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.

(more…)

Please read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

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:

(more…)

From BetaBeat:

The infamous $640 toilet seat which the Pentagon purchased back in the 1980′s now has a crappy, excuse the pun, modern day equivalent: a government-made mobile app with a price tag of $200,000.

Rich Jones of Gun.io, a job board for hackers, downloaded and installed the Heat Safety app from OSHA. It’s a straightforward service that finds your current location, measures the heat and humidity and serves up a warning with notes if the temperature is dangerous.

One might call it the kind of app that could have been created for less money by simply telling people to stick their head out the window before work. But this level of precaution is OSHA’s mandate and it’s good, in theory, to see government trying to leverage new technology.

Mr. Jones, an Android developer himself, took a much darker view.

(more…)

Please read Part 1 and Part 2.

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.

(more…)

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

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.

(more…)

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

The company is caught in a perfect storm of faulty private and government studies, absurd regulatory definitions, environmentalist hoopla, Liberal politics, and verifiable governmental incompetence.  Add in the tsunami of a mainstream media eager to fearmonger and water-carry for anti-capitalist environmentalists, and Franz Kafka would’ve been proud.

Brazilian Blowout Passes All Air Sampling Tests

The controversy surrounds the allegedly dangerous levels of formaldehyde that are released during a Brazilian Blowout treatment — allegations for which there remain no scientific basis.  In fact, every single correctly performed test has fully acquitted the company and its product.

The first study was conducted jointly by the Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology (CROET), Oregon Health & Science University, and Oregon OSHA.  In what appears to this reporter as a blatant attempt to manufacture results unfavorable to Brazilian Blowout, air monitoring sample tests were carried out in time periods that vastly exceeded federal OSHA short-term exposure testing protocols of 15 minutes.  Instead, Oregon OSHA took samples of 26, 20, and 19 minutes.

Despite the apparent rigging of the experiment, the results still acquitted Brazilian Blowout regarding formaldehyde released during treatments.

(more…)

By now you’ve probably heard that the president has gotten religion on the economically damaging effects of the regulatory state. Today, I argue wait and see is still the rule with this government as there are major rolls of red tape that President Obama would need to address coming from his own administration.

Specifically, consider the cases of how regulation impacts the ability and cost of hiring people. I point to OSHA overreach, the Davis-Bacon Act, new requirements that will have Americans chopping down entire forests to print 1099 tax forms, EPA regulation of carbon dioxide, and FCC regulation of the Internet.

And as they say in infomercials, “But wait, there’s more!” There’s oh-so-much-painfully-more regulation threatening jobs and the economy. Several groups track this sort of stuff, but take for example: Associated Builders and Contractors has offered a list of regulations that threaten the beleaguered and job-shedding construction industry. Take a look; it’s an eye-opener!

(more…)

In the wake of the BP oil spill, efforts have been afoot on the part of the Obama administration to ban drilling off the U.S. coast outright, ostensibly to stop future disasters like that which continues to unfold in the Gulf.

Part of the rationale for such a proposed moratorium is the notion that BP’s practices were not uniquely bad among industry actors, but rather typical and common—a conclusion that appears to be reinforced by a cursory glance at records obtained from the Department of the Interior, as written up by Greenwire today:

To look at the safety records of the offshore drilling companies before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank on April 20, there was little difference between BP America Inc. and its peers in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

But in a revelation that Big Government readers are unlikely to find surprising, sources tell Capitol Confidential that a broader review of relevant governmental data demonstrates that in fact, BP had a far worse record on safety matters than other oil companies.

Indeed, by one measure, BP’s practices were exponentially less safe than those of environmentalists’ favorite oil industry bogeyman— Exxon-Mobil—a conclusion BP opponents say may support the proposition that a lighter touch regulatory approach, which does not punish companies with good safety records and standards, is more appropriate than a ban.

According to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) data compiled and detailed to Capitol Confidential, two refineries owned by BP accounted for an astonishing 97 percent of the most serious violations flagged by government inspectors in the last three years.

(more…)

Many of my friends are currently unemployed or underemployed. They graduated from Claremont McKenna, one of the finest colleges in America, but have found it tough to get jobs.

But one alum from our college, Jordan Barab, CMC ‘75, is making it tougher still in his capacity as acting head of the Office Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

But with Barab, we have the opportunity to not only examine the implication of his appointment but also surmise what he will do and what he has already one in office by carefully considering his and OSHA’s history.

During the past eight years, Barab spent his time excoriating the Bush administration’s laissez faire labor policies from his blog, Confined Space. Left unexamined, of course, is whether those same labor policies account for us having one of the lowest unemployment levels in U.S. history during the Bush years.

Among other things, Barab argued that the Bush administration was refusing to enforce OSHA regulations and statutes that allegedly would have helped workplace safety. He published scary (and utterly unfounded) statistics pushed by organized labor:

More than 15 workers are killed every day on the job in this country and a worker becomes injured or ill on the job every 2.5 seconds. The overwhelming majority of deaths, injuries and illnesses could have been easily prevented had the employers simply provided a safe workplace and complied with well-recognized OSHA regulations or other safe practices.

(more…)

Some want to regulate what you eat, some want to regulate what you say, and some want to regulate how you type your TPS reports.

Those around long enough to remember the 1990’s will grumble to recall the battle over ergonomics regulations sought by Big Labor and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. OSHA has already taken an important step in the march to regulating ergonomics by announcing its plan to require employers to keep records of ill-defined “musculo-skeletal disorders.” It announced today that the deadline for filing comments is March 30.

What’s a musculo-skeletal disorder? It isn’t defined well (and can and will include injuries not from work), so the eventual outcome is a flood of new “injuries” all kept in one big umbrella category. Remember: injuries are already recorded; now the government would have an additional statistic to urge regulatory action. Want the gist of the problem: at Maverick Strategies, we put this together:

Want to file a comment with OSHA? There’s still time (go here). But, you’d better be in the right position when typing…

(more…)

In their first year in office, the Obama Administration has re-made the U.S. Department of Labor into the Department of Organized Labor, working hard to make certain that those who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to put them in office get a return on their investment.  While many dismiss the importance of the Department of Labor, virtually every person in America is directly touched by the rules and regulations that this federal bureaucracy creates and enforces, so changes at the top have real consequences for every working American.

As we evaluate the impact of the past year on the nation’s workforce, it is worthwhile to remember the accomplishments of President Bush’s Secretary of Labor, Elaine L. Chao.

When Secretary Chao left office, workers were safer in their workplaces than at any time in history, the Labor Department was focused upon encouraging private sector job creation, and created an enforcement environment that successfully protected workers from employers who egregiously violated the law while providing the necessary education to limit inadvertent violations.

Secretary Chao put an emphasis on clarifying workplace regulations to make it easier for employers to know the rules of the game.  Her efforts led to overtime requirements being more clear-cut for employers while explicitly guaranteeing overtime protections for blue collar workers, police and fire fighters, EMTs, construction workers and others.

The Labor Department under Secretary Chao brought transparency to the spending of Big Labor through regulations which for the first time shined a light upon labor union expenditures.  These reports revealed the massive labor expenditures supporting ACORN’s efforts,and were used by LA Times reporter Paul Pringle in his Polk Award winning series that brought down the SEIU powerbrokers in the California SEIU.

(more…)