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FDA Seeks Tougher Rules For Antibacterial Soaps
barlevg writes "It's long been a concern that the widespread use of antibacterial soaps is contributing towards the evolution of drug-resistant 'superbugs,' but as the Washington Post reports, the Food and Drug Administration also does not believe that there is any evidence to support that the antibacterial agents in soaps are any more effective at killing germs than simply washing with soap and water. Under the terms of a proposal under consideration, the FDA will require that manufacturers making such claims will have to show proof. If they fail to do so, they will be required to change their marketing or even stop selling the products altogether."
The bigger problem is antibiotic use on farms, and the FDA's recent toothless rules ( http://theweek.com/article/index/254057/why-the-fdas-new-antibiotic-rules-fall-short ) rely on the farmers who use them to mediate the results of cruel conditions (overcrowding, etc) and the companies who sell them to voluntarily cut back on their use. Good luck with that.
Meantime they hit hard on Purell users. Bah.
Only 5 percent of people properly washed their hands long enough to kill infection-causing germs and bacteria. Maybe if the general population washed their hands properly there would be time for the antibacterial agents to go to work. Instead we instantly scrub our hands clean and follow up with a solid sniff to make sure they smell good, because if it smells clean then it is clean method works every time.
the "anti-bacterial" ingredients are chlorinated organics, they just poison bacteria. they are not in any way related to antibiotics and thus do not in any way conribute to resistance to antibiotics any more than your chlorinated kitchen cleanser does. Trivial to prove soaps with them they kill bacteria, that's already been done. they are even used to kill resistant bacterias on skin in certain medical protocols, look it up.
I'm allergic to one of the chemical, so I won't be crying if they are banned. but the "tin foil hat" health sites make absurd claims about their contributing to the breeding of super bugs
Even if they do kill some bacteria, the important thing is whether they have efficacy in preventing disease. For that matter, killing too many bacteria could even encourage disease, by reducing the effectiveness of our immune systems.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
But I'm having a hard time believing them. Time and again it turns out money is involved in "objective" advice.
Privacy is terrorism.
We are covered with bacteria a lot of it is rather helpful to us. So by using Anti-bacterial soap we do kill off the good bacteria too.
Or worse we make the good Bacteria go bad. Because when we try to kill it, it gives off chemicals to try to protect itself which then turns harmful for us.
We are better off washing our hands with normal soap, which washes away large colonies of bacteria, but doesn't kill them off, as well as foreign contaminates that could cause problems too.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
from my warm, well-sanitized hands.
That's your wrong one. Superbugs are resistant to antibiotics, not the pointless stuff they put in soap these days. There's no way for a bacteria to become resistant to penicillin by being exposed Triclosan. That's just silly.
Your casual dismissal of this possibility seems logical but is incorrect. There are numerous studies of cross resistance between triclosan and antibiotics, Here is one showing several bacteria that evolve resistance to antibiotics after being exposed to sublethal doses of triclosan. This implies that dosing our wastewater with low levels of triclosan is reckless and had better have strong evidence that it does some good. It is definitely doing some bad!
Man, you really need that seminar!
The biggest issue the the common antibacterial agent in soaps combines with other household cleaners water treatment chemicals to produce a dioxin like substance. Studies are starting to showing negative environmental impacts to takes and rivers as a result.
Up your dosage.
the "anti-bacterial" ingredients are chlorinated organics, they just poison bacteria. they are not in any way related to antibiotics and thus do not in any way conribute to resistance to antibiotics any more than your chlorinated kitchen cleanser does.
All antibiotics poison bacteria in some way, and several are chlorinated hydrocarbons, e.g. vancomycin, clindamycin, clofazimine, chloramphenicol, thiamphenicol, etc. Antibiotics are widely varied category of chemicals, and while triclosan isn't directly related to any families I'm aware of, that doesn't mean that resistance to it would be useless against antibiotics that operate on the same system.
A mutation capable of resisting the effects of one class of chemicals can often be useful for resisting very different chemicals that have the same effect. Triclosan works at higher, lethal concentrations by disrupting bacterial cell membranes. At lower concentrations it also suppresses fatty acid formation necessary for cell membrane creation by binding up two enzymes necessary for the process: ENR and NAD+. (This prevents reproduction but doesn't kill.)
