Antibacterial Soapâs Deadly Secret by Kent Sepkowitz
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/21/antibacterial-soap-s-deadly-secret.html
Antibacterial soap is supposed to help you stay clean and healthy, right? Turns
out, itâs hiding a dangerous ingredient.
Wildlife and humans won a small victory yesterday, at least in Minnesota. The
state, which boasts one of the leading state departments of health in the
country, decided to ban the antimicrobial chemical, triclosan, from soaps and
other products because of concerns regarding its deleterious impact on the
environment, animals, and ultimately, human health.
Triclosan has been earning a progressively worse rap in recent years after
arriving on the scene a few decades ago as the great antiseptic hope. It does
kill bacteria and fungi and other microbes efficiently, but whether the extra
killing over soap and water means anything to anyone is uncertain at best.
Evidence does support its beneficial role over fluoride alone in toothpaste as
a way to avoid cavities and gum diseases, but thatâs it.
The problem is that its side effects are many and quite varied. Minnesota
cited the risk of âhormone disruptionâ from triclosan as the rationale for its
action. The hormone disruptor, also called an endocrine disruptor, is a
slightly new-age concept coined by environmentalists and embraced now by most
scientists. Chemicalsâand there are manyâthat are viewed as capable of
perturbing several endocrine systems, including the thyroid, the adrenals, the
ovaries, and the testicles, in humans and other animals, are considered
âhormone disruptors.â A list of the 12 most horrible was recently released. It
included some veteran bad guys such as dioxin and lead.
Indeed, dioxin, a group of related compounds including components of various
pesticides and PCBs, is well-established to harm life. It is considered among
the most toxic chemicals known and is the action compound in the notorious
Agent Orange. Most famously, dioxin was the un-degradable chemical that led to
the evacuation of Times Beach, Missouri in 1983 after a flood saturated the
town with it.
A decade before, the town had sought to quiet a smallish problemâtoo much dust
blowing aroundâby spraying oil onto its dusty unpaved roads. The contractor
they chose found mighty cheap oil, called âwasteâ oil, that came from a nearby
chemical factory. Unfortunately, the waste oil had a dioxin concentration 2,000
times higher than that in Agent Orange. Soon after the spraying began, horses
started to die (dozens of horses), and the tragedy quickly revealed itself.
Within a few years, the town and its 2,000-plus inhabitants were âbought outâ
by the EPA, the town leveled, and the area turned into a park of sortâprobably
not one with a lot of foot traffic
These chemicals are capable of perturbing several endocrine systems, including
the thyroid, the adrenals, the ovaries, and the testicles, in humans and other
animals.
After Agent Orange and Times Beach came the Love Canal, a similarly unnerving
story of chemical waste placed too close to human beings and soon, dioxin
gained its placed as one of the most feared of all chemical environmental
contaminants.
It is the connection of triclosan to dioxin that has appropriately raised the
hackles of so many. Within the last decade, scientists discovered a specific
link: Triclosan could, with exposure to light, be chemically converted into a
dioxin compound (2,8-dichlorodibenzo-p-dioxin aka 2,8 DCDD), and this compound
was turning up where it ought not: the sediment of the Mississippi River. As
the group of scientists (perhaps not coincidentally from the University of
Minnesota) exploring the finding noted, âthe contribution of triclosan-derived
dioxins to the total dioxin pool increased to as high as 31% by mass in recent
years,â indicating that triclosan, once the good guy, had gone rogue and now
was threatening to cause human harm.
It is likely that the jig is up for triclosan. Sure, the American Cleaning
Institute, something of a lobbying organization for soap and chemical makers
across the U.S. (on its board sit reps from Amway, Colgate-Palmolive, DuPont,
Dow, and the like) is trying to push back against Minnesotaâs decision,
claiming that this type of ban should be federally decided, not determined at
the state level, an interesting embrace of the Big Government approach often
reviled by Big Business.
But they are unlikely to win this one. âDioxinâ is the dirtiest of dirty words
and this designation, like the chemical itself, does not degrade. The FDA has,
with apparent reluctance, tiptoed into the fray. Plus, Procter & Gamble has
already removed triclosan from its Crest toothpaste. Sure, they can drag this
out for months and yearsâbut it would be nice if the American Cleaning
Institute, so fond of the neat and the hygienic, used a little judgment and
chose not to make a big mess out of this one.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/21/antibacterial-soap-s-deadly-secret.html
Antibacterial soap is supposed to help you stay clean and healthy, right? Turns
out, itâs hiding a dangerous ingredient.
