From: The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) – WHMIS After GHS

…Soon WHMIS will be adopting international classification and labelling rules as developed by the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS). This WHMIS After GHS: Preparing for Change publication will help guide you through
the anticipated changes due to the adoption of these new rules. It will help your organization understand the new requirements and help make a successful transition to WHMIS After GHS…

A 42-page document describing the anticipated changes to WHMIS after the GHS principles are adopted is available for purchase on the CCOHS website.

Click on the links for more information.

Relevant Nexreg Compliance Links: CCCR compliance, WHMIS MSDS authoring, MSDS authoring

Earlier this month, Nexreg launched a free video series titled ‘Nexreg on Compliance’ which addresses hazard communication (HazCom) issues for jurisdictions such as Canada, the United States and the European Union.  The videos can be found on Nexreg’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/Nexreg and at Nexreg’s news blog at http://www.nexreg.com/regulatorynews/index.php

Today, a new video has been released:

• Canadian Chemical Product Labels – CCCR vs. WHMIS

Nexreg plans on adding a new video every Friday.  The questions answered in the video series will come from viewer requests, so please send your questions to info@nexreg.com.

To learn more about Nexreg Compliance please visit www.nexreg.com or call our toll-free line at (866)361-3032.

From Food Safety News:

The Toxic Chemicals Safety Act, H.R. 5820, introduced last week by Reps. Bobby L. Rush (D-IL) and Henry Waxman (D-CA), seeks to reform the federal Toxic Substances Control Act, enacted under President Ford in 1976.

According to the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based consumer and environmental advocacy group, the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act would make a number of significant changes in the current approach to chemical regulation, including:

-Establishing a framework to ensure that all chemicals to which the American people are exposed are reviewed for safety and restricted where necessary to protect public health and the environment.

-Requiring the chemical industry to develop and provide to the Environmental Protection Agency essential safety data, and improving EPA’s authority to compel safety testing where necessary.

-Ensuring that non-confidential information about chemicals submitted to EPA is readily available to the public and that critical confidential information is shared among regulators, state officials, and workers in the industry.

-Establishing an expedited process enabling EPA to reduce exposure to chemicals that are known to be persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic.

-Promoting research to advance understanding of children’s vulnerability to the harms of chemicals.

Click on the links for more information.

Relevant Nexreg Compliance Links: CPSC compliance, OSHA MSDS authoring, MSDS authoring

From City.com:

California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown announced on Friday that it had settled a lawsuit against the final two artificial turf companies it had sued in order to reduce children’s lead exposure in artificial turf fields.

On September 3, 2008, the Attorney General, and the Los Angeles City Attorney and the Solano County District Attorney sued three artificial turf companies -  Field Turf, USA,  AstroTurf,  LLC and Beaulieu, LLC -  for violating Proposition 65  the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 and for unlawful business practices. The complaint alleged that the defendants failed to provide clear and reasonable warnings that their artificial turf products contain lead, and that use of, and contact with, those products resulted in exposure to lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer and reproductive harm.

The complaint further alleged that under Proposition 65,” businesses must provide persons with a “clear and reasonable warning” before  exposing individuals to these chemicals, and  accused the defendants failing to do so. The complaint  also alleged that these acts constitute unlawful acts in violation of the Unfair Competition Law.

The settlement requires Georgia-based Beaulieu, LLC, the country’s largest supplier of artificial turf to retailers, and Field Turf, USA, the nation’s largest maker and installer of artificial turf fields to pay $285,000 and $212,500 in civil penalties respectively and to reformulate their products to reduce lead levels to negligible amounts.

Yesterday’s settlement requires Beaulieu and FieldTurf to change their products so that they contain less than 50 parts per million lead. Lab results found some artificial turf products with more than 5,000 parts per million, which is more than 10 times state and federal guidelines for content in children’s products.

Click on the links for more information.