Isoniazid is one of our first-line treatments for tuberculosis. Interestingly, it also works by binding to NADH and then binding to ENR and blocking fatty acid synthesis. Studies have shown that some strains of isoniazid-resistant mycobacteria are also pretty resistant to triclosan as a result. Others aren't, because they developed mutations that affected other parts of the process of the drug's interaction. These are unrelated compounds, but a mutation that affects an enzyme they both act on can promote resistance to both.
There is also evidence that evolution of triclosan resistance can increase resistance to ciprofloxacin. In that case, the mutation was to increase the expression of certain efflux pumps, used to pump toxic chemicals out of the cell. Turns out in that case that the same pump was used as part of the processes to eliminate both toxins.
So, in summary, while there isn't any evidence that triclosan is responsible for anywhere near the damage that usage in livestock has done, it's probably not a good idea to keep using a chemical that has risks in a situation where it has little benefit because it can aid in the development of resistance for some antibiotics.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Triclosan is a widely used biocide that is considered as an effective antimicrobial agent against different microorganisms. It is included in many contemporary consumer and personal health-care products, like oral and dermal products, but also in household items, including plastics and textiles. At bactericidal concentrations, triclosan appears to act upon multiple nonspecific targets, causing disruption of bacterial cell wall functions, while at sublethal concentrations, triclosan affects specific targets. During the 1990s, bacterial isolates with reduced susceptibility to triclosan were produced in laboratory experiments by repeated exposure to sublethal concentrations of the agent. Since 2000, a number of studies have verified the occurrence of triclosan resistance amongst dermal, intestinal, and environmental microorganisms, including some of clinical relevance. Of major concern is the possibility that triclosan resistance may contribute to reduced susceptibility to clinically important antimicrobials, due to either cross-resistance or co-resistance mechanisms. Although the number of studies elucidating the association between triclosan resistance and resistance to other antimicrobials in clinical isolates has been limited, recent laboratory studies have confirmed the potential for such a link in Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica. Thus, widespread use of triclosan may represent a potential public health risk in regard to development of concomitant resistance to clinically important antimicrobials.
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/mdr.2006.12.83?journalCode=mdr
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Wrong, so wrong, on so many levels. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about from a chemical or medical perspective.
Your chlorinated kitchen cleanser uses chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite). It kills because it is a strong oxidizer.
Triclosan and triclocarban are organic molecules (two benzene rings with a bridge) with chlorine atoms substituted for some of the hydrogens. They are capable of entering cells and disrupting enzyme pathways, a completely different approach from bleach, and one that is essentially the same as most oral antibiotics. The biggest practical difference between these antimicrobials and many antibiotics is that ingesting these compounds in sufficient strength to kill bacteria would also kill you.
The difference between triclocarban and sodium hypochlorite is, chemically, the difference between oil and water: THEY ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE IN PROPERTIES OR FUNCTION.
The concentrations of these chemicals when used in surgical soaps is many, many times higher than it is in personal care products, because we place a premium on sterility for surgery. The quantity present in most personal care products is pointless for the intended purpose, and they have been demonstrated to be endocrine disruptors, to accumulate in human tissue, to accumulate in the solid byproduct of waste-water treatment, to accumulate in sediment downstream of said treatment plants, and there is a strong suggestion that these environmental reservoirs will exert a selective pressure towards resistance in the exact bugs that we don't want to resist them.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
That's not what the study says. It says that the bacteria in these strains that are born resistant to triclosan are also resistant to certain antibiotics. This "sub-lethal" dose, as you described it, killed 999,999 out of 1,000,000 bacteria in those strains. It just so happened that the specific amino acid expression that allowed those mutants to survive not only made them able to survive the triclosan exposure, but also exposure to certain, named clinical antibiotics. What you're describing was just an implication of the study.
So by killing all the ones that are susceptible to triclosan, you leave a breeding pool of only those few individuals that happen to be antibiotic-resistant as well. How is that "just an implication of the study" and not "the exact outcome you really want to avoid" (a.k.a. "becom[ing] resistant to [some antibiotic] by being exposed [to] Triclosan")?