FDA To Decide Fate of Triclosan, Commonly Used In Antibacterial Soaps 223
kkleiner writes "The FDA is finalizing its review of the antibacterial agent triclosan common to many soaps and other health/household products after four decades of use. Recent studies suggest the chemical may be harmful to animals and could interfere with the human immune system along with increasing the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The agency has been slow to cast a verdict, to much criticism considering its widespread use."
I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:5, Funny)
As if millions of hypochondriacs cried out in terror and suddenly went to check WebMD.
Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:5, Funny)
Not that SIL and FIL are right, but damn they're loud about being wrong. So damn wrong.
Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:5, Funny)
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While I agree with you, your next step will not happen. They will not give up antibiotics for farm animals. Hell, I would be glad to buy such a product and pay more for them. Producers however will never want to make that trade.
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As far as I can tell this is just not true in my area.
I drive about 2 hours for the pork, if my parents did not live nearby I would never do that. If I have to drive farther for meat, I might as well just buy factory farmed crap or skip the meat.
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farmers markets and CSA's exist for a reason, and exist everywhere. it's more common the more rural you are. That's all you have to find. I'd be shocked to find an area of the USA where there isn't a CSA or farmers market within 20-40 miles.
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I live in an urban area, and there is a farmers market ~20 miles away. They sell very little meat, and it goes fast. So if you want to get up at 8am on Saturday you do that. I would rather sleep and eat less meat. I will admit I am lazy.
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farmers markets and CSA's exist for a reason, and exist everywhere.
Next time you go to a farmers Market, show up 30 minutes early and watch the "farmers" peeling the "Produce de Mexico" stickers off their fruit. Half the stuff they sell isn't even in season locally.
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Just about every farmer's market that I've been to in the last four or five years in the midwest have had at least ONE vendor who offers anti-bacterial, "organic" meats. Heck, I don't live in a very large metropolitan area and there are at least 6 different farmer markets within a 25 minute drive each weekend. I'm sure most of the normal grocers in this area don't carry any of this type of food, but that's why I don't go out of my way to shop there either...
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Try reading.
I have to drive 2 hours to get pork from a family farm. A normal grocery store is less than 10 minutes away.
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And they won't ship to you?
Fedex/UPS/USPS and a little dry ice.
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Try reading.
I have to drive 2 hours to get pork from a family farm. A normal grocery store is less than 10 minutes away.
Then get a freezer and then buy a half or whole hog. One 2 hour trip to the farm once or twice a year is worth it if you want to be certain of what is in your meat.
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just out of curiosity what's wrong with meat from animals that are given anti-biotics?
I mean if you can't cook your meat and get food poisoning as a result... well your immune system should take care of that, as well as a thousand home recipes.
Antibiotics are used in many farm animals for two reasons. The first is that they gain weight and are ready for market more quickly. The second is that they can be kept in a less clean environment. Both mean less cost and better profits. So far, so good - although I am not accepting of keeping animals under filthy unsanitary conditions
The bad part is that as an animal takes antibiotics, the antibiotic kills a large precentage of germs, but a few survive. In most cases, there ar etoo few left fo do much ha
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Producers however will never want to make that trade.
Large producers won't but smaller ones do. The critters I eat come from such farms and it is cheaper than buying from the grocery store. Then again those critters also aren't knee deep in their own shit or eating nose to nose like the ones at factory farms and feed lots.
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I have a source for pork like that but no other animals.
Beef locally is available, but they admit to using growth hormones and antibiotics. So I might as well go with factory farmed meat then.
I have never seen it cheaper than a grocery store. For example the pork I spoke of is more than $4/lb for the meat. The price appears lower at first, but once the butchering is done there is substantial loss.
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Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually I am trying to vote with my dollars, not improve my own health.
I would think it worth it if it improved the lives of my grandchildren.
Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Shipping seems like it would be rather expensive.
Which is not that big a deal, I only eat meat at a maximum once a day.
