Antibacterial Cleansers Keep You Healthy
An orgy of antibacterial dish, body and laundry soaps emerged in the 2000s to help people get “better than clean.” But the bacterial overkill, when soap and water work just as well, fuels antibiotic resistance and possibly childhood allergies by preventing exposure to natural microbes in the environment. But there’s a worse problem with the germ killers in such antibiotic products (called endocrine or hormone disrupters): they are he same compounds that are producing frogs with no penises in polluted streams and actually pesticides.Studies show that one “antibacterial” pesticide, triclosan, found in Colgate’s Total toothpaste actually breaks down into chloroform with tap water and dioxin in the environment. It impairs thyroid function and lives in human breast milk, urine and blood.