USDA to Redefine Organic

"A California lawsuit highlights the problems consumers have faced in the confusing regulatory terrain of organic and natural personal care products.

Consumers have had only piecemeal and incomplete regulation to guide them. But government agencies and other organizations are taking steps to improve public safety.

As one maker of personal products said, "It's a year of reckoning for the industry."

On May 29, state Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a lawsuit under Proposition 65 against four companies with "natural" personal care product lines containing the chemical 1,4-dioxane, a known carcinogen.

The four companies named in the lawsuit are Avalon Natural Products, Beaumont Products Inc., NutriBiotic and Whole Foods Market California Inc."

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