Enviroblog: New York Times seduced by fragrance industry

Enviroblog takes on the New York Times for an article on the fragrance industry and the practice of developing patented fragrance ingredients.  Chandler Burr in The Times compares the fragrance industry to the pharmaceutical industry development of proprietary  drugs such as Lipitor. Enviroblog points out that there are differences, since the FDA regulates the drugs for safety, but the fragrance ingredients are not regulated and the safety/health effects are often unknown. Burr argues in favor of the synthetic fragrances,pointing out that they may cost less and may be used in place of natural ingredients such as rosy ketones that set off allergic reactions at high doses.

Enviroblog argues that the claims of ecological soundness in the Times article are invalid because the perfume and body care ingredients end up polluting the overall ecosystem, citing research that phthalates from fragrance products can affect the reproductive hormone levels of fish. The Times has [mostly] ignored any environmental or safety issues entirely in their article.

For those of us in the natural products industry, the entire argument almost seems outside our purview. Our argument is that natural products are better and safer, and the public seems to be increasingly agreeing with us, or at least the mainstream large corporate cosmetics and fragrance industry perceives that is the way it is, as they are starting to offer more organic and natural products, even as they continue to develop more synthetics. The reality is that we increasingly are living in a world where money and property ownership are taking over. The impact of this in the fragrance industry isn't as great as in, for example, the case of GM Crops or patenting of strains or seeds, because unless we want to get really rich, we have the option of ignoring them and doing our own thing. Even the environmental impact of the bad things in fragrance ingredients is (probably) miniscule compared to the problems of plastic pollution, feedlot pollution, or the causes of global warming. But it all adds up.

The key here is full disclosure of the ingredients and effects, sensible regulation of hazardous or toxic ingredients, and education of consumers, manufacturers, and suppliers about the issues involved. The mainstream media, such as the NY Times, will probably side with the corporate owners of intellectual property, and the blogs, the small indie manufacturers and the natural products users will probably side with the Earth.

I guess I've turned this into a populist issue.  Any comments?