Relevant Nexreg Compliance Links: CPSC compliance, OSHA MSDS authoring, MSDS authoring

From Calgary Examiners:

Europe has moved one step closer in protecting kids from the harmful effects of artificial food coloring.  Starting this week, foods and drinks that contain six artificial food colorings linked to hyperactivity in children will be required to contain a warning label.

The UK’s Food Standards Agency released this statement about the changes:
An EU-wide health warning must now be put on any food or drink that still contains the colours that are thought to cause hyperactivity in some children. This is following the Southampton Study, commissioned by the Agency, which suggested a possible link between consumption of six food colours and hyperactivity in children.

The colours are Tartrazine (E102), Quinoline Yellow (E104), Sunset Yellow (E110), Carmoisine (E122), Ponceau 4R (E124) and Allura Red (E129).

Any food and drink containing any of the six colours, except drinks with more than 1.2% alcohol, will now have to provide a warning on the label that the colour ‘may have effects on activity and attention in children’. This becomes mandatory across the EU from 20 July 2010. Food and drink produced before 20 July 2010 can continue to be marketed, so it may take time for newly labelled products to appear on some store shelves.

These additives are known by different names in the United States.  Three of them are widely used in the U.S.  On labels here, they are known as:
•    FD and C Yellow 5
•    FD and C Yellow 6
•    FD and C Red 40

All three dyes are widely believed to be carcinogenic (cancer causing), as well.

Click on the links for more information.
Relevant Nexreg Compliance Links: REACH compliance, EU SDS authoring, SDS authoring

From the US Food and Drug Administration:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences National Toxicology Program (NTP) and the National Institute of Health Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) welcome the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the Tox21 collaboration. The Tox21 collaboration merges federal agency resources (research, funding and testing tools) to develop ways to more effectively predict how chemicals will affect human health and the environment. The collaboration was established in 2008 to develop models that will be able to better predict how chemicals will affect humans. FDA will provide additional expertise and chemical safety information to improve current chemical testing methods.

“Using the best science to protect human health and the environment is the ultimate goal of this collaboration,” said Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the NTP.  “The addition of FDA to this effort allows biomedical researchers and regulatory scientists to work together side by side to more rapidly screen chemicals and find more effective ways to protect the health of the public.  The NTP is pleased to bring its toxicology and coordination expertise to bear on making Tox21 a reality.”

Click on the links for more information.

Relevant Nexreg Compliance Links: CPSC compliance, OSHA MSDS authoring, MSDS authoring

From the Bureau Veritas Group:

The French National Assembly adopted a Law on 12 July 2010 (loi n°2010-788 du 12 juillet 2010 portant engagement national pour l’environnement) (Grenelle 2 Law) relative to the National engagement for the environment. It was published in the French Official Journal of 13 July and adopts several measures related to consumer products and environmental concerns.

Key Points:

Quality of Inside Air
Starting in January 2012, building products, furniture, wall and floor coverings, paints and varnishes that release certain volatile polluting agents into the air, will require mandatory labelling. (A decree will specify the products that are covered by the mandatory labelling.)

Environmental Labelling
Beginning in July 2011, a one year experiment will begin to progressively inform the consumer about:
• the content in “carbon equivalent” products and their packaging, and
• the consumption of natural resources, or impact of these products, on the natural environment during their life cycle.

Follow the links for more information.

Relevant Nexreg Compliance Links: REACH compliance, EU SDS authoring, SDS authoring

From The FDA Department of Health and Human Services

The International Cooperation on Cosmetic Regulation (ICCR) held its fourth annual meeting (ICCR-4) July 13-15, 2010 in Toronto, Canada to discuss issues related to cosmetics and cosmetic-like drug/quasi-drug products.  ICCR is an international group of cosmetic regulatory authorities from Canada, the European Union, Japan, and the United States.  This multilateral framework maintains the highest level of global consumer protection, while minimizing barriers to international trade. As part of this meeting, the regulators entered into a dialogue with cosmetics industry trade associations from each region.

