As http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/cosmetics/cosmetics_p... (among many other sources) points out, we do not have good regulation of the cosmetics industry. Which is kind of scary, because the cosmetics industry is deliberately seeking biologically active stuff, and smearing it all over people. Stuff that, in her case, does things like change your natural skin color.
What else does it do? We don't really know. We do know that a lot of these substances can cause cancer. We know that cosmetics mimic biologically active stuff in our body that could do other things. We know it has not been studied.
The last point is important. As http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/a... makes clear, the situation right now is, "The jury is out, we don't have data." But I'd be firmly on the side of, "When you're deliberately trying to get the body to interact with biologically active stuff, it is just a question of time until you succeed..disastrously."
I really don't know what's worse, cosmetic companies putting whatever they want or this exaggeration of risks
Among that list of "dangerous substances" we have: talc, silica (sand).
Exaggerated alarmism and "think of the children" mentality. I'm sure there's some people that die after consuming Vitamin C supplements, but that doesn't mean it is 'dangerous'.
Do you know what else is carcinogenic? Sunscreen. Of course, standing in the sun without it is more carcinogenic.
Living is the leading cause of cancer. Of course, not smoking, not standing in the sun too much and keeping away from radioactive sources help.
I baked like a lobster once after spending too much time on a boat without any sunscreen. I was extremely concerned about the cancer risk and was surprised to come across this in the wikipedia article on sunburn:
...if sunscreen penetrates into the skin, it promotes indirect DNA damage, which causes the most lethal form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma. This form of skin cancer is rare, but it causes 75% of all skin cancer-related deaths.
So, while the sunburn you get without wearing sunscreen technically causes more cancer, it is of the mild and nonfatal kind. Now I'm left with one more dilemma added to good vs. bad cholesterol, omega-3 vs. omega-6, natural vs. alkali-processed cocoa, etc.
And yet, athletes who constantly subject their body to mechanical damage, have a much lower incidence of cancer than the general population. Yes, there are a lot of confounding factors and it is hard to tell what causes what.
But there is also a lot of evidence for hormesis - the idea that small amounts of bad stuff is good for you; a small amounts of alcohol daily is better than no alcohol at all, and better than exactly same cumulative amount consumed weekly. And I assume the same thing goes for sun, and mechanical damage, although I'm not familiar with the literature.
Even in the same age range? I imagine most athletes are in ages 16-35, where getting cancer is pretty rare (save for some inherited ones) and should be equal for all occupations and lifestyles.
I'm not intimately familiar with the data, but results hold among multiple studies that, controlled for age, lifestyle, occupation, and just about any other parameter anyone ever controls for, athletes have lower rates of cancer, and professional athletes have significantly lower rates of cancer (although, that makes "occupation" a variable you can't control for, and it's hard to isolate many other factors, because e.g. those people almost never smoke, and almost always eat healthy. But as much as can be controlled, it seems like sport confers an advantage against cancer, despite subjecting a lot of tissues to repeating and continuous damage).
Statistics is confusing though.
It's possible that people who are less likely to get cancer (for whatever reason) are more likely to be better at sports, thus more likely to be pro athletes; and with the right base rates, it might mean that pro athletes are more likely to not get cancer BECAUSE people who are less likely to get cancer are often athletes. No study that I'm aware of ever tried that angle, and I'm not sure anyone ever collected the right data to try.
" I was extremely concerned about the cancer risk and was surprised to come across this in the wikipedia article on sunburn:"
This sounds like you're reading the article incorrectly perhaps? The sunscreen isn't causing DNA damage in and of itself, it prevents one form of severe harm and leaves others intact. Don't go in the sun unclothed if you want to avoid cancer.
"Now I'm left with one more dilemma"
It's not a dilemma. It's always a bad idea to get long exposures of sunlight if you can avoid it.
There's a difference between stopping progress forever and expecting companies to perform some kind of human safety tests before bringing products to market.
I do....I know this person personally. She is duplicitous and ethically bankrupt. I have seen studies done years ago supposedly on some of the things she has developed and their efficacy but nothing in the last decade pretty much. The people commenting with skepticism on her credentials earlier in this thread are getting close to the mark with their assumptions. If you dig deeper on her a lot of claims fall apart. It sickens me she is getting all this exposure and publicity.
