FDA Will Review Safety Of Common Antibacterial In Soap, Toothpaste

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the safety of a widely used chemical found in antibacterial soap, toothpaste and other consumer goods.

The agency said Thursday in an online statement it is looking into recent studies showing the chemical triclosan can alter hormone levels in animals. Other studies suggest the chemical increases bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

The FDA says it currently has no evidence that triclosan is hazardous to humans and does not recommend consumers avoid it. However, the agency said there is no evidence that soap with triclosan is superior to soap without the ingredient.

The agency plans to release its review of the chemical next year.

FDA scientists last studied the chemical in 1997 and concluded it helped enhance toothpaste.

The FDA agreed to look into the safety of triclosan at the request of Congressman Edward Markey, D-Mass. On Thursday Markey called on the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the substance from use in personal hygiene products, children's toys or food.

"Despite the fact that this chemical is found in everything from soaps to socks, there are many troubling questions about triclosan's effectiveness and potentially harmful effects, especially for children," Markey said in a statement.

The European Union recently banned triclosan from any products that come into contact with food.

Comments

[daggerofgod]

09:58 AM on 04/19/2010

They sterilize the sand? It's amazing kids have any immune system at all anymore.

[paliuli]

01:47 PM on 04/13/2010

Just make your own soap at home. If you can bake a loaf of bread, you will probably enjoy making soap. The results will be far superior to anything you can buy. If your skin is sensitive, make your own pure olive oil soap. Ingredients: olive oil, water, lye.

After saponification and curing for six weeks, the lye is no longer present. You can easily test the pH with a simple test.

[GoneGreen]

09:47 AM on 04/13/2010

Last fall, my daughter began to come home from preschool with a red spotted rash on the back of her hands.

At first we thought it was a contact dermatitis from the Morning Glory patch on the playground (!) (Yes, we got them to remove THAT because they *are* very poisonous. Took weeks though,)

Then we found that the school had been using a caustic substance to sterilize the sand in the play area. (Sigh. Fixed THAT too.)

But this winter she was coming home with what looked like red chemical burns on her hands. Swelling, bright red, with a sharp ending line above the wrist. We eliminated the unlabled dispenser soap the school had been using (we provided an alternative) and it finally cleared up. Later we got an ingredient list: Yep. Triclosan was the primary active ingredient.

Turns out a gradualy increasing toxicity and strong allergic type reaction is common reaction; the soap was labkled KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN, and thus the dispensers at kid height where a no no, setting aside the blatent toxicity of the stuff. SIgh. (And yes, they have now changed THIS too; and yes, we are going to a different school next year.) SIgh.

[equianimi]

02:35 PM on 04/11/2010

Triclosan forms chloraform when combined with the chlorine in tap water. The FDA knows this, they aren't stupid, they just pretend it doesn't happen and it's no big deal so their companies can make money from it.

[equianimi]

04:10 PM on 04/11/2010

I should also add that it breaks down into dioxin in sunlight and to some extent does so without sunlight.

[LHoney]

11:46 AM on 04/09/2010

I can only imagine that the FDA has been working as well as the SEC over the last 8 years under bushieboy...

[Bushdepression]

11:38 AM on 04/09/2010

Nothing like pesticides added to your underwear, socks, toothpaste, deodorant etc.

Anything antibacterial is designed to kill life. It is a biocide.

[poster1122]

03:07 PM on 04/09/2010

Yes, because life after penicillin has just totally ruined the world. Don't you just miss the good ol' days when kids would die of things like ear infections?

The problem isn't the use of antibiotics; it's the overuse of them. But it's hardly a "biocide":

http://www.myoptumhealth.com/portal/Information/item/What+Causes+a+Bacterial+Infection%3F?archiveChannel=Home%2FArticle&clicked=true

[HarrietteTheSpy]

10:47 AM on 04/09/2010

Dr. Bronners. Solved.

[jsarets]

12:45 PM on 04/09/2010

Dr. Bronner's hemp peppermint soap is definitely the best way to start the day. Almost renders coffee unnecessary (almost). Like a religious experience even without the, um, philosophical musings on the label.

[swingerofbirches]

11:27 PM on 04/09/2010

I understand the allure of Dr. Bronner's. However, the ingredients listing on his products look so wonderful because he is (from what I can tell) listing the ingredients before they've become the final ingredient that is in the product. He seems to list lots of wonderful sounding organic oils and then potassium hydroxide (which is caustic potash, a type of lye). Well a lot of the worse sounding ingredients in other cleansers are the *exact* same thing, a coconut oil that's been mixed with some sort of base (sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide etc), except that the final ingredient has a longer, scarier sounding name. He also includes unnecessary and irritating ingredients such as peppermint and lavender oils which damage the skin's intercellular matrix.

Now, I don't expect anyone to stop using Dr. Bronner's based on that evaluation--my own father uses it and I can't get him to use a more gentle cleanser and he has seborrheic dermatitis. I just don't think Dr. Bronner should get such a free pass. But to each his/her own! If it works well for you that's all that matters.

But yes, I do think tricoslan is unnecessary at best.

[themainpoint]

10:44 AM on 04/09/2010

Better not to be a guinea pig and try every new thing on the market. Stick with the basics. Avoid products that have "new" properties (like antibacterial socks). Avoid anything with ingredients that you can't pronounce and don't recognize as something tried and true.

Often the simplest products that have been around for a while and kept their original formulas seem to be safest and work just fine (like plain soap (dr. bronners or something simple) for removing germs, vinegar for cleaning, clove oil for a tooth ache, epsom salts for muscle soreness, aluminum free baking soda for tooth whitening, etc.)

