Executive summary: ‘prime’ time to stop online sales of illegal high-Mercury skin-lightening products

This is the Executive Summary to the Full Report which can be found here.

Testing in Autumn 2022, once again reveals that Amazon.com continues to allow the toxic trade of skin-lightening products (SLPs) laced with mercury.  19 of 21 purchased creams were found to have mercury levels over 1 ppm, the legal limit set by the Minamata Convention and followed by countries around the world. The levels of mercury detected by the lab in those 19 SLPs ranged from 1.5ppm to 8,500 ppm.

The Zero Mercury Working Group is calling on e-platforms to stop all sales of skin-lightening products (SLPs) if they cannot stop the marketing of often illegal high-mercury products. Amazon and other E-platforms, could, by being more vigilant, by consulting government, academic and civil society websites, and by doing their due diligence in enforcing their own policies, better protect consumers from the health risks associated with SLPs.