The meeting focused on the following topics:

* Alternative Test Methods
* Cosmetics Labeling
* Involvement of Interested Parties at ICCR
* Nanotechnology
* Standard Operating Procedures of Working Groups
* Sunscreens
* Trace Contaminants

The next ICCR meeting will be held in Europe in 2011…

Click on the links for more information.

Relevant Nexreg Compliance Links: CPSC compliance, OSHA MSDS authoring, MSDS authoring

From OHS Online:

The 20th meeting of the UNECE Sub-Committee of Experts on the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals, also known as GHS, will take place Dec. 7-9, 2010, in Geneva…

Dec. 1, 2010, is also significant because it is the first of two phase-in implementation deadlines for REACH and the date when companies in the European Union must apply CLP, the new European Regulation on Classification, Labelling and Packaging, to chemical substances. A second deadline in June 2015 is set for applying CLP to chemical mixtures. The CLP rule sets a new system in place throughout the European Union for classifying and labeling chemicals that is based on GHS.

At the Geneva meeting, Australia is scheduled to present a final report summarizing the GHS classification lists maintained by each country, their plans for lists to support GHS implementation, how various sectors in different countries use classification lists now, and what future needs there are for such lists.

The sub-committee’s June 30-July 2, 2010, meeting showed how GHS implementation is advancing around the world. It became mandatory for chemical substances in the Republic of Korea on July 1, 2010, and will be mandatory for mixtures there on July 1, 2013. Switzerland allowed consumer products classified and labeled in accordance with GHS to be sold as of July 1, 2010, but its reclassification of substances will not be in force until December 2012. Serbia adopted a law implementing GHS on June 29, 2010, that sets a transition period for CLP implementation ending Sept. 1, 2011, for substances and June 1, 2015, for mixtures. Two standards implementing GHS in China took effect May 1, 2010, and a system for coordinating GHS implementation by government and industry is being developed there. Australia expects to release a GHS implementation regulation for public comment in September 2010, and in the United States, OSHA is now drafting its Hazard Communication final rule implementing GHS.

Click on the links for more information.

Relevant Nexreg Compliance Links: REACH compliance, GHS SDS authoring, SDS authoring

From AOL News:

Most Americans use about 10 personal care products each day. The toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant, baby powder and other things that we routinely douse or slather on our bodies expose us to at least 100 different chemicals. Many of these, public health experts say, have been linked to adverse health effects like cancer, birth defects and learning disabilities.
Under the current absence of oversight, it’s legal for cosmetics companies to use virtually any ingredient with no pre-market safety assessment.

But that may begin to change as two Democratic lawmakers — Reps. Jan Schakowsky from Illinois and Edward Markey from Massachusetts — introduced the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 today. If passed, it will be the first meaningful effort to give the FDA the teeth, tools and mandate to protect consumers from harmful products that are used by almost everyone.

Some of what the legislation calls for includes:
•Ingredients linked to cancer and birth defects being phased out of personal care products.
•Health-based safety standards for all ingredients in cosmetics that includes protections for children and other vulnerable populations.
•Required listing on product labels of all chemical ingredients in personal care products, including fragrances and contaminants.
•Worker access to information about hazardous chemicals they may encounter in the manufacturing of personal care products.
•Adequate funding and support of the FDA Office of Cosmetics and Colors to pay for this oversight of the cosmetics industry.

In 1938, Congress passed the Federal Food, Drugs and Cosmetics Act. Its provisions required new products to be shown safe before marketing. That pretty much never happened with cosmetics.

“This legislation would create a system that people think already exists — one that requires companies to assess chemicals for safety and disclose all the ingredients in their products,” Stacy Malkan, co-founder of Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, told AOL News.

Click on the links for more information.

Relevant Nexreg Compliance Links: CPSC compliance, OSHA MSDS authoring, MSDS authoring