[LHoney]

11:44 AM on 04/09/2010

I agree completely. Boric acid is also a fave of mine for cuts, not so easy to find anymore tho.

[Tyler-Durden]

09:35 AM on 04/09/2010

i stopped using it.

dial liquid soaps used to have "antibacterial" in all of their "flavors". now it seems only two of them do, and they came out with a few new scents that say they're only "moisturizing", but not "antibacterial".

it's the friction and the chemical bonding of detergents which removes dirt and etc. there's no real need to have bacteria killing soap if soap is used properly to capture and remove dirt as it's intended.

that's why washing your hands for a minimum amount of TIME is more effective than the type of soap you use.

CORPORATIONS WILL PUT ANY CHEMICAL THEY CAN FIND INTO A PRODUCT, SLAP A "NEW AND IMPROVED!!" LABEL ON IT, AND SELL AS MANY AS THEY CAN BEFORE ENOUGH PEOPLE COMPLAIN AND FORCE AN INVESTIGATION.

we are just guinea pigs for the corporate slave drivers.

[democles]

10:06 AM on 04/09/2010

Amen.

[jsarets]

12:51 PM on 04/09/2010

Yeah, my understanding is that triclosan only makes soap more effective if you barely scrub at all, and even then it's less effective than regular soap with proper scrubbing.

[Tyler-Durden]

05:02 PM on 04/09/2010

just another marketing ploy.

WORKS BETTER THAN SOAP!!*

fine print:

(works better than soap which has not been unwrapped, and is still on the shelf in the store)

[Ozark Homesteader]

09:25 AM on 04/09/2010

I agree with other readers here who say this FDA review is long overdue. I recently read numerous recommendations from people of antibacterial soaps for preventing flu ands noroviruses. They won't. Anti-bacterial agents work on bacteria, not viruses. The best route to avoiding infection is to wash vigorously, sufficiently long, with regular soap. Imagine how the anti-bacterial generation of parents will feel if they ever realize how their obsession harmed their children with endocrine disruptors.

I select my personal products now using the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/

[vippy]

10:25 AM on 04/09/2010

It has been known that the FDA is not the consumer's friend! Look who works for them! They only take action after some have died or something has been brought to their attention. Remember last year that food producer who had rat droppings, etc. in their factory, where is the oversight?
All these recalls now and the mass farming that produces contaminated meat. We are a nation
now of reacting after the fact, sad that is.

[Ozark Homesteader]

02:04 PM on 04/09/2010

So true, Vippy.

[Blues02]

02:49 PM on 04/09/2010

Thank you. The FDA is a joke.

[CindyM272]

09:10 AM on 04/09/2010

Whatever happened to erring on the side of caution?

[Tyler-Durden]

09:38 AM on 04/09/2010

that's considered a tenet of socialism now.

21st. c. Amerikan capitalism dictates that profits are more important than safety.

25 W. VA miners confirmed this fact just a few days ago. (r.i.p., guys)

[StephenJK]

07:40 AM on 04/10/2010

Corporatists of all shapes and sizes welcome!

Everyone else, not so much. Thanks, though.

[Ivriniel]

08:53 AM on 04/09/2010

I don't use products with triclosan ever since toothpaste containing it gave me a sore throat.

[themainpoint]

10:45 AM on 04/09/2010

Impressive that you paid such close attention to what your body was telling you and figured out what the ingredient that caused the trouble was!

[MJinCanada]

04:42 PM on 04/09/2010

One of my kids got a sample from the dentist and it caused mouth sores. We tossed it fast and advised the dentist that it's a potential problem.

My husband gets a rash from soap products with triclosan. He's tried to get his workplace to stop buying the stuff for the washrooms, with no luck, so he takes his own hand soap to work.

[ellim]

04:40 AM on 04/09/2010

It's overdue that the FDA started looking at these widely used anti-microbials that can cause increased antibiotic resistance. I hope they move on to the over-prescription of antibiotics (antibiotics won't cure your virus) and antibiotic abuse in farming next. We're in danger of losing a whole class of very important medicine.

It's gotten pretty hard to find hand soaps that aren't antibacterial, and as the article says, there's not much reason to think these antibacterial soaps work better than regular old soap. Bacteria share their genes pretty freely, so you don't want those substances saturating your home environment. Innocuous bacteria can pass their immunity on to the nasty ones creating some pretty nasty diseases. It's good for our immune systems to be exposed to bacteria. Keeping children too sterile can lead to other health problems.

[The Cause Endures]

01:02 AM on 04/09/2010

I love how our agencies only regulate how much we can be poisoned.

[casaroonc]

07:20 AM on 04/09/2010

Well we have to let our corporations do something with there waste.

[StephenJK]

07:42 AM on 04/10/2010

Mmmmm I love the taste of fluoride in the morning. Really gets my blood pumping to start the day. Now I can add triclosan to the mix as well. Makes me feel all warm and chemically.

[casaroonc]

07:21 AM on 04/09/2010

Their not there

[leener]

12:17 AM on 04/09/2010

Socks? Why is there triclosan in socks? Just when I think I know what I'm doing and protecting my children, some other nasty, unknown substance comes out of the woodwork and threatens health and safety. Why can't the FDA actually do their jobs right the first time around instead of being so easily influenced by profit-making corporations? It would save a lot of people.

[emily00011]

04:13 AM on 04/09/2010

It's in literally everything.

[Ivriniel]

08:54 AM on 04/09/2010

To keep the socks from getting smelly.

[Gasparilla]

10:20 AM on 04/09/2010

Vs. something that could be harmful? I'll take the smelly socks.