Editor's Note: The following submission arrived at our news desk in July 2008, in reference to the April 2008 Compass, "In Effect." Click here to reference that text.
Dear Editor,
In reference to your April Compass, “In Effect,” you are saying what I think needs to be said. Cosmetics and pharmaceuticals have legal definitions that are years old. Perhaps one way the industry can balance these two opposing “forces,” as you refer to them, is by not considering them forces at all. I suggest calling them legislator-invoked, old boundaries.
With pharmaceutical efficacy for “cosmetics” becoming an escalating demand by the public, and our industry seriously taking up the challenge under the banner of “cosmeceuticals,” it is our duty to educate legislators to define a middle and perhaps somewhat overlapping ground between the two.
Within this area is where we could truly access skin biochemistry advances and not become mired in the quicksand of “Is it a drug?” or diluting claims to a lowered “cosmetic” level. Scientific reality speaks, so let us generate pro-active educational initiatives to legislatively and thoughtfully define cosmeceutical and do it in an industry-government partnership to bring it into legal existence.
In my opinion, if we are not ahead of the curve soon, we will inevitably be affected on the receiving end by actions of the EU or other legislative bodies. It is a time of new beginnings. Let us embrace them as leaders and point to new directions to deal with the foreseeable reality.
-Anonymous, NY
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