Rumor: Sodium Lauryl Sulfate Causes Cancer

Urban Legend Response

CTFA Response Statement: Bogus Internet Report on Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS)

October 13, 2000
RSPT 00-32

There is a bogus report on the Internet purporting to be from the Journal of the American College of Toxicology (JACT). It is completely misleading and inaccurate. The original report from the Journal of the American College of Toxicology has been altered to create an inaccurate document. The erroneous report had been published at www.wwns.com/sanders/gh/lauryl.htm (no longer available).

The genuine report on SLS can be found in printed form in the JACT, Vol. 2 Number 7, 1983. The website of the American College of Toxicology, publishers of the JACT, is www.actox.org. It does NOT contain full texts of its reports.

This is an example of how information found on the Internet must be checked before using.

CTFA Response Statement: Internet-Spread Rumors About Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) and Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES) Are False and Unsubstantiated

July 12, 2000


It has come to our attention that an e-mail is currently circulating on the Internet which falsely states that Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) and Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES), ingredients used primarily in some cosmetic “rinse off” products, are unsafe. The story relayed via e-mail is an unsubstantiated story. It is typical of Internet rumors notorious for inaccurate and false information.

There is no evidence of harm from the use of either SLS or SLES as used in cosmetic products. Both ingredients were reviewed in 1983 by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) Expert Panel and found to be safe. Complete reports on both ingredients are available from CIR.

The Canadian Health Protection Branch (part of the Canadian government) has branded SLS e-mail stories as a hoax. On its web site (www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ehp/ehd/psb/cosmetics/sls.htm), Health Canada goes on to say “Health Canada considers SLS safe for use in cosmetics. Therefore, you can continue to use cosmetics containing SLS without worry.”

(CIR was established in 1976 by CTFA. CIR is a unique endeavor to assess the safety of ingredients used in cosmetics in an unbiased, expert manner. Its findings have established a public recorded of the safety of cosmetic ingredients. The heart of the CIR program is the Independent Expert panel consisting of world-renowned physicians and scientists. Expert Panel members must be free of any conflicts of inters, and must meet the same conflict of interest requirements as outside experts to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

In addition to the seven Expert Panel voting members, FDA and the Consumer Federation of American, and CTFA provide liaison members to the panel. Although funded by CTFA, CIR and the review process are distinctly separate and independent from CTFA and the cosmetic industry. CIR is located at 1101 17th Street NW, Suite 310, Washington, DC 20036, www.cir-safety.org.

American Cancer Society Response

[From: www.cancer.org]

Debunking the Myth

ACS NewsToday -- Radical chain e-mails have been flying through cyberspace stating Sodium Lauryl Sulfate or SLS, a common ingredient in many health and beauty aids, is known to cause cancer. This is not true, according to researchers.
The following are excerpt from many of the e-mails and facts that debunk this myth.

E-mail: "Sodium Laryl Sulfate or SLS is commonly found in most shampoos and toothpastes."
Fact: SLS is found in many shampoos, bath products and according to a study published in May 1997 in Journal of Clinical Periodontology, SLS is used in toothpastes and mouth rinses as an emulsifying and surface cleansing agent.

E-mail: "Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES) is proven to cause cancer in the long run."
Fact: This chemical and its other compounds are known irritants, not known carcinogens.

E-mail: "Check the ingredients in your shampoo and see if the have the substance by the name of Sodium Laureth Sulfate or simply SLS."
Fact: The correct abbreviation for Sodium Laureth Sulfate is "SLES." Another compound, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, is abbreviated "SLS." The two substances have the same general formula but differ in chemical properties.

E-mail: "The fact is SLS is used to scrub garage floors."
Fact: SLS is a powerful surfactant (wetting agent) and detergent. It has industrial uses because it is a detergent which exerts emulsifying action, thereby removing oil and soil.

E-mail: "I called the company and told them their product contains a substance that will cause people to have cancer, and they say they know it but there is nothing they can do about it. They need that product to produce foam."
Fact: No manufacturer would freely admit it knowingly uses a carcinogen in its products "because we need that substance to produce foam".

E-mail: "Research has shown that in the 1980's, the chance of getting cancer is one out of 8000 and now in the 1990's, the chances of getting cancer is one in three."
Fact: According to the ACS's Cancer Facts and Figures, 1998, the occurrence of cancer increases as individuals age, and most cases affect adults middle-aged and older. Lifetime risk refers to the probability that an individual, over the course of their lifetime, will develop cancer or die from it. Currently in the US, men have a one in two lifetime risk of developing cancer, and for women the risk is one in three. During the early 1980's, the lifetime cancer risk for both men and women was one in three. This means men are slightly more at risk for cancer now, than they were then.

