Are my cosmetics a health risk? Seeking straight answers to tricky questions

Lessons from the field of medicine could help provide clearer answers to questions about chemical safety, according to researchers. Are the chemicals in my baby's plastic bottle harmful? Can cosmetics cause cancer? Which pesticides are safe? The aim of scientific research is to answer questions like these, but what happens when two or more studies produce conflicting results? Since the 1990s medical science has relied upon a process called 'systematic review' as a means of weighing up the available evidence and coming up with a reliable answer. It saves time and resources, avoids unnecessary research and, in the case of medicine, saves lives. In a special issue of Environment International, guest edited by Lancaster University, a team of international scientists is now arguing for this approach to be taken up in chemical risk assessment in a bid to help give clearer answers to chemical controversies. Guest editor Paul Whaley of Lancaster University Environment Centre said: "When it comes to determining the risk which chemicals pose to human health and the planet, scientists sometimes struggle to come up with a clear answer because there is no universally accepted system for weighing up the available evidence. This used to be a problem for medicine until they began to introduce a new system for sifting through existing studies to come to a scientifically reliable answer to a particular question. "In the late '60s doctors thought that if you gave a pregnant woman expecting to give birth prematurely a dose of steroids, you could reduce respiratory illness in the infant.