Look at shipping in a different way.. (Score:2)
Let's do some figures:
1. I'm assuming 2 hours is round trip, and average speed is 30 mph. That's 60 miles. At 30 mpg, that's $8 for fuel
2. Maintenance, accident risk, depreciation, etc... : $4
3. I value my time at around $10/hour for avoiding driving, so there's another $20, actually the single largest expense.
Total cost to drive to your store: $32. If they can get you your meat products for less than that, have it shipped.
If you can afford to buy the stuff in the first place, you probably value your
Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:4, Funny)
How do they get that stuff through the Internet?
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It's a series of tubes....
signed, Ted 'the Tube' Stevens
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Hell, I would be glad to buy such a product and pay more for them.
You can do that already -- unless you object to the use of antibiotics on animals with an infection. Even organic labelling allows that. It's the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics that is prohibited.
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I cannot find organic beef regularly. I can never find organic irradiated ground meat. I like the irradiated as I eat burgers far too rare for good sense. If you are going to suggest cooking them, forget it. I would rather not eat a burger than eat a cooked one.
I actually do object to that use. Antibiotics should be reserved for humans and pets. Farm animals should be quarantined and if they do not recover, destroyed.
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I can never find organic irradiated ground meat.
Easy - grind your own! [amazon.com] Buy the cut(s) of beef you like, and grind away!
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My understanding is that antibiotics are permitted to treat infection, but the meat from that animal cannot be sold as "organic" for as long as they're taking the medication and for a certain period of time afterwards to allow for the medication to be excreted from their bodies.
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Why not just feed soap to the cows, since it kills bacteria?
Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the farm animals most use antibiotics because of feeding corn to cows, or the crowded way chickens and pigs are kept. This use could be eliminated but food prices would go up.
Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:4, Informative)
If they were banned hopefully I could get a prescription for the soap.
You could probably still get something like a chlorhexidine - it's antiseptic and antibiotic. One brand name is hibiclens. Vets use it a lot with animals with wounds and someone once told me it was also used as a surgical hand scrub.
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I agree with the parent in the sense that there is a use for such soaps, but that doesn't mean it can't be more limited in use. I've had some issues with outbreaks on my shoulders and back, and the typical products I used as a teenage that kept my face pretty much pimple free did nothing. My doctor suggested using antibacterial soap. At first I thought he meant a prescription, but no, he meant just the Triclosan generic stuff. I had usually avoided the stuff before hand, but afterwards it clearly worked
Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:5, Informative)
The point of soap is not to kill the bacteria, but to make it easier to wash things off the skin that would not wash off with water alone.
Yes, but when serious studies show that antibacterial soap is no more effective [oxfordjournals.org] than non-antibacterial, why use the one with a chemical that potentially screws with your hormones?
In addition, it seems that nanoscopic metals [wikipedia.org] can be used for antibacterial purposes as well.
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Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:4, Informative)
Non-antibacterial Liquid Soap (Score:3)
Ivory Liquid Hand Soap. MSDS here:
http://www.pgproductsafety.com/productsafety/msds/beauty_care/personal_cleansing/Ivory_Liquid_Hand_Soap_(99735542).pdf [pgproductsafety.com]
Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:5, Informative)
regular soap kills bacteria just fine.
No it doesn't. Soap just serves to make the surface of your skin slippery enough to shed the little buggars. If we all really felt the need to kill germs sans anti-bacterial chemicals we should be washing with bleach, but since that's not really a good idea for your skin our military-industrial complex came up with "anti-bacterials". By the way- researchers were warning us about the rise of superbugs becuase we started down this stupid path 30 years ago. I guess as usual we all refused to listen. Now we have a huge, hideous, monster of a problem looming. Good job, humanity.
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it also removes "permanent" ink from surfaces and cloth (although cloth tends to smear around rather than come completely out)
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XML should be banned too, I hear its just as dangerous as SOAP.
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Source: I am an over-informed hypochondriac. I cringe when I have to touch receipts. [nih.gov]
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Alternatively I was intentionally making it ridiculous to make the joke.
Third alternative, I'm stupid.
Toothpaste (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Toothpaste (Score:5, Funny)
Personally, I find the thought that we put that stuff in our mouths every day much more worrying than the use in soaps.