E-mail: "I hope we can stop giving ourselves the cancer virus."
Fact: Cancer is not a virus. There are some viruses that increase a person's risk of getting cancer, but cancer itself is not viral and not contagious. Cancer is a group of diseases characterized by uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells.
There is no way of knowing where this Internet information comes from. However, there are a variety of websites offering health and beauty products that are SLS-free. According to David Emery and his Urban Legends website, "Interestingly, all these Websites are maintained by 'independent distributors' for various multi-level marketing companies hawking natural personal care products. As a matter of fact, the majority of URLs returned in a standard Web search on the keywords 'sodium laureth sulfate' all point to versions of the same propaganda."

It is best to be cautious when obtaining information, especially health-related information, from the Web. Check to see who owns the site, make sure reliable sources are used and if ever in doubt, check it out.
©© 2000, ACS News Today. The American Cancer Society. All rights
reserved.

Urban Legend Response

[From:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/science/urbanlegends/]

What is sodium laureth sulfate
...and why are people saying those awful things about it?

Dateline: 09/09/98 (Updated: 04/21/99)

By David Emery

The latest dire health warning to circulate by email claims that sodium laureth sulfate, a synthetic chemical found in brand-name shampoos, causes cancer.

As is typical of such warnings, the message is unsigned and cites no references to support its claims.

[UPDATE: As also commonly happens with chain letters, this one has picked up false "signatures" after the fact. This is usually the result of someone with an authoritative-sounding title forwarding the message with their sig file attached, which then becomes a permanent part of the text. As near as I can determine, the name "Michelle Hailey" first began appearing on a version of this message in September 1998, approximately two months after the original (unsigned) version was first sighted. The "signed" version quickly surpassed the original in popularity, but Hailey denied authoring the email in an Oct. 20, 1998 article in the Daily Tennessean.] "This is not a chain letter," the message concludes, but it is one. As you shall see, its purpose is not to inform, but to frighten:

Subject: FW: SHAMPOO ALERT!!! MUST READ!!! Importance: High

Check the ingredients listed on your shampoo bottle, and see if they have this substance by the name of Sodium Laureth Sulfate or simply SLS.

This substance is found in most shampoo, the manufactures use it because it produces a lot of foam and it is cheap. BUT the fact is that SLS is used to scrub garage floors, and it is very strong. It is also proven that it can cause cancer in the long run, and this is no joke. Well, I went home and check my shampoo (Vidal Sasoon), it hasn't got it, but others such as Vo5, Palmolive etc..they've got this substance, so I've called up to one of the company (u must think I had nothing better to do, no, I am just concerned about our health) well, I told them their product contains a substance that will cause people to have cancer, and u know what they said, they said "Yeah.we knew about it but there is nothing we can do about it coz we need that substance to produce foam, oh, by the way the Colgate toothpaste also contains the same substance to produce the bubbles". Oh my God, I've been using the Colgate since when I was born, what the world is that, are we going to die very soon. They said they are going to send me some info.

Research have shown that in the 1980s, the chance of getting cancer is 1 out of 8000 and now in the 1990s, the chances of getting cancer is 1 out of 3 which is very serious. So I hope that you will take this seriousness and pass on this to all the people you know, and hopefully, we can stop "giving" ourselves the cancer virus.

This is serious, after you have read this, pass it on to as many people as possible, this is not a chain letter, but it concerns our health.

Questions and answers:
Q: Is sodium laureth sulfate commonly found in shampoos and toothpastes?
A: Shampoos, yes;toothpastes, no.

Q: Is sodium laureth sulfate known to cause cancer?
A: No. The chemical does not appear on any official list of known or suspected carcinogens.

Q: Is sodium laureth sulfate properly abbreviated as "SLS?"
A: No. The correct abbreviation is "SLES." The chain letter confuses this compound with another: sodium lauryl sulfate, which is abbreviated "SLS." The two substances are related, but not the same.

Q: Is sodium laureth sulfate used to scrub garage floors?
A: No.

Q: What about the other one - sodium lauryl sulfate - is it used to scrub garage floors?
A: No doubt! SLS is a powerful surfactant (wetting agent) and detergent. It has industrial uses, but is also commonly found in lesser concentrations in shampoos, toothpastes, shaving creams, etc.

Q: Ah. Well, then, is SLS a known carcinogen?
A: No. But it's not as harmless as SLES. Sodium lauryl sulfate is a skin and eye irritant and can cause dermatitis with prolonged contact. Results of some tests on animal tissues indicate that it can cause abnormal cell mutations, though I've seen conflicting evidence.

Q: Would a manufacturer freely admit to consumers, as claimed in the message, that it knowingly uses a carcinogen in its products "because we need that substance to produce foam?"
A: Are you kidding? Of course not!

Q: Is it true that my chances of getting cancer are "1 out of 3" in the '90s?
A: Yes, with a few qualifications. The problem with stating probabilities in this case is that there's no way to generalize accurately. The reasons are: 1) cancer risks for individuals vary according to a host of factors, including gender, race, habits, and family history; and 2) the likelihood of any individual contracting cancer is also a function of their age. For example, if you're 20 years old, the odds are much greater that you'll contract cancer in your lifetime than they are if you're 50, simply because there's a longer time span involved.

