- Speaker #0
Welcome to EDQM On Air, a podcast on public health brought to you by the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Healthcare of the Council of Europe. We hope you enjoy this episode and we invite you to stay tuned to learn how the EDQM and its stakeholders work together for better health for all. This is Chloe. And this is her daughter Sarah. Today is Sunday and they've decided to go relax and get some sun in a nearby park. Before they get going, Chloe prepares some sandwiches and puts them in food containers. Sarah reminds her mom that they absolutely need to use sunscreen to keep themselves safe from the harmful UV rays of sunlight. So, all ready to go, they head out to the park and have a wonderful day together. Sadly, Chloe couldn't stay under the sun as long as she would have liked to, because she has a tattoo on her shoulder that's still healing. Sarah, on the other hand, really got the best of her day off. After they've soaked up enough sun and nature, they head home. Sarah goes to play with her toys, while Chloe takes a relaxing bath and does her skincare routine using her favorite creams and oils. At the end of the day, they both go to bed, peaceful and recharged for the week ahead. What Chloe and Sarah are probably unaware of is that the EDQM, through its engagement in consumer protection, ensures that they can enjoy Sundays like this in complete safety. From food contact materials and cosmetics to tattoo inks and special guidelines for children, the EDQM strives to make sure that consumers do not come into contact with toxic or unsafe substances in their daily lives. To understand how this happens more in depth, I'm happy to welcome François-Xavier Lurie, head of the pharmaceutical and consumer care section of the EDQM. Welcome to the podcast, François Xavier. Thank you so much for coming on. So the EDQM, in its wide range of activities, is also deeply involved in the protection of the health of consumers. And you, François Xavier, you're the head of the section that is in charge of consumer health-related activities. So could you briefly explain to me how the EDQM works in this field?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, thank you, Yazon. Indeed, the EDQM deals with consumer health by setting standards mainly in two areas, cosmetics and food contact materials. So it's about developing guidance to member states, to the authorities, to the governments, to the authorities in charge of consumer health in our member states with recommendation and guidance documents. So that's what we call the standards. These recommendations are non-binding. They serve as recommendations to our member states for them to implement in their national legislation. But of course they are developed because there is a gap, there is a need for this guidance. So we talk with them, we talk with the EU Commission to fill the gaps when needed, when member states need guidance to harmonize the recommendation, to harmonize the regulation about cosmetics. or food contact materials. So we have on one hand the recommendation, the formal recommendation adopted by the Council of Europe, and then the technical documents, which are very often appendixes or annexes to this recommendation, which go more in depth about the technical guidance, the limits, the methods used to control cosmetics or food contact materials. and to set limits, safe limits for the consumers so that there is no release from the products to the consumers, release of toxic ingredients or release of degradation products.
- Speaker #0
Okay, I see. And another major project that concerns consumer health that the EDQM is involved with is the OCCL or Official Cosmetics Control Laboratories Network. So could you please talk a bit about the network and its work and what the role of the EDQM is in its functioning?
- Speaker #1
Yes. So the standards I was talking about beforehand are developed by committees of experts. So here the network is slightly different. It's not a committee, it's a network. So it's more laboratories working together. So, of course, they also meet in meetings like the committees, but it's much more technical work that they do together. So we as EDQM are the coordinator of these networks, the secretariat. So we have created the network. in 2010 and it covers today 50 laboratories all over Europe plus countries outside Europe such as Singapore or Taiwan. So they work together to share expertise, to share information about the kind of products they test, the method they use for testing these products, of course the result they obtain, the constraints, the limitations. So there are a lot of technical information they need to share together to agree on what makes sense. to have the best methods and the best approach to test cosmetic products. So this network focuses on cosmetic products. So of course, it's not only a forum for information exchange, it's also a network that carries out studies. So we have two kinds of studies, mainly two kinds of studies. One is the proficiency testing studies, where we as EDQM are the secretariat. So again, we have a quite strong role because we prepare samples so that they are anonymized and then the same samples are sent to different laboratories and then they test and they are supposed to get certain results similar to the expected result. And then there is a statistical analysis performed as well by EDQM. So we coordinate these proficiency testing studies so that the laboratories know that they perform consistently across the network. And that's very good, of course, for them to know that they belong to a network where they have the same level of quality and they know that they can rely on each other when it comes to test a product and know that the outcome of the test is equivalent to what they would have got themselves. So it's a matter of pooling resources. Another very important kind of study is the market surveillance studies. So here we again coordinate these studies by liaising with the authorities in the countries to collect samples. So they come from retail shops, from internet or from customs. And then these samples are then sent to the laboratories again for testing. And then it's about looking for toxic ingredients or unsafe ingredients or degradation products. So... Two examples, two recent examples, one we have recently published is a study about skin whitening products. So some products are on the market, fully legal products, to whiten, for instance, spots on the skin of some people from a certain age. But of course, there is also a lot of misuse of products used to whiten the whole skin with toxic ingredients. And some of these toxic ingredients are banned. There is a regulation in EU level to ban some toxic ingredients. And in the study we carried out, or the network carried out, we found rather significant proportion of products containing these banned substances. So it's products like hydroquinone, mercury, or glucocorticoids. So if you are positive, you would say that... 80% of the products which were compliant, but if you see more the dark side of the things, it's 18% of the products which were non-compliant, 80% of the samples. Of course, there is also a bias because we try to sample products where we know that there is maybe a risk that there are some non-compliant products. So overall, it's very important to run these studies, to alert the authorities to the issue of the non-compliant products and to take action as necessary. either by putting stricter limits or taking enforcement measures. Because the limits are there very often. The EU does set limits, but it's more an issue of enforcement. But before enforcing actions, you need to first know where are the issues.
- Speaker #0
Alright. And finally, besides being engaged in activities related to food contact materials and cosmetics like the ones you just talked to me about, What else does the EDQM do for consumer health?
- Speaker #1
We are also active in this area of tattoos or permanent makeups. It's a different kind of products, but we also look at the issue there because it's more and more trendy to have tattoos and it's more and more used. And the tattoos contain ingredients which stay under the skin of consumers. So it's quite important to make sure that the tattoo artists use safe products which are not. toxic for the consumer. So we have published and we are now revising a guidance about the safety of tattoos and tattoo inks. So it's an overview of what we know about the toxicity of the ingredients used in tattoos. So it's again an overview, a recommendation about what to look at in terms of safety of consumer with respect to tattoos.
- Speaker #0
But it's not legally binding.
- Speaker #1
No, it's not a legally binding recommendation, but we do look at issues around tattoos. Right. Another important focus I would put is still on cosmetics, but the specific issue of the cosmetics for kids. Nowadays, parents start using cosmetics for kids because it's fashionable and nice. And so... in a way to prepare them to use when they are adults about using cosmetics. But of course, the skin of the children is not the same as the skin of an adult. Their body weight is smaller, so we have to be very careful about what we allow parents to use for their kids as cosmetics. And there is very often a confusion between toys or things presented as being toys just for having fun. But actually these products are put on the skin of the children for instance a fun party. So they should not be only considered as toys but really as cosmetic products. And then we have carried out over the last 10 years three market surveillance studies on these products and we still find very significant level of non-compliance in terms of ingredients used for these products. So we have also developed a guidance, a standard and a recommendation on this product. So that's a specific focus of our work within our general work on cosmetics.
- Speaker #0
All right. Well, thank you very much, François Xavier, for clarifying all of this to me and to the audience. And thank you for coming on the podcast.
- Speaker #1
You're welcome.
- Speaker #0
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