Are Antibacterials Scarier Than Bacteria? Great Question
An even better question is: What are their risks and benefits? You can ask the same about GMO foods and nonstick coatings.
Many antibacterial products contained triclosan until 2016, when the FDA required it to be phased out of soaps.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
So much news, so little time! Science sometimes makes headlines and even more often gives us a different way of thinking about the stories of the week. I’d like to delve into a few timely topics in a sort of lightning round:
Advertising campaigns and a few well-meaning journalists for years persuaded Americans that our homes, offices and bodies are teeming with bacteria and therefore, to be safe, we should use lots of antibacterial chemicals. Now we have growing evidence that triclosan — one of the main antibacterials chemicals incorporated into soaps, cosmetics, cookware, yoga mats and other sporting equipment, mouthwash, and toothpaste — is unsafe as well. In animal experiments it is implicated in gut inflammation, colon cancer and hormone disruption.