Procter & Gamble, the largest personal care product company in the world, spends millions using Breast Cancer Awareness Month to advertise its products while refusing to remove cancer-causing chemicals from those same products. Major brands such as Tide, Pantene, Herbal Essence, and CoverGirl are packed with carcinogens and sold to customers without so much as a warning on the label.

Meanwhile, the multi-billion dollar company will only donate $100,000 this year to fighting breast cancer. For P&G this is a marketing gimmick – the company has never made a commitment to protecting its customers from the known carcinogens in its own products and has hidden the danger from them. This month, while the spotlight is on breast cancer, we can hghlight P&G's role in contributing to it and other cancers, ensuring that the company makes a real commitment to protecting its customer's health.

Dozens of potentially dangerous chemicals can be found across the spectrum of P&G products. Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), recognized as a carcinogen by the state of California, is one such chemical used worldwide. The US National Institutes of Health reports that BHA is "reasonably anticipated" to be a human carcinogen. By putting chemicals linked to cancer in P&G products, the corporation is running a dangerous experiment on human health.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has reviewed the scientific literature on carcinogens and found cancer-causing chemicals in Procter & Gamble products including shampoos, lotions, cosmetics, and hair dyes. The CSC cross-referenced this research with authoritative bodies, including the California Proposition 65 list of chemicals, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and the National Toxicology Program (NTP).

Many of the chemicals P&G uses are banned in various places around the world, but the company simpky ships its old, dangerous formula to countries with poor regulations. We are calling on P&G to take action now to end the health threat to people worldwide. There is no reason for Procter & Gamble to put cancer-causing chemicals in its personal beauty products when safer alternatives exist.

P&G has enormous influence over the market -- when Procter and Gamble makes a move on a carcinogen, the rest of the industry moves with it. P&G’s month-long promotion of breast cancer awareness allows it to rake in millions of dollars, which gives us an incredible opportunity.

P&G plasters its products in pink because that signals a powerful Story: the company cares about the health of its consumers, and that it’s on the right side of one of the major health battles of our time. By getting the Story out about P&G’s hypocrisy, we can pressure P&G into cleaning up its act for good. Together, we can help remove tons of toxins annually from the wastestream -- and from our bodies.