So, the front-page NYT business story this morning is “Popular Antibacterial Chemical Raises Safety Issues,” and as I’m reading about triclosan, I’m thinking, I’ve read this somewhere before. I had, here on Mission Loc@l — in December of last year. Dr. Tracy Woodruff wrote then about the pervasiveness of the antibacterial additive.
Woodruff has been writing for Mission Loc@l as part of The Clinic, an ongoing collaboration between the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at UCSF and Mission Loc@l.
What’s the connection with hyperlocal and the Mission? The researchers work at San Francisco General Hospital, and many of their discoveries and insights affect the health of all local residents.
We wrote about triclosan again in January of this year, when Heather Smith looked at a recent study.
OK, enough patting ourselves on the back. Must return to work.
Here in the Philippines, the use of Triclosan-containing soaps and toothpastes have been around for almost a generation. A best-selling soap that a large segment of Filipinos have been using religiously contains Triclosan, which is advertised extensively on radio and TV and in the print media as a potent germ-buster. This soap supposedly kills far more bacteria than other brands of soap and in a world where nasty multiple-drug resistant microbes have emerged, many have been detected in grocery ground meat, the need to be protected from life-threatening diseases I believe warrant the use of Triclosan-bearing health-care products. But if one uses Triclosan-containing toothpastes, soaps, hand sanitizers, chopping boards, deodorants, etc. I just don’t know how much Triclosan is absorbed into the body and if this “high concentration” exerts some toxic effects. Not to mention, the fact that most Filipinos takes a bath twice a day using this best-selling soap! Since, Triclosan is an organic compound with aromatic structures it should accumulate in the body and may not be excreted easily. For me, there is no question regarding the antibacterial activity of Triclosan, my research work on its effect on bacterial bioluminescence showed that a dilution of 1:1,2000 of the soap with Triclosan will cause the living light of Vibrio fischeri to black out in 30 minutes while a similar dilution of a soap without Triclosan still shines brightly in 30 minutes. This proves its antibacterial activity using my Paper-disc Immobilized Bioluminescence Technology (PIBiT). But if indeed, there are toxic effects from the use of Triclosan like the reported formation of carcinogenic dioxins with tap water then research findings like these should be disclosed by reputable institutions to stop the serious health risks to a large segment of the population.