Diane Sawyer's Scary Makeup

ABC News has run a segment spooking consumers about the deadly dangers of … makeup.  Naturally, the reporters in the segment, including former beauty queen Diane Sawyer and Jim Avila, report with faces full of … makeup.

Sawyer reports on the dangers of lipstick, while wearing bright red lipstick. “Startling,” warns Sawyer. “Chemicals!,” Avila threatens from the ABC makeup room.

Avila says lipstick contains lead but fails to note that the Food and Drug Administration has found less lead in lipstick than in drinking water and that there is consequently zero risk to health from wearing lipstick. Avila entirely omits these relevant facts from the ABC report. The entire segment seems lifted right off of left-wing talking points, save for a few seconds of content. Don’t use ingredients “if you can’t pronounce them,” warns Avila, appealing to the lowest consumer degree of stupidity.

ABC’s scare tactics come directly from talking points of the deceptively named Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a Soros-funded Astroturf network run by Stacy Malkan, former spokesperson for Ralph Nader’s Presidential campaign. Avila and Sawyer falsely refer to cosmetics as untested. This falsehood is regularly repeated by Malkan’s campaign, as cosmetics are extensively tested for safety.

In addition to water carriers at ABC News, Malkan enjoys powerful friends on Capitol Hill. They include Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who has introduced sweeping legislation to exert government control over the cosmetics industry and the products they sell. The so-called “Safe Cosmetics Act” would cost thousands of American jobs.

With unemployment so high, you would think politicians would oppose new job-killing regulations. But not Schakowsky. Her own district used to contain an Avon distribution facility.  With Schakowsky’s appetite to exercise government power over the industry, Avon closed the facility at the cost of 300 jobs. Even when it hurts their own constituents, some politicians are more interested in government control than a vibrant economy.