I vote for recognizing clear risks, and taking appropriate steps to mitigate them up front. If you're deliberately trying to put biologically active stuff into millions of people, it is just a question of time before the law of unintended consequences hits you. Your desire to sell more effective skin whitening creams does not, in my books, mean that you should ignore the possibility that your beautifier can make people sick. And if you're in doubt, I want you to err on the side of safety.
Of course if you're selling something that we have good evidence is both acceptably safe and makes people look better, then the more power to you. But that's not, by her admission, the position that she is probably in.
What makes you think she doesn't have good evidence that her product is both acceptably safe and makes people look better? I re-read that portion of TFA and nothing rang my bell.
Based on the article, she's a pioneer in using new biological pathways for a cosmetic effect. You don't get to be first if you're trying to study safety, and that industry as a whole does not pay much attention to safety.
Therefore I find it extremely likely that she has evidence of biological effect in your body's cells, and has not done research on unexpected possible side effects in the same cells that she's impacting.
Oh that's brilliant. If she is a pioneer then she is automatically pronounced guilty, and the people who come and share her work with much less risk are to get the benefits.
I see so much enterpreneur spirit in your comments on HN that I am speechless.
Is this your life choice as well? Looking for people who innovate, bash them over their mistakes and then steal their good results?
>The vast majority of mankind do not have safe and enjoyable life.
My sentiments exactly.
>The reason for that is not enough progress.
No, the reason for that is not enough political action for solving that.
It's not like we don't have enough food, resources of technology to solve all of those problems. And it's not like any new technology is applied to solving them.
People are dying (by the millions) by problems that can be solved by 200 and 300 year old technology.
I tried looking list of people who have received honorary doctorate degrees from Harvard but couldn't find the entire list. But it is not in the summary list they have. (All this additional info from here: http://www.chandallc.com/index.php?p=1_4_About)
Ms. Zaveri received a Masters degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Subsequent graduate studies were undertaken at California Polytechnic University (“Cal Tech”)
Since when California Polytechnic University is called Cal Tech? Isn't that abbreviation used for "California Institute of Technology (http://caltech.edu)?
Searching for California Polytechnic University shows "Cal Poly" or "California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA (www.calpoly.edu).
Update: Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling), Linus Pauling was at Caltech in the 1927–1963 period and does not indicate he was there in the later stage of his life (nineties). Nor does it say that he was ever associated with CalPoly. At least this part of the Ms. Zaveri's story seems suspicious to me.
She was lonesome, without a child and I became her daughter who she started raising instead of me helping her. She gave me $30,000 one day and said: “I want you to go to Harvard.”
I was more surprised when I found out that Freddie Mercury (vocalist for Queen) spent much of his childhood between Africa & India [1], moving to the UK only after the age of 17 under trying circumstances.
Don't go by it's website, which hasn't been given a facelift in at least 6 or 7 years. However, having been a subscriber of Telegraph (India) for over a decade, I can say that it is not often inaccurate. It's the leading English daily (combined sales of #2 and #3 are less than Telegraph's) in Eastern part of India.
A true Slumdog millionaire.
Not quiet the same, as she comes from a wealthy family. She was running away from the social pressure of getting married and ended up with what followed. [NB: Nothing to take away from what she achieved, I am just responding to the term Slumdog Millionaire used in this context]
What we should look for in the article is simply "the virtue of will power." At least thats what i will. Does anyone really have the time to doubt and investigate the bullshit doubts. She may be a schemer, i don't care, but her determination and conviction is what attracts me and that's what i or anybody else should take away from this article.
And i gotta say hailing from Calcutta (now Kolkata) and becoming what she is now, really Really take balls of titanium.
I was searching for a better word. I thought of pioneering but it was too tame, swashbuckling but it was too far out. Can you suggest something better? I mean they are go-getters and bending the boundaries of the system.
Is this actually statistically true? Wikipedia says it's the third largest metro region in India. Apart from outliers providing anecdotes, what's the reason to say people from this particular city are exceptional pioneers and "bend the boundaries"?
