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FDA Bans 19 Chemicals Used In Antibacterial Soaps (nbcnews.com)
The Food and Drug Administration has ordered "antibacterial" ingredients to be removed from consumer soaps, citing a lack of evidence that they are effective in making soap work any better and that the industry has failed to prove they're safe. The banned chemicals include triclosan, triclocarban and 17 others (PDF) typically found in hand and body soaps. Companies have until late next year to remove the ingredients from their products, the FDA said. "Companies will no longer be able to market antibacterial washes with these ingredients because manufacturers did not demonstrate that the ingredients are both safe for long-term daily use and more effective than plain soap and water in preventing illness and the spread of certain infections," the FDA said in a statement. NBC News reports: "In 2013 FDA gave soapmakers a year to show that adding antibacterial chemicals did anything at all to help them kill germs. It made the rule final Friday. The FDA started asking about triclosan in 1978. Environmental groups and some members of Congress have been calling for limits on the use of triclosan. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued and the FDA agreed to do something about triclosan by 2016. There's no proof that triclosan is dangerous to people, but some animal studies suggest high doses can affect the way hormones work in the body. The proposed rule only affects hand soaps and body washes. Triclosan is often used in toothpaste and it's been shown to help kill germs that cause gum disease."
Saponified oils (real soap) are high enough pH to be antibacterial on their own, most normal soaps nowadays are a small amount of SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) and gelling agent and are only mildly antibiotic at best. If you want antibiotic soap get some sort of saponified soap, no need to contribute to the overuse of antibiotic agents in our environment that build resistance.
You're kidding right... or do you work for a soap company?
The companies were given a year to prove that their active ingredients actually did anything... If they couldn't prove it... then this is more than just a FDA issue its a FTC and possibly DOJ for false advertising
There is no reason or justification for the FDA to regulate them
This patented Antibacterial Snake Oil Goat Weed will repel Tigers & Bears, with the added benefits of making you attractive to the opposite sex and give you rock-hard erections.
since these active ingredients are otherwise safe...
Citation needed
Yes, 36 years -- what speed! Thankfully, maybe our grandchildren will be able to grow up in a world without triclosan.
The whole point is that regular soap and water are just as effective as those containing these antibacterial agents.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Sure they do something. They help the common harmless bacteria that is all around us evolve into MRSA.
Now, if only I could find a liquid hand soap that doesn't contain moisturizers...
#DeleteChrome
The press, being the idiots that they are, don't realize that the FDA doesn't have jurisdiction over "soap." The FDA isn't helping by trying to broaden their reach.
Their order says "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued a final rule establishing that over-the-counter (OTC) consumer antiseptic wash products containing certain active ingredients can no longer be marketed."
That is not soap. In fact, the FDA says it has no jurisdiction over soap, which is confusing because on various webpages they say "Soap," and they do so in the title of said order as well.
Here's the FDA's explanation of Soap:
http://www.fda.gov/Cosmetics/G...
Here's the part that's relevant.
"Not every product marketed as soap meets FDA's definition of the term. FDA interprets the term "soap" to apply only when
the bulk of the nonvolatile matter in the product consists of an alkali salt of fatty acids and the product's detergent properties are due to the alkali-fatty acid compounds, and the product is labeled, sold, and represented solely as soap [21 CFR 701.20].
Products that meet this definition of soap are regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission disclaimer icon (CPSC), not by FDA. Please direct questions about these products, such as safety and labeling requirements, to CPSC. "
No, you're mis-understanding. It's like the same reason for not feeding animals anti-biotics.
These chemicals worsen the situation.
So while regular soap and water might get rid of 99.0% germs, bacteria, viruses, oils and other crud you might have on your hands, that 1% not killed still hangs around in small quantities, growing and competing for all the non-killed bugs. If one of these chemicals upped that to 99.9%, that means 99.9% are killed, and the 1% that isn't killed becomes resistant to that chemical, thus making it useless in the operating room.
And that is the point. Don't use these things unless there is a medically necessary reason to (eg AID's patients)
The point of this isn't to ban a harmless ingredient, but to ban a harmless ingredient that could eventually prove to not be so harmless. Completely putting aside the potential long term interactions on the human body - which is hugely significant, lead and arsenic don't cause their damage in one day either - "antibacterial" soaps are essentially the same thing as "antibiotic" soaps, and you may see where this is going. 99.9% of the time, killing off all these harmless bacteria doesn't yield any benefit, but it will breed stronger bacteria over time, and that can lead tro some very nasty things. Gonorrhea, for example, is an STD that was once easily curable, but is now becoming harder and harder to treat, and I believe there is a new strain popping up for which there is no cure known at the present time. When such a disease appears and is immune to our easiest form of defense, it has the potential to become an unstoppable epidemic, and again, there's no benefit at all to killing otherwise harmless bacteria (which may even help strengthen our immune systems).
