Five Industries CEH Holds (and Keeps) Accountable
Many of our leaders are trying to weaken regulatory oversight — even if that means dangerous products make it to the market. You’ve seen it in the news over the past 10 months:
- An executive order that forces federal agencies to repeal 10 existing regulations for every new one they introduce
- A requirement that federal agencies stop even proposing rules until a person the President has assigned reviews and approves them
- A directive to bypass requirements for the opportunity to comment to members of the public when the administration determines it is lawful
“Many people don’t realize how high the American quality of life is because of the competent and stable enforcement of regulations, and if that goes away a lot of lives are at risk,” the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Steve Cicala told The New York Times. “This affects airplane safety; baby formula safety; the safety of meat, vegetables, and packaged foods; the water you drink; how you get to work safely; and whether you’re safe in the workplace.”
These are unprecedented times, which makes our work together at the Center for Environmental Health even more critical to protecting your health and safety, as well as the health of our planet. There’s no doubt we’ve been very busy meeting this challenge. Our Consumer Protection Team has tested over 700 products, sent notices of violation to 249 companies, and entered into 15 court-approved settlements so far in 2025 alone. We couldn’t do it without your support. Thank YOU!
Help us hold (and keep) these industries accountable with a monthly gift.
We’re proud to have developed a multi-pronged approach that goes much further than just fining a company. We don’t want companies to just replace one toxic chemical for another when they’re caught breaking the law either.
To celebrate CEH’s 29th anniversary, let’s look at five industries we have transformed and still keep a close eye on to this day.
Five Industries CEH is Watching
1. Fighting flavored deception from e-cigarettes to nicotine pouches
CEH published a robust report detailing the dangers of e-cigarettes in 2015 – dispelling the illusion that e-cigarettes are a safe alternative to traditional cigarette smoking. We tested 97 e-cigarette and vaping products from stores in California and found that 88% of the companies’ products contained dangerous amounts of cancer-causing chemicals: formaldehyde and acetaldehyde.
CEH reached settlements with over 30 companies that failed to warn consumers of nicotine exposure, requiring them to add warnings to their products, as well as agreements with 13 companies to either reformulate their products or add warnings of the potential for exposure to carcinogenic chemicals. But most importantly, we convinced half the e-cigarette companies to adopt policies that would prevent youth consumption of their vaping products like never placing outdoor advertisements within 1,000 feet of schools and agreeing to not sell nicotine products in flavors targeted to appeal to minors.
The e-cigarette company Juul declined to adopt these policies to stop marketing to young people, but we didn’t give up. We retested Juul’s products in 2019 and found formaldehyde at levels that violated our agreement. This time, we were able to force Juul to agree to legally binding restrictions on youth marketing. The FDA finally banned Juul e-cigarettes in 2022. Unfortunately, the FDA just reversed the ban, but our 2019 settlement puts us in a good position to fight back if Juul violates anti-youth marketing policies in the future.
Youth e-cigarette usage has decreased since CEH’s 2019 settlement with Juul, but nicotine pouches are now in vogue. 480,000 middle and high school students regularly used nicotine pouches in 2024, despite a California law that retailers can no longer sell flavored varieties. CEH pursued legal action against the two largest brands of nicotine pouches because neither warned consumers about reproductive harm. Both brands added warnings as a result.
But we didn’t stop there. We identified six stores that sell flavored nicotine pouches despite being within one mile of a school. Over 45% of the smoke shops and gas stations CEH visited illegally sold fruit or candy-flavored products like cherry cola, bubblegum, and strawberry cheesecake. Three stores were selling products with 50 mg of nicotine per pouch — a lethal dose according to the CDC.
CEH’s Consumer Protection Team found a huge assortment of flavored nicotine pouches being sold within one mile of middle and high schools.
2. Cocamide DEA creeps back into shampoos sold in dollar stores
Cocamide DEA is a foaming agent used to thicken personal products like shampoo, but it’s also a carcinogen that requires a warning under Proposition 65. CEH’s lawsuit forced over 120 companies to eliminate cocamide DEA from their products and the market at large — or so we thought.
We recently rediscovered cocamide DEA in three products sold at dollar stores, which is especially concerning because dollar stores serve lower income shoppers, who should have the same access to safe products as anyone else. We sent notices to Family Dollar, Nuvel, and Clorix to demand that they remove cocamide DEA and reformulate their products to be safer.
3. Getting lead and cadmium out of jewelry for good
CEH filed the first legal action to stop the sale of lead-tainted jewelry in the U.S. in 2004 — which spurred the largest product recall in U.S. history! Lead exposure can cause irreversible damage to children’s brains, learning disabilities, and behavior problems.
We also found stunningly high levels of lead and cadmium in the supposedly sustainable “Urban Renewal” line from Urban Outfitters in 2023. Lead and cadmium exposure have been linked to cancer; kidney, bone, and lung damage; problems becoming pregnant; and difficulties maintaining pregnancy. We launched a petition to pressure Urban Outfitters to remove these toxic products from their stores, which succeeded when the company took the products off the market! But when we went back to Urban Outfitters this year, testing revealed lead and cadmium in some of their current products. We sent more notices to Urban Outfitters to get the lead and cadmium out of its products once and for all.
We reached a landmark agreement with Macy’s, Target, Walmart, and over 200 other companies to protect children from potentially fatal exposures of lead. Our legal settlement formed the basis for the tough lead in jewelry law adopted by California and was later enacted as part of a bipartisan federal law on lead in children’s jewelry products.
4. We’re pushing the industry to create a phenol-free receipt
When BPA was added to the Proposition 65 list of chemicals requiring a warning in California, we released a report on our findings from testing more than 100 receipts. While only five of the receipts we tested still contained BPA, most businesses switched from receipt paper with BPA to receipt paper with BPS — a close chemical cousin of BPA which may be just as harmful. Like BPA, BPS is another endocrine disruptor that can alter our body’s natural hormones with potentially harmful consequences for reproductive health, obesity, and diabetes.
It only takes 10 seconds of touching a receipt to exceed the safety threshold for BPS, which is especially concerning for retail workers who have to touch receipts regularly as part of their jobs. After BPS joined BPA on the Proposition 65 list of chemicals of concern, we started another round of testing receipts from 500 companies and have served nearly 200 with notices of violation for BPS exposure. When Dunkin’s coffee cup labels had the highest levels of BPS out of any adhesive label we tested, we launched a letter writing campaign that inspired more than 600 CEH members like you to write letters urging Dunkin’s parent company to require its restaurants to use phenol-free receipt paper.
We’re also working directly with receipt paper companies to develop safer standards for truly phenol-free receipt paper (made without BPA, BPS, or any other chemical cousins) so we can end this game of chemical whack-a-mole for good.
5. Setting a new precedent to get hex chrome out of leather
CEH issued notices to 100 leather footware and glove companies for violating Proposition 65 by exposing consumers to hexavalent chromium — the same chemical Erin Brockovich got out of her community’s drinking water. This compound gives chromed products their shine, but it also causes liver, kidney, and respiratory damage. The plating process — which involves dunking parts in a chemical bath — produces airborne emissions 500 times more toxic than diesel exhaust!
CEH worked with tanneries to implement manufacturing protocols that prevent the formation of hex chrome in chrome-tanned leather, like adding antioxidants during the tanning process. We’re pleased with the results of this first-of-its-kind lawsuit to clean up the leather industry.
This is CEH’s model in action: testing, litigation, and partnerships that turn data into change — transforming toxic markets into healthy ones and protecting families in every community across the country. The skills we have honed have paved the way for our defense of bedrock environmental legislation.