Perhaps you just need a brand in a shinier box? I suggest you try the new Crest 4D White toothpaste. It has every bit as much fluoride as 3D White, but comes in a new extra-shiny with sparklies box. Those matte boxes will make your teeth rot.
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lol Crest... how is that crap not banned by the FDA? Your teeth will go longer without it.
the scare the women marketing strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
always works, especially older women
GERMS. OMG, GERMS. my wife used to buy this crap and i refused to use it because there was literature in the 90's about how it made you sicker in the end by screwing up your immune system
Re:the scare the women marketing strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
Anecdote:
I started life as a dirty hippy. There are quite a few photos, by the instamatic standards of the late 60s, of me crawling around naked in river beds next to the campgrounds we lived in or sitting in mud puddles splashing about. In one photo, I'm sitting in the dry part of a riverbed chewing on a stick I must have picked up, smiling like an idiot smile while some dirt and drool seep out of the corner of my mouth.
Anyway, I almost never get sick and the only thing I have an allergy to is acetaminophen. I do shower almost everyday now though.
Re:the scare the women marketing strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Every kid that was killed by weird diseases caused by picking things up, isn't posting.
Shouldn't those kids die? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it not nature that the unhealthy do not pass on their genes? We evolved too, not just the bacteria... except we stopped. Insensitive? no, realistic - stop living in a dreamworld you can't ever completely win against nature. It is one thing to take precautions by not swimming in your shit pool and quite another to wage an expensive a war against nature.
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You shouldn't spend too much just to stay alive.
I will spend whatever it takes to stay alive and comfortable.
Substitute anyone for "They", "You", and "I".
Re:Shouldn't those kids die? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideally we'd figure out what bacteria are in dirt that we need to expose some kids to for healthy immune system development and we'd use that knowledge to more directly influence immune system development. "Nature" can't do that but luckily we might just be rational conscious entities with that potential.
We can afford to keep the "weak" alive as a species and I posit that it's better overall for community emotional, moral, and intellectual health.
I put nature in quotes because it's an idea that we made up and does not necessarily reflect reality (but it might).
Re:Shouldn't those kids die? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it not nature that the unhealthy do not pass on their genes? We evolved too, not just the bacteria... except we stopped. Insensitive? no, realistic - stop living in a dreamworld you can't ever completely win against nature. It is one thing to take precautions by not swimming in your shit pool and quite another to wage an expensive a war against nature.
What about insulin for diabetics? What about glasses for myopic or presbiopic people, or publishing anything at all in Braile, along with the manufacture of white sticks? What about Erucic acid for Adrenoleukodystrophy? What about cyanocobalamin/hydroxocobalamin injections for pernicious anemia? What about iron supplements for women?
There are plenty of us who would be dead now, had we been born in the 1200's; insulin dependent diabetics (type I diabetes) were pretty much dead until the 1920's, and later than that, if they couldn't afford the private manufacturing costs for ongoing treatment - assuming they were even correctly diagnosed in time.
We've been "preventing" natural selection ever since we first started dabbling in medicine in prehistory, and earlier than that, if you include appointing "minders" to keep the tribes near-sighted oral history from walking off a cliff.
Would it be great if we could all be genetically perfect? Yeah. But I'm not willing to buy into the idea of some eugenically managed "naturalist" utopian ideal to get there.
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In which countries do people live longer?
A) Third world countries with human waste management issues, lack of clean water, etc,....
or
B) First world countries where there is proper sanitation?
You can exclude non-disease-related deaths if you want, even.
Re:the scare the women marketing strategy (Score:4, Interesting)
There is evidence, including a large Finnish study, that the more variety of microbes you're exposed to as a child, the healthier your immune system as an adult and the less likely you are to have autoimmune diseases.
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Probably not a good idea to take that too far though.
I mean, you can feed your kid raw chicken to expose him to a "variety of microbes" if you want, but I think Im gonna opt out of that.
Re:the scare the women marketing strategy (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, this is a common marketing strategy, for several reasons:
- Women are a lot more likely to be homemakers than men, so they're easier to bombard with advertising.
