Monday, August 11, 2008

Triclosan: Ubiquitious menace?

I mentioned the Triclosan issue today. Take a look at your cleaning products (both human, like soap and shampoo, and household) - I bet that several of them mention being 'antibacterial' and the product is probably Triclosan.

If you google the term you'll see this is quite a hot topic. A google news search throws up this article from a couple of weeks ago:
Environmental Group Calls Triclosan a Ubiquitous Menace

This presentation, Antibacterial Household Products: Cause for Concern by Stuart Levy, from the 2000 Emerging Infectious Diseases Conference in Atlanta, Georgia and on the CDC webpage is a good overview of the resistance issue.

Relevant material previously on the blog:
MiniƩ balls and infection before penicillin
XDR-TB in South Africa
Pollution and Antibiotics

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