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About the Archive
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
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WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 (UFI)—Warning that millions of consumers could be exposed to an unnecessary risk, the Food and Drug Administration issued a final order today banning the use of zirconium in aerosol deodorant sprays.
The metal, once highly touted for its antiperspirant qualities in such products as Sure and Secret, has been subject to nearly three years of controversy over its possible role as a cause of lung disease.
The F.D.A. noted that the manufacturers had voluntarily stopped using the ingredient although some products containing it may still be in the distribution chain. The agency said that the amount involved was not large enough nor the problem serious enough to warrant a recall.
The ban is effective on Sept. 15. If the manufacturers want to reintroduce the compound, the F.D.C. said, they must prove its safety.
A panel of experts formed by the agency to study the question reported in December 1974 that underarm sprays containing zirconium could cause the compound to enter the air in tiny particles that could be breathed into the lungs. The metallic element, it added, has the “extremely serious” potential for causing an inflammatory cell reaction in the lungs that could lead to a growth of tumors.
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