- Women are slightly more likely than men to make decisions using emotion rather than logic (everyone uses both ways of deciding, but where they conflict men are about 60-40 in favor of logic while women are about 60-40 in favor of emotion).
- Women do most of the shopping in most households.
- Women are significantly more socialized than men to give presents to each other to cement social bonds.
All this adds up to advertisers targeting women for common household products, particularly women who grew up before the rise of Second-wave Feminism. And although this is changing a bit, most ads for cleaning supplies, food, diapers, paper towels, etc feature those products being used by women rather than men.
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"feature those products being used by women rather than men."
Lots of products aimed at men feature women too. If you want to sell something to women, put a woman on it. If you want to sell something to men, put a woman on it. We just all like to look at women, rather than men.
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That's why I focused on who was using the product rather than just who was on the screen. For instance, Axe body spray ads have lots of women in them, but none of those women are actually using it. By contrast, ads for breakfast cereal are much more likely to show a mom serving it than a dad doing the same thing.
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like those automatic soap dispenser advertising that then you don't get germs from touching it. I'd think that normally you touch the soap before you wash you hands ....
Either way, the next thing you touch is the tap, then again after you've washed your hands. I can't fathom what practical purpose those automatic soap dispensers serve, besides extracting more money from clean freaks.
SOAP (Score:5, Informative)
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How simple [frontierfreedom.com] are you talking about?
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Re:SOAP (Score:5, Informative)
While most medical staff do indeed use plain soap, surgeons at least, are required to use antibacterial soap.
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While most medical staff do indeed use plain soap, surgeons at least, are required to use antibacterial soap.
I thought surgeons scrubbed with iodine.
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Iodine is the most common antibacterial agent in surgical soap solution, but no, surgeons aren't pouring the standard liquid form of povidone-iodine on their hands. It wouldn't lather, and would leave a horrendous stain on their skin.
Re:SOAP (Score:4, Informative)
Betadine surgical scrub consists of:
Active Ingredients
Povidone-iodine, 7.5% (0.75% available iodine)
Inactive Ingredients
Ammonium Nonoxynol-4 Sulfate, Nonoxynol-9, Purified Water, and Sodium Hydroxide.
http://www.purduepharma.com/PI/NonPrescription/A6910B16.pdf [purduepharma.com]
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Betadine surgical scrub consists of:
...
Nonoxynol-9
...
OK, so tell me, why do surgeons want to rub a spermicide [wikipedia.org] on their hands. On second thoughts, please don't tell me; I just ate dinner...
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OK, so tell me, why do surgeons want to rub a spermicide [wikipedia.org] on their hands. On second thoughts, please don't tell me; I just ate dinner...
Protip: products often have more than one use. It can kill your little swimmers so I imagine it is also good for killing other microscopic parasites. If you read your own link it also mentions its use in shaving cream.
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No, you're thinking that because of their personalities.
(Iodine has been deprecated for most things. It's not terribly effective.)
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Iodine is quite effective (though not the best), but it's relatively expensive. Chlorine & Alcohol are much cheaper, so they've replaced Iodine in a number of places.
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Im fairly certain that adding strawberry scent to soap does not remove its properties as a soap.
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That depends... Are you using it to wash strawberries?
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What is it Americans are so much more adverse to bacteria than at least as healthy Europeans, Japanese or Australians?
I know part of it is our European laws are very much for the protection of the consumer, not to advance the income of manufacturers.
Working in an international industry I've seen how US companies set up a canteen here in Europe and hung up anti-bacteriological soaps an
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Operations (Score:4, Interesting)
When it comes to operations though, they can spend over 2 minutes washing, easy. While 'plain old soap' is very much a step, to my knowledge they also use a anti-microbial soap that's NOT based on triclosan in favor of some prescription level compound.
But from what I'm seeing from my searches, common anti-microbial soaps are no better than regular soap, and even when it is 'better', the difference borders on 'insignificant'.
antibiotics are bad (Score:2)
Unless your sick you should not take antibiotics as it raises your resistance to them. Save them for when you need them and they will work much better.
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People are getting fatter...
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Unless your sick you should not take antibiotics as it raises your resistance to them.
