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."
SOAP (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SOAP (Score:5, Informative)
While most medical staff do indeed use plain soap, surgeons at least, are required to use antibacterial soap.
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.
Other serious consequences (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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.
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]
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.
Re:I sense a great disturbance in the web... (Score:4, Informative)