Amazon UK Removes Cosmetics With Banned Levels of Mercury
28 November 2019 - 1:46AM
Dow Jones News
By Dieter Holger
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) said Wednesday that it has removed skin
lightening creams from its U.K. website that contained levels of
mercury in violation of an international convention.
The Zero Mercury Working Group, a global coalition of
environmental nonprofits, said it tested products from Amazon this
year and found that 20 contained levels of mercury that exceeded 1
part per million of mercury, which infringes upon the United
Nations Minamata Convention on Mercury. Amazon sold eight of the
skin lighteners in the U.S., 10 in India and two in the U.K., ZMWG
said.
"All marketplace sellers must follow our selling guidelines and
those who don't will be subject to action, including potential
removal of their account. The products in question are no longer
available," said an Amazon U.K. spokesperson in an emailed
statement.
Amazon pulled more than a dozen products from its U.S. website
last week after activists brought them to the attention of the
company, following the publication of new test results and a
petition with more than 23,000 signatures from environmental
organization Sierra Club. Mercury is toxic and can cause a range of
health issues depending on the dose.
ZMWG tested skin lighteners from various e-commerce platforms
and local stores this year. Overall, it found that 95 of 158 tested
products across 12 countries contained banned levels of mercury,
with 65 of these sold via e-commerce platforms. Mercury levels
ranged from 40 ppm to more than 130,000 ppm.
ZMWG has also accused listed e-commerce companies eBay Inc.
(EBAY) and Jumia Technologies AG (JMIA) of selling cosmetics with
prohibited levels of mercury. It tested 32 skin lighteners from
eBay and 9 from Jumia.
The group said that eBay sold at least 10 non-compliant products
in Belgium and seven in the U.S., while Jumia, a German-based
company operating in Africa, sold two non-compliant products in
Nigeria and one in Kenya.
EBay and Jumia didn't immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Some of the offending products come from Pakistan's Goree
Cosmetics and China's JiaoBi. Many of the cosmetics ZMWG flagged
can still be found on the platforms.
"Despite these illegal high-mercury products being essentially
banned by governments around the globe, our testing result shows
the same products continuing to be sold locally and on the
internet," said Michael Bender, ZMWG co-coordinator.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration agreed to meet with Mr.
Bender in August 2018 about the products on Amazon and eBay,
according to an email seen by Dow Jones Newswires.
Mr. Bender said the FDA hasn't informed him of any actions
despite repeated attempts to follow up.
The FDA didn't immediately provide a comment.
Write to Dieter Holger at dieter.holger@wsj.com;
@dieterholger
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 27, 2019 09:31 ET (14:31 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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