VIJAYAWADA: A study released by Toxics Link, a Delhi-based environmental research organisation, has found that imported skin whitening creams have ‘dangerously’ high levels of mercury, a heavy metal and neurotoxin. For the study titled “Dark truth of skin whitening creams: Presence of mercury in skin whitening creams”, cream samples were collected from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala and Delhi.
As Vijayawada was one of the places from where the samples were collected, the study report was presented before the media here on Thursday. Programme coordinators Alka Dubey and Dr. Omkar Gaonkar explained that samples of 15 skin whitening creams of different brands manufactured in India, Pakistan and Philippines were collected from different cities, and tested at Shriram Institute for Industrial Research, New Delhi using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) by a standardised method.
“It was detected that six out of the 15 samples had mercury. Five of them had alarming levels of mercury presence, ranging from 4000 to 14000 ppm. The study also revealed that all the six samples containing mercury were manufactured in Pakistan, according to the labels on the packaging. Moreover, the test results revealed that all the samples manufactured in India had mercury below detectable limits,” Alka said.
“It is disturbing that the mercury concentration in some of the imported samples were found to be as high as 1000 times more than the current permissible limit of 1 ppm. It is also to be noted that a previous study in 2019 had also reported high mercury concentration in the same brands,” she added. In India, manufacturing and import of cosmetics containing mercury compounds are completely prohibited; but unintentional mercury is allowed up to 1 ppm. “The present study is an indicator that the mercury-containing products are still available in the Indian market,” Alka and Omkar added.