This spring resulted in real momentum across our work. We’ve launched a new market-based campaign advancing beauty justice, expanded Protect Our Breasts, and made significant progress on state legislation addressing microplastics, PFAS, and safer food packaging.
From a sold-out Luminary Gala to new scientific insights and recent news coverage, this first-quarter update offers a snapshot of the impact our supporters are driving and where we’re headed next.
#GetTheFormaldehydeOut
Our beauty justice campaign, Get the Formaldehyde Out, is delivering results! This bold, high-visibility initiative demands the elimination of formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen still legally used in beauty products, from hair products disproportionately marketed to Black women. With support from Rose Foundation For Communities and the Environment, we launched a high-visibility billboard in Los Angeles reaching more than 500,000 riders, alongside a fireside chat featuring Supervisor Holly Mitchell, Los Angeles County; Hannah Diop, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Sienna Naturals; Felicia Leatherwood, celebrity stylist; and Jasmine McDonald, PhD, epidemiologist and professor at Columbia University.
We also launched a digital campaign hub and coordinated a national advocacy push, generating letters to HHS Secretary RFK Jr. With a potential media reach of 320 million, the campaign is rapidly expanding public awareness and policy pressure.
Visit our campaign’s newly designed landing page, or read our exclusive cover story in Essence.
Protect Our Breasts: Expo West + New Look!
Protect Our Breasts attended National Products Expo West in March, marking the program’s 27th year participating in the premier event for the natural and organic products industry. Student leaders engaged prospective partners, strengthened relationships with over 120 existing partners, and began developing new collaborations for the year ahead.
We’re also excited to share the launch of our newly redesigned website, featuring a refreshed brand and updated logo. See our new website or give us a follow on Instagram.
BCPP in the News
BCPP continues to be a leading voice in national conversations on toxic exposures and breast cancer prevention. Recent media highlights include:
- Following CEO Suzanne Price’s interview with Spotlight on America, Janet Nudelman, Senior Director of Program and Policy, was interviewed about the growing movement among hospitals to ditch toxic chemicals in IV equipment.
- Consumer Reports quoted Janet many times in an article about hazardous ingredients in cosmetic products and how to avoid them.
- An excellent UCSF article highlighted the work of our partners and included a shout-out to BCPP.
- BCPP is proud to have signed onto an amicus brief advocating for state-level efforts to warn the public about health hazards associated with pesticides. The accompanying press release features a quote by Janet Nudelman.
- Two years after BCPP filed a petition seeking to eliminate four carcinogenic additives in foods, the FDA announced that it would grant the petition in part, revoking its approvals for benzene, trichloroethylene (TCE), and ethylene chloride.
BPA and Food Packaging Movement in California
Our bill, AB 1148, made it through the California Assembly and was held in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee due to questions about the safety of a replacement for bisphenol A (BPA) in food can linings called tetramethyl bisphenol F (or TMBPF). Our team is carefully reviewing the science and working toward language that all partners support. Stay tuned for updates on AB 1148 later this year, and take action now to fight for safer food packaging.
Bisphenols in Thermal Receipt Paper
BCPP is co-sponsoring AB 1604, a California bill to ban the entire class of bisphenols from thermal receipt paper. Receipts are a significant source of exposure because bisphenols can be absorbed through the skin, posing particular risk to cashiers who handle them all day. BCPP has testified in support of AB 1604, authored by Assemblywoman Catherine Stefani, in both the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials and Judiciary Committees, where it passed unanimously with bipartisan support. The bill now heads to Appropriations, with a vote on the Assembly floor anticipated by the end of May. Help us move the needle by taking action today.
Luminary Gala on Thursday, April 23
Thanks to our incredible community, we surpassed our annual celebratory gala fundraising goal and raised over $1 million in support of breast cancer prevention! This remarkable milestone will directly advance our work to stop breast cancer before it starts.
It was truly an unforgettable evening celebrating prevention, community, and the trailblazers driving this movement forward. Our honorees included Representative Jan Schakowsky, longtime champion of safe cosmetics and health-protective legislation; Greg and Joanne Starkman, Founders of Innersense Organic Beauty, for their leadership in creating safer personal care products without harmful ingredients; and Dr. Janet Gray, accepting on behalf of BCPP’s Science Advisory Panel, whose expertise guides our evidence-based work. We were also deeply moved by our youth presenters, whose voices underscored the urgency of prevention and the importance of protecting future generations.
We are especially grateful to our Luminary Gala Co-Chairs, BCPP Board Member Parul Somani and Smita Trivedi, for their incredible leadership in making the evening such a success—and to all our sponsors and partners in prevention who are part of this important work.
BLOOM in the Community
BCPP has been awarded grant funding from the California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP) to lead BLOOM (Breast Cancer Risk Literacy & Outreach for Organized Farmworker Mobilization), a focused environmental health literacy initiative for farmworker women in Kern and Ventura Counties. Through this work, BCPP is partnering with Líderes Campesinas—an organization of fierce farmworker women leaders across California—along with Dr. Borsika Rabin of UC San Diego and California Nurses for Environmental Health & Justice. Together, we are working to empower farmworker communities with the knowledge and tools to reduce exposures linked to breast cancer risk.
After conducting co-creation and co-learning sessions with our partners, the project will produce impactful, thoughtfully designed educational and art materials to share with the community.
Science Spotlight
BCPP’s science department was invited to co-author a segment to the Lancet’s Initiative, Countdown: Tracking Health and Climate Change. Focusing on the growing body of evidence linking petrochemical and plastic production to elevated breast cancer risk, our team is examining health hazards associated with ethylene oxide (EtO), a highly carcinogenic compound used in high volumes in plastics manufacturing. This builds on recent evidence that the manufacture of virgin plastic was identified as the single biggest driver of the health effects from plastics. We look forward to sharing our article with our community later this year.
Help sustain our work!
We are a 501c3 nonprofit funded by people like you. You make this lifesaving work possible.
Please give generously today so we can continue to push prevention forward, together.
