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A comment on Benzene detected in many sunscreen products. Parent comment

Re:Benzene detected in many sunscreen products by abfan1127 on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @02:01PM (#27293913)
why would they add benzene to products? how does adding it make it cheaper to increase profits? Its not like some shady benzene dealer pays J&J to sprinkle it in, but only at really low levels (2-6 ppm). Its not like they chose benzene as an active ingredient over zinc oxide.

Engineers are asked all the time on ways to save money. Did they skip a processing step? is their process control not optimized? Of course they are pressured to improve. Lower costs drive down consumer prices and increase profits (thanks 401k).

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/9279...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Benzene detected in many sunscreen products by an_opabinia on Wednesday May 26, 2021 @02:27PM (#27294256)
They don’t add anything to their products. Someone in China submits the lowest bid to make the thing, passing on sweatshop savings to J&J. So how then does the manufacturer make a profit? By skimping on the raw materials.

The root cause isn’t the supply chain or transparency or QA or whatever. It’s the attractiveness of too-good-to-be-true deals.

[ Parent | on HN ]