Wildlife and humans won a small victory yesterday, at least in Minnesota. The
state, which boasts one of the leading state departments of health in the
country, decided to ban the antimicrobial chemical, triclosan, from soaps and
other products because of concerns regarding its deleterious impact on the
environment, animals, and ultimately, human health.
Triclosan has been earning a progressively worse rap in recent years after
arriving on the scene a few decades ago as the great antiseptic hope. It does
kill bacteria and fungi and other microbes efficiently, but whether the extra
killing over soap and water means anything to anyone is uncertain at best.
Evidence does support its beneficial role over fluoride alone in toothpaste as
a way to avoid cavities and gum diseases, but thatâs it.
The problem is that its side effects are many and quite varied. Minnesota
cited the risk of âhormone disruptionâ from triclosan as the rationale for its
action. The hormone disruptor, also called an endocrine disruptor, is a
slightly new-age concept coined by environmentalists and embraced now by most
scientists. Chemicalsâand there are manyâthat are viewed as capable of
perturbing several endocrine systems, including the thyroid, the adrenals, the
ovaries, and the testicles, in humans and other animals, are considered
âhormone disruptors.â A list of the 12 most horrible was recently released. It
included some veteran bad guys such as dioxin and lead.
Indeed, dioxin, a group of related compounds including components of various
pesticides and PCBs, is well-established to harm life. It is considered among
the most toxic chemicals known and is the action compound in the notorious
Agent Orange. Most famously, dioxin was the un-degradable chemical that led to
the evacuation of Times Beach, Missouri in 1983 after a flood saturated the
town with it.
A decade before, the town had sought to quiet a smallish problemâtoo much dust
blowing aroundâby spraying oil onto its dusty unpaved roads. The contractor
they chose found mighty cheap oil, called âwasteâ oil, that came from a nearby
chemical factory. Unfortunately, the waste oil had a dioxin concentration 2,000
times higher than that in Agent Orange. Soon after the spraying began, horses
started to die (dozens of horses), and the tragedy quickly revealed itself.
Within a few years, the town and its 2,000-plus inhabitants were âbought outâ
by the EPA, the town leveled, and the area turned into a park of sortâprobably
not one with a lot of foot traffic
These chemicals are capable of perturbing several endocrine systems, including
the thyroid, the adrenals, the ovaries, and the testicles, in humans and other
animals.
After Agent Orange and Times Beach came the Love Canal, a similarly unnerving
story of chemical waste placed too close to human beings and soon, dioxin
gained its placed as one of the most feared of all chemical environmental
contaminants.
It is the connection of triclosan to dioxin that has appropriately raised the
hackles of so many. Within the last decade, scientists discovered a specific
link: Triclosan could, with exposure to light, be chemically converted into a
dioxin compound (2,8-dichlorodibenzo-p-dioxin aka 2,8 DCDD), and this compound
was turning up where it ought not: the sediment of the Mississippi River. As
the group of scientists (perhaps not coincidentally from the University of
Minnesota) exploring the finding noted, âthe contribution of triclosan-derived
dioxins to the total dioxin pool increased to as high as 31% by mass in recent
years,â indicating that triclosan, once the good guy, had gone rogue and now
was threatening to cause human harm.
It is likely that the jig is up for triclosan. Sure, the American Cleaning
Institute, something of a lobbying organization for soap and chemical makers
across the U.S. (on its board sit reps from Amway, Colgate-Palmolive, DuPont,
Dow, and the like) is trying to push back against Minnesotaâs decision,
claiming that this type of ban should be federally decided, not determined at
the state level, an interesting embrace of the Big Government approach often
reviled by Big Business.
But they are unlikely to win this one. âDioxinâ is the dirtiest of dirty words
and this designation, like the chemical itself, does not degrade. The FDA has,
with apparent reluctance, tiptoed into the fray. Plus, Procter & Gamble has
already removed triclosan from its Crest toothpaste. Sure, they can drag this
out for months and yearsâbut it would be nice if the American Cleaning
Institute, so fond of the neat and the hygienic, used a little judgment and
chose not to make a big mess out of this one.
