the company, saying:

“We urge FDA to work expeditiously with OSHA and appropriate state and local organizations to objectively determine if salon hair smoothing products emit levels of formaldehyde gas that are unsafe for consumers or salon workers under their intended conditions of use and taking into consideration salon ventilation practices [emphasis mine]“.

Meanwhile, FDA spokesman Arthur Whitmore confirmed that the FDA never conducted its own air sampling, which its Investigations Operations Manual permits.  Instead, Mr. Whitmore confirmed that the FDA “…did conduct experiments to simulate what occurs in a salon setting by heating the product at various temperatures and measuring formaldehyde production.”  But how much of the product did the FDA heat up?  The amount used in a treatment?  More?  Less?  And what about ventilation?  Did the FDA consider that salons are ventilated and whatever gross amount of formaldehyde that may have been released in a simulated situation does not in any way reflect reality?

Starting to see problems with the FDA’s approach?  I am.  This is ironic, considering the FDA’s own manual reads:

“4.1.3 – Responsibility.  Collect every sample as if you will be required to testify in court about everything you did concerning each and every event surrounding the sample collection. Mistakes or deficiencies, however trivial they may seem, can fatally damage the government’s case. Be objective, accurate, and thorough.”

Even worse, Mr. Whitmore said:

“FDA used information from a number of sources to support the warning letter including data obtained by Oregon OSHA, Federal OSHA, Health Canada, and FDA’s own laboratory studies. FDA data was obtained using HPLC and mass spectrometry, and it agreed with the data obtained from other sources. It also agreed with a recent study published in the November issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene”

This is known as “fruit of the poisonous tree”, in that it relied on data I have proven to be inaccurate and misleading in my previous articles.  In my next article, I also debunk the cited Journal study (it used more product than directed).

Nevertheless, the FDA had all of the following to examine:

• Oregon OSHA report showing the product is safe.
• Federal OSHA report showing the product is safe.
• Health Sciences Associates report showing the product is safe.
• It’s own guide to chemicals that shows methylene glycol and formaldehyde are different substances.
• A Liberal environmentalist politician’s letter asking them to ban the product.
• Heavily biased media reports.

And what does the FDA do?

They issue a warning letter.

And yet another round of media hysteria follows….in which the company is granted one sentence in each report, “denying the allegations”.

MSNBC

Huffington Post

ABC News

Fox News

Headline News

CNN

ABC local news

Company Fights Back; Media is Silent

In truth, Brazilian Blowout agreed to cooperate with the FDA to demonstrate that the product was neither adulterated nor misleading, and although they disagreed with the FDA over whether or not their product was considered “formaldehyde free”, they removed that language from their product.

Still, not a single media outlet has asked the company about their side of the story.

In fact, the company’s response letter to the FDA laid out a coherent and comprehensive rebuttal to the agency (available for review).  In short, the company presented all the evidence presented in this series along with two other major points.  First, they insist the product is not “adulterated” because it doesn’t “contain a deleterious substance that may render it injurious to users under the contradiction of use prescribed in its labeling”.   In other words, if people (and OSHA) use the product as directed, no injurious substance gets released.   Second, in relying on OSHA’s data, the FDA relied on a third party’s inferior method of sampling formaldehyde, a method that itself actually produces formaldehyde!

Now we turn to the media coverage of this forceful response.

The Perfect Storm

I’ve repeatedly stated that I conducted this investigation as a real journalist should have.  The truth is available for those who seek it — and it is available cheaply, easily, and rapidly.   That the mainstream media has repeatedly presented the government’s untenable position regarding this product, and ignored the other side of the story, goes beyond the excuse that “fear sells”.   Rather, they have pro-actively partnered in a Liberal environmentalist vendetta against a successful hair product company.

This sordid affair is demonstrative not only of the media’s own Leftist bias, but the problem of government.  Don’t tell me there isn’t bias inside a government agency, especially in this Administration and especially in Oregon.  What does it say when a politician doesn’t even have to conduct his own due diligence, and instead just points to a government agency, and use their findings as gospel even if proven to be flawed, and then leverage that to engage yet another government entity to try and kill a business?

It says that government is over-reaching and harming private businesses –in this case, hair product companies, salons, and stylists.  Why isn’t Rep. Blumenauer being held to account for attacking a company without doing his due diligence?  Where is OSHA’s accountability?  Where is that agency’s checks and balances?

I’ve at least injected enough doubt into this mess to demonstrate that the government is no longer working for us.  It’s working against us.

Next time: I’ll present a definitive study that acquits the company’s position and present yet another flawed study — this one by a private entity.  The contrast will shock you.