West Bengal in general is characterized by such people and Calcutta is like the center of West Bengal like Paris and France. They tend to be much more into the arts and culture. Bengali, the local language is very sweet. If you hear it it sounds like they are singing. e.g. Rabindranath Tagore.
Wow! By this metric if you can't find my life's story on Google, I must be fake. And, pari passu, anything you find about me on Google must be not fake. Unless, of course, your post was an attempt at trolling... In which case, I must admit, you've succeeded. ;-)
> By this metric if you can't find my life's story on Google, I must be fake
Thank you. By writing this comment you just proved the statement I made above.
Did I say I couldn't find details about her on Google? On the contrary, I found enough evidence while doing a simple Google search to come to a reasonable conclusion. If I can't find your story I would reserve my judgement.
> Companies with single shareholders
> Cal Poly and Caltech
> Shitty websites for companies supplying important formulations to the likes of Estee Lauder
and many more..
Please avoid using the word 'Troll' casually without concrete evidence.
Except for most musicians, actors, actors turned prostitutes, lawyers who are waiters, near-homeless programmers who read HN, startup employees who got screwed by finance people, etc.
;) I'm just saying there might be other factors: like the industry you work in, your interests, govt subsidization of your industry, saturation/supply/demand, etc. Someone interested in makeup is going to have a different life than someone interested in nuclear physics. There are some poor physics graduates who worked for 10 years in research VS. upper-middle class make-up artists.
It is surprisingly easy to end up like that, no matter what your qualifications. Go to a homeless person and ask them to tell you their story for some food and coffee, prepare to have your worldview shattered.
It's very easy to become homeless when you get the 1-2 punches of illness and divorce. A friend of mine went from riches to rags within a year that way.
>>That is why they call America the Land of Opportunity. If you work hard enough, you dreams will come true here.
What?
This woman is from India, and trust me India of 2013 is nothing unlike the India of 1980s or early 1990's. Long gone are those days where one had to leave India and go to somewhere in the west to have a worth while life. You can pretty much be anything you want to be in modern day India.
And by the way if you work hard 'enough', your dreams will come true anywhere!
> And by the way if you work hard 'enough', your dreams will come true anywhere!
Why do people keep repeating this? What is the empirical evidence for this statement outside of some anecdotes? I have seen so many counter-examples in my life...
Yeah but this girl got two lucky breaks , She found an old lady willing to give her 30,000 dollars to go to Harvard , and there she ended up meeting Linus Pauling .
She was also willing to do the grunt work -- clean petri dishes. How many people here would be willing to join a start-up as a janitor? She would have been -- because she knew any in is an in. And in is always damn better than out.
Depends on the dream, for many people's dream it's very unlikely.
I always thought Land of Opportunity just meant if you work hard enough you'll land a mediocre job that pays well and will be able to provide a decent level of support for your family.(although unfortunately that is not always the case)
Well that's not true. Hard work alone is usually never enough and certainly not in the 21st century US. If I was dirt poor and looking to emmigrate I would probably try to get somewhere where they take better care of less fortunate and where they offer equal opportunity regarding education, health care and so on to everyone. If I was looking for the American dream I wouldn't go to America.
I think it's easier to go from nothing to absurdly successful in the US than almost anywhere else. It's probably harder to go from nothing to the middle class in the US than it is in Europe or other developed countries. It's also getting harder to remain in the middle class in the US than in e.g. Germany. It may be easier to go from middle class to 300-500k/yr in the US than in most other places, too (still difficult, but easier here).
The big area where the US is failing people is at the low end. Multi-generational poverty, as well as people who had 1-2 generations of moderate success dropping back to poverty.
As http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/cosmetics/cosmetics_p... (among many other sources) points out, we do not have good regulation of the cosmetics industry. Which is kind of scary, because the cosmetics industry is deliberately seeking biologically active stuff, and smearing it all over people. Stuff that, in her case, does things like change your natural skin color.
What else does it do? We don't really know. We do know that a lot of these substances can cause cancer. We know that cosmetics mimic biologically active stuff in our body that could do other things. We know it has not been studied.
The last point is important. As http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/a... makes clear, the situation right now is, "The jury is out, we don't have data." But I'd be firmly on the side of, "When you're deliberately trying to get the body to interact with biologically active stuff, it is just a question of time until you succeed..disastrously."