Antibiotics gone mad.

AuthorHightower, Jim
PositionVox Populist

Have you had your daily mini-mum requirement of triclosan today? How about your dosage of triclocarban?

Chances are you have but don't know it. These two are antimicrobial chemicals, which might sound like a good thing, except that they disrupt the human body's normal regulatory processes.

Studies show that these triclos can be linked to the scrambling of hormones in children, disruption of puberty and of the reproductive system, decreases in thyroid hormone levels that affect brain development, and other serious health problems.

Yet, corporations have slipped them into all sorts of consumer products, pushing them with a blitz of advertising that claims the antibacterial ingredients prevent the spread of infections. The two chemicals were originally meant for use by surgeons to cleanse their hands before operations, but that tiny application has now proliferated like a plague, constantly exposing practically everyone to small amounts here, there, and everywhere, adding up to dangerous megadoses.

Triclosan and triclocarban were first mixed into soaps, but then companies went wild, putting these hormone disrupters into about 2,000 products, including toothpaste, mouthwashes, fabrics, and (most astonishingly) even baby pacifiers.

Today, use of these chemicals is so prevalent that they can be found in the urine of three-fourths of Americans, reports The New York Times. They also accumulate in groundwater and soil, so they saturate our environment and eventually ourselves (one study found them in the breast milk of 97 percent of women tested).

For decades, corporate lobbying and regulatory meekness have let this chemical menace spread. Aside from the direct health damage this is causing, the reckless spread of antibacterial products is also leading to an even worse nightmare: stronger, more aggressive bacteria that are immune to--get this--antibacterial products.

Oh, the irony!

Most ominously, this nightmare is currently ripping through our medical care system in the United States and around the globe.

Antibiotic medicines, long hailed as miracle drugs for their ability to battle infections and save lives, are turning out to be...

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