You’d never know it, though, because the mainstream media has been perpetuating one myth after another about Brazilian Blowout while ignoring the facts.   Last time, I wrote about a hatchet job made to appear as a legitimate study by Oregon OSHA [Note to Editor: Please link to Part 1] that was covered ad-nauseum by the media.

Yet, when a respected scientific association issued a balanced statement regarding Brazilian Blowout, the media spun it to make it appear that the company was fighting regulatory sampling of the product.  To wit: The American Chemistry Council, which actually manufactures formaldehyde, released a statement ten days before Oregon OSHA unveiled its biased “report”.

“We encourage the company that makes the Brazilian Blowout to cooperate fully with government officials to ensure that the product meets federal and state standards for formaldehyde use”.

Brazilian Blowout fully cooperated and, as thanks, was subjected to a biased and editorialized government report from Liberal environmentalists at Oregon OSHA.  Yet Time Magazine would have you believe that “The chemical industry is actually sort of coming down on the side of regulators and activist groups on the issue”, while quoting hack anti-capitalist enviro-wackos like Siobhan O’Connor.  The company’s side of the story, however, was omitted.

So, with the house already stacking the odds against Brazilian Blowout, Federal OSHA entered the fray.

OSHA’s Big Boo-Boo

In air sampling data reports obtained exclusively by this reporter, I can confirm that OSHA did indeed conduct 24 air sample tests in several salons.  Brazilian Blowout passed every single test in OSHA’s exposure limits, known as the Action Limit (AL – the level where OSHA regulations take effect) Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL – an 8-hour time-weighted average) and Short-Term Exposure Limit (STEL – a 15 minute exposure measurement).

But a funny thing happened during one of these short-term exposure tests.  As the report below details, one sample was taken for 35 minutes instead of the 15 minutes required under OSHA regulations.   One would expect that if you sample the air for more than twice the period you are supposed to, anything you find in that sample is going to be more than twice as concentrated as it otherwise would.

Sure enough, that sample yielded 2.5 parts per million (ppm) of formaldehyde, above OSHA’s limit of 2.0 ppm.   Rather than discard this sample as protocol dictates, OSHA retained it.  In fact, as the report indicates, the sample was received in OSHA’s laboratory by a functionary, who passed it on to an analyst, who analyzed the sample, who had another employee check his calculations, before the entire report was approved by a supervisor.

And none of them noticed the improper 35 minute sample, or if they did, they did nothing about it. How is it that a mistake that a high-school student would commit somehow made it all the way through OSHA’s internal controls?  Are there any such controls?  Why was it missed?  What the heck is going on inside OSHA that this critical error wasn’t caught?   And why is it that OSHA didn’t tell the public the truth — that all 24 samples passed the test, but that one faulty sample did not — and instead caused a firestorm by holding up that faulty sample as “proof” of Brazilian Blowout’s “danger”?

More Media Brilliance

On April 11, 2011, OSHA leapt into the media cistern with a press release.  It’s a Hazard Alert!  Included in this gaseous emission is the phrase, “During Federal OSHA investigations, air tests showed formaldehyde at levels above OSHA’s limits in salons using Brazilian Blowout Acai Professional Smoothing Solution…” in big bold letters.

I asked an OSHA spokesman via Email about this blatantly false statement.  To date, they have not replied.

But never mind me.  Did the media investigate OSHA’s results?  Did anyone from the media ask to see the reports?  If they did, would they even be able to interpret them?  Did the media ask the company what their reaction was to the results?

Why didn’t anyone from the media discover OSHA’s enormous blunder that I found?

Because they were too busy “reporting”.  Here’s a partial List of Shame — I want to nail some of the small-time folk, too, because they could’ve had a real story and really broken big time if they’d actually done the research:

Bryan Walsh at Time

Deidre Imus at Fox

Hillary Ross at HuffPo.

USA Today

Matthew Perrone at the AP

Wendy Ryan at ABC Action News

Gannett News

The Chicago Tribune

Kathy Muldoon at The Oregonian

Amity Addrishi Bakersfield Eyewitness News

KVOA in Tucson

NY Daily News

Independent Lab Confirms Safety of Brazilian Blowout

The other big story that the media ignored is that a company that routinely performs indoor air quality tests (Health Science Associates) tested Brazilian Blowout’s product.  The results showed — again — that the product’s formaldehyde release came in far below all of OSHA’s limits.  But you wouldn’t know it unless you knew A Mom In Red High Heels, who reported it in her blog.  That’s it.

So at this point in the story, Brazilian Blowout is being attacked from all sides, thanks to a witch hunt solely the result of incompetent and/or biased government agencies.  With OSHA now throwing pies, it was only a matter of time before a grandstanding Liberal politician entered the fray — and along with him, the FDA.

All for a product repeatedly proven to be safe, when used as directed.

Next time:  Hardcore Liberal politican + FDA = business as usual.