Why would you want to succumb to antibiotics? Or, if you had no resistance to them, why would you swallow them?
Re:antibiotics are bad (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, on a more serious note, TFA is not talking about antibiotics. The word used is antibacterial, which refers to things that can kill bacteria while not being harmful to humans. For more clarity, a better term would be antimicrobial soaps, because they can also work on a variety of other microbes. But there is no real relationship between these agents and the kinds of antibiotics that come in pills.
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"But there is no real relationship between these agents and the kinds of antibiotics that come in pills."
Wrong.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16922622 [nih.gov]
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Well, that definition would also apply to your classical 'antibiotic'. It appears from the Wikipedia site that Triclosan is not a generic antimicrobial in that it won't affect viruses, protozoa or Scientologists.
At in-use concentrations, triclosan acts as a biocide, with multiple cytoplasmic and membrane targets.[16] At lower concentrations, however, triclosan appears bacteriostatic and is seen to target bacteria mainly by inhibiting fatty acid synthesis. Triclosan binds to bacterial enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase enzyme (ENR), which is encoded by the gene FabI. This binding increases the enzyme's affinity for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). This results in the formation of a stable ternary complex of ENR-NAD+-triclosan, which is unable to participate in fatty acid synthesis. Fatty acids are necessary for reproducing and building cell membranes. Humans do not have an ENR enzyme, and thus are not affected. Some bacterial species can develop low-level resistance to triclosan at its lower bacteriostatic concentrations because of FabI mutations, which results in a decrease of triclosan's effect on ENR-NAD+ binding, as shown in Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus.[17][18] Another way for these bacteria to gain low-level resistance to triclosan is to overexpress FabI.[19] Some bacteria have innate resistance to triclosan at low, bacteriostatic levels, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which possesses multi-drug efflux pumps that "pump" triclosan out of the cell.[20] Other bacteria, such as some of the Bacillus genus, have alternative FabI genes (FabK) to which triclosan does not bind and hence are less susceptible.
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antibiotics are given for a short time
these antiobiotic soaps are used all the time which is what creates the resistant strains
with normal antibiocs they kill enough bacteria for your body to finish the job
Re:antibiotics are bad (Score:4, Interesting)
The awfulness of this post is pretty remarkable. Sidestepping the wrong "your":
*) This antibiotic isn't for "taking", it's for things that aren't edible like soap and toothpaste
*) Overuse of antibiotics doesn't "raise your resistance to them", at best it increases the bacteria's resistance to them, but in actually it just increases the chance of creating an antibiotic resistance strain. Almost all of the time, however, any resistant bacteria that may develop are killed by other means (like your immune system) and don't live on.
*) One should never save antibiotics, but rather take them when prescribed and as prescribed. While your post could be construed as saying that, the reality is that antibiotics generally require a prescription so it's unlikely anyone will have any to save unless they were sick but are feeling better halfway through the prescription. Saving them at that point is the worst possible thing you can do; not taking a full regimen is what is primarily responsible for resistance.
All that being said, the first point is the most important: this is an external antibiotic. Since it's not applying evolutionary pressure while the bacteria are in your body, there isn't a combined force to make deadly resistant bacteria: ones that survive the antibiotic may not be as effective in the body and thus no one cares. Further, even if that is not the case, the mechanism of action is not the same as other antibiotics so it can still be killed off effectively. For instance, MRSA which is resistant to basically every internal antibiotic can be killed by Triclosan (the chemical in question).
It's very important to understand that not all antibiotics are the same. Something like a blast furnace will kill bacteria and they will never develop a resistance to it, period. However, it will also kill all of humanity so it's not a fantastic treatment for infection. Ditto with chemicals like ethylene oxide or other physical means like gamma rays. Something like bleach is also very effective at killing bacteria, and can even do so on human skin, but obviously doesn't leave the skin doing so well on longer exposure. There are many many things that kill bacteria. The only ones that are really 'special' and need careful use are the ones that can kill bacteria without killing people. Triclosan kind of falls in the middle and while it deserves some consideration, that 'ZOMG RESISTANCE" response isn't really appropriate either.