Secondly, these soaps are snake oil, and in more ways than one. Antibacterial soaps do absolutely nothing to stop viruses, so if you think this soap will help protect you from the common cold or the flu, think again. It's also no more effective than normal soap, so you're paying more for a completely useless product, and I doubt many people know this - at the very least, stronger labeling is definitely required. Bait-and-switch, along with the false sense of security, is an issue.
And if all that doesn't convince you, than consider this: we already have a product for all of this, and it's known as hand sanitizer. If there is a place or occasion where you really need to disinfect your hands, use this stuff; it's cheap, effective, usable on the go (the places where you probably need it the most), and bacteria isn't going to be adapting to alcohol anytime soon. As a result, you limit bacterial adaptability, you save money, you destroy viruses, and you don't play Russian Roulette with our ecosystem. Common sense, people.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Always? For every totalitarian government, there are dozens of ones that never became totalitarian, even more if you include local governments. And pretty much every one of them did at least something to the tragedy of the commons that involves limits people from doing what they want.
Exaggerating a danger that is otherwise real and a serious threat doesn't help people realize the danger, it helps desensitize them to warnings, exaggerated or not.
If they allow it in toothpaste, it's fucking stupid to ban it from soaps...
Not at all. There is demonstrably no benefit to using triclosan in hand soap, so there really is no kind of cost/benefit argument you can make justifying its use. The best you might do would be to prove that it's totally harmless, in which case there's no harm to putting it in; but then there'd still be no harm to banning it either.
In the case of toothpaste, there may be demonstrable benefit. That makes it a fundamentally different case. When we study it more we may decide that the costs outweigh the risks, but at present it's still at least possible that banning it may be a net harm.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The FDA should have to prove harm, rather than the soap companies proving effectiveness.
The burden of proof is always on the party making the claim.
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They may also increase the incidence of food allergies.
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Story: FDA approves X
Reaction: Waaah the government puts dangerous chemicals in everything!
Story: FDA bans Y
Reaction: Waaah the government is meddling with our harmless chemicals!
Yeah, we're suffering in this socialist European country I'm in.
No, wait, the word isn't suffering... it's prospering, sorry. My bad.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If people toying with antibac stuff only endangered themselves, I'd be with you. Unfortunately this isn't necessarily the case. I can only HOPE that the crap doesn't work, because if it really kills "99.9% of all germs" as is often advertised, all that crap really does is to breed superbugs.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't know how things are in the US, but where I live, claims of efficacy on homeopathic products are extremely carefully worded, and usually quite vague.
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This is just like saying you're "being guilty until you prove yourself innocent "... The FDA should have to prove harm, rather than the soap companies proving effectiveness.
Problem is of course, that some group of folks has used the "starve the beast" approach on the FDA. reductio al fundo
Don't get me wrong, I'm a pro GMO pro vaccine person.
But I am very concerned about the bombardment of chemicals we are hitting ourselves with. Humans have been hammering themselves with some pretty well proven nasty stuff, like estrogen mimics, and other chemicals that are being proven to have a bad effect on humans. I'll note that the estrogen mimics tend to have a worse effect on males, but let's please not turn this into an anti or pro SJW argument.
Meanwhile, make certain your children are getting enough bisphenol A in their diets. After all, manufacturers should be allowed to put anything they damn well please in the things our kids eat and drink from. Then we can find out if its really bad or not. Otherwise they'd have to run tests before they started. That would cost money and piss off the shareholders.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Sure they do something. They help the common harmless bacteria that is all around us evolve into MRSA.
The antibacterials used in the soap do not include Methicillin or other antibiotics, so no, they don't help the bacteria evolve into MRSA.
What does that is excessive use of the life-saving drugs.
Especially: Their widespread use on farm animals that live in horrible conditions which would kill the animals by disease or render them less productive, if they weren't being pumped with so many antibiotics, that higher concentrations of precious antibiotic have been found in sewage and natural bodies of water than would exist in the blood of a human being dosed with the antibiotics.....