That said, the longer answer is: for an "average person" (that is, someone of no particular age or gender who lives nowhere in particular and inherited no genes from his or her parents), the chances of getting cancer over a lifetime work out to somewhere between 1 in 3 and 1 in 2, at present.

Q: Were the chances of getting cancer in the 1980s "1 out of 8,000?"
A: No, that's absurd. Cancer rates were approximately the same a decade ago as they are now; if anything, they were a bit higher.

Q: Really? Aren't cancer rates rising?
A: No, in the United States they're falling, though at a fractional rate and there's no telling if that trend will continue.

Q: Is cancer a "virus?"
A: No.

Q: Is the chain letter a hoax?
A: Most likely. At the very least, it contains egregiously inaccurate information. But we can only guess at the motives of whoever launched it.

Q: Where did the misinformation come from?
A: Well, if you're asking who started the chain letter, there's no way of knowing. But as to the misinformation itself, it turns out that there are a good many Web pages containing very similar and in some cases identical statements. It's a good bet that it all came from the same source. Interestingly, all these Websites are maintained by "independent distributors" for various multi-level marketing companies hawking "natural personal care products," etc. As a matter of fact, the majority of URLs returned in a standard Web search on the keywords "sodium laureth sulfate" point to versions of the same propaganda. Assuming all the information did come from the same source, the author of our chain letter and some of these Web entrepreneurs are sloppy copyists at the very least, and/or intent on slanting the "facts" to suit their purposes.

In the chain letter, for example, the cancer rate in the 1980s is alleged to be "1 out of 8,000"; the Web pages tend to say that was the cancer rate in 1901. That sounds more reasonable, but it's no cause to assume the Websites are more accurate. On some of them, the figure cited for 1901 is not "1 out of 8,000," but "1 out of 80."

Misinformation has a way of multiplying.

Many of the pages I looked at were littered with inaccuracies, deceptive statements, and outright lies. One even alleges that "In 1993 it was documented that sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) were the leading cause of blindness in children" - as if claiming they're carcinogens weren't inaccurate enough. Another page features a link to a site vending quack cancer cures. In some cases, the texts refer to legitimate medical studies but in a misleading way, making it appear as if the studies proved more than they actually did. Small wonder that by the time this information made its way into chain letter form, virtually every statement in it was outrageously false.

What's worse, as the chain letter circulates, the information degrades even further. One of the more recent variants gives the abbreviation of sodium laureth sulfate as "SLY," which is doubly wrong.

Q: Do you think the chain letter may have been deliberately started to frighten people into using other products?
A: I suspect it, but there's no way to know for sure, and I can't prove it. For all we know, someone came across this stuff by accident, believed it to be true, and innocently wanted to share it with others.

Q: Do you really think that was the case?
A: Nope.

Postscript: The old adage, "Where there's smoke, there's fire," may apply here. While the "facts" stated in the sodium laureth sulfate warning are almost entirely false, there may be other potentially hazardous substances in name-brand personal care products. For more information, see:

Personal Care and Cosmetic Products May Be Carcinogenic
Synopsized as one of the "Top 25 under-reported news stories of 1997"

Report on carcinogens
From the National Toxicological Program

FDA guidelines for inspection of cosmetic products
"Non-binding" reference material for investigators

Partial List of Sources:

8th Annual Report on Carcinogens (1998). National Toxicology Program. URL: http://ntp-server.niehs.nih.gov/Main_pages/NTP_8RoC_pg.html
(1 Sep. 1998).

"Cancer Death Rates Dropping." ABCNews.com/Reuters, 12 Mar. 1998. URL: http://www.abcnews.com/sections/living/DailyNews/cancer0312.html (7 Sep. 1998).

Clayton, R.M., et al. (1985). "The Penetration of Detergents into Adult and Infant Eyes." Food and Chemical Toxicology 23.2 (Feb. 1985): 239-246.

Hope, J. "Absence of Chromosome Damage in the bone marrow of rats fed detergent actives for 90 days." Mutation Research 56.1 (Sep. 1977): 47-50.

Material Safety Data Sheet for Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate). URL: http://www.vwrsp.com/ (1 Sep. 1998).

"New Report on Declining Cancer Incidence and Death Rates..." National Cancer Institute Press Release, 12 Mar. 1998. URL: http://rex.nci.nih.gov/massmedia/pressreleases/deathrate.html
(7 Sep. 1998).

UMCP Partial List of Teratogens (1995). University of Maryland. URL: http://www.inform.umd.edu/DES/ch/terat.html (4 Sep. 1998).

Winter, Ruth. A Consumer's Dictionary of Household, Yard and Office Chemicals. New York: Crown, 1992.