FDA Approved it for Toothpaste in 1997 (Score:2)
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You can't get that OTC, can you? I've seen Triclosan toothpaste but it was prescribed.
Does anyone actually think this will be pulled, (Score:2)
after 4 decades of profit? Not likely.
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Phosphates are being removed from detergents after who knows how many decades of profit. Will that fact impact your distorted world view? Not likely.
Only valid use is in toothpaste (Score:3, Interesting)
where it is markedly better than anything else, though I wouldn't object to seeing it prescription only.
All other usages should be discontinued.
Further, _all_ anti-biotics should be on a rotating schedule, and only used for a period of time brief enough that it's unlikely bacteria will develop resistance, then some other similar anti-biotic rotated in, repeat as necessary, and new anti-biotics are added into the rotation schedule (and only used when prescribed by a doctor, or injected by a veterinarian).
This could be easily enforced by manipulating the expiration dates of anti-biotics.
William
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Further, _all_ anti-biotics should be on a rotating schedule
All of medicine already does it. Except for a longer time - and when the patent expires, the medicine never goes back into rotation.
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If you want a long-term antibiotic type effect in your mouth, eat foods or supplements that are rich in vitamin K2. It is chemically/structurally similar to vitamin K, but the 'small' difference makes it play an almost entirely different role in the body. K2 (especially the MK4 and MK7 variants, used with vitamin A/cod liver oil) has a moderating/managing effect on calcium uptake and tooth/bone health and somehow prevents plaque buildup (to the point where I wonder sometimes if I should bother brushing my t
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Actually, toothpaste is one of the first places that it should be banned, since toothpaste with triclosan loads your body more heavily than any other triclosan containing personal care product.
When you brush your teeth, you scuff your gums up and the triclosan goes directly into your blood, from where it ends up in your fatty tissues and hangs around much longer than you would like it to. The best part is when nursing mothers end up feeding it to their newborns. This is hardly the case with soaps, unless yo
Other serious consequences (Score:4, Informative)
Triclosan (Score:2)
In soap really there isn't any evidence that it has a positive effect. Soap itself is a disinfectant, and triclosan isn't known to improve the effect. There is no reason to have triclosan in soap.
However triclosan in toothpaste really does prevent gingivitis.
The question is whether or not there are unintended consequences. I'm skeptical - too many of these studies are not reproducible, such as in the case of bisphenol-a.
http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2013/0102-previous-studies-on-toxic-effects-of- [missouri.edu]
Once upon a time... (Score:2)
Not more effective than plain soap (Score:2)
According to this: http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/45/Supplement_2/S137.long [oxfordjournals.org] -
"Soaps containing triclosan within the range of concentrations commonly used in the community setting (0.1%–0.45% wt/vol) were no more effective than plain soap at preventing infectious illness symptoms and reducing bacterial levels on the hands."
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This is priceless libertarian pro-corporate agita :D
How about saving people from the endless screaming via ads about having to use whatever new chemicals that will make us shiny, youthful and lovable? People are bombarded with advertising crap every day, sometimes all day non-stop. It is absolutely essential to push back on the worst of their getting rich through innovative chemistry schemes. Corporations do not have a right to propagandize (and even force) us into using their products in the absence of ske
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This is priceless libertarian pro-corporate agita :D
How about saving people from the endless screaming via ads about having to use whatever new chemicals that will make us shiny, youthful and lovable? People are bombarded with advertising crap every day, sometimes all day non-stop. It is absolutely essential to push back on the worst of their getting rich through innovative chemistry schemes. Corporations do not have a right to propagandize (and even force) us into using their products in the absence of skepticism.
If I was dictator-for-life I'd ban advertisements for drug companies, lawyers, and politicians. Punishable by putting their heads on pikes.
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Indeed, it is libertarians all the way down in corporate thinking, and the corporate class are free to do what they want as long they have reached that stage of critical mass and minimal competition. We are supposed to ignore that the producers are free to affect the testing business through purchase of stock, etc. At least with government testing and standards, the regulatory capture should be readily apparent (Citizens United is an attempt to circumvent this, however).