Formaldehyde Officially Listed as Carcinogen (Cancer Causing Agent)
Formaldehyde has long been heavily suspected, and mostly accepted as a likely candidate to be a carcinogenic agent, which means that excessive and consistent exposure can likely lead to a much higher risk of several types of cancers.
Formaldehyde is actually used in so many common consumer products that it’s scary, and it’s very hard to totally avoid exposure to this toxin. Formaldehyde is most commonly known for use in cadaver preservation, and I most commonly associated it with my biology classes and dissection in high school. I remember the smell, it was actually quite nauseating and filled the entire room.
But these days, the dangerous formaldehyde is used for a variety of products, including plywood, pressed board, and a variety of other woods that are used to build homes today. The smell that new homes have is likely even partly due to formaldehyde! We breathe in these fumes a lot more than we’d like to think, in other words.
Formaldehyde is also used in nail polish, and has long been a controversial part of some hair straightening and curling products used in salons across the world, most notably the controversial Brazilian Keratin straightening treatments that have taken the beauty world by storm for their abilities to straighten the hair in the humid summers.
In fact, it is worrisome that hair stylists come in contact with this substance so much. The other profession that has frequent contact with formaldehyde are those in the embalming industry. Rare cancers have been found among this population, and formaldehyde is thought to be the culprit.
What can you do then, if formaldehyde has so permeated the environment around us? Well, you can certainly support the companies that make products that are explicity labeled formaldehyde free, or labeled with U.L.E.F or N.A.F, which means ultra low emitting formaldehyde, and no added formaldehyde, respectively.
We, as consumers, can also push for more companies to make products that contain ultra low levels of, or no formaldehyde at all. We can also reduce our contact with these products by being aware of what we are buying, and avoiding products that are known to have high levels of this carcinogen.