{"id":3483,"date":"2017-07-14T08:03:14","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T08:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=3483"},"modified":"2017-07-14T08:03:14","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T08:03:14","slug":"buyer-beware-unnecessary-risks-from-chemicals-in-thousands-of-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/buyer-beware-unnecessary-risks-from-chemicals-in-thousands-of-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Buyer beware: Unnecessary risks from chemicals in thousands of products"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Are you buying antimicrobial or antibacterial soaps? According to over 200 scientists and health professionals, you may want to save your money. A consensus\u00a0statement published<\/a>\u00a0in the peer-reviewed scientific journal\u00a0Environmental Health Perspectives<\/em>\u00a0concludes that common antimicrobial products do not provide benefits and cause health and environmental harm.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Last fall, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined that 19 antimicrobial chemicals, including infamous triclosan and triclocarban, were not effective and should not be marketed for use in over-the-counter consumer wash products. Now,\u00a0200 scientists say<\/a>\u00a0the FDA’s decision does not go far enough to protect consumers and the environment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In consumer soaps and washes, brands are using different additives. “I was happy that the FDA finally acted to remove these chemicals from soaps. But I was dismayed to discover at my local drugstore that most products now contain substitutes that may be worse,” said\u00a0Arlene Blum<\/a>, PhD, Executive Director of Green Science Policy Institute. Antimicrobials are also commonplace in products where you wouldn’t expect them, including paints, exercise mats, flooring, apparel, food storage containers, home textiles, electronics, kitchenware, school supplies, and countertops.<\/p>\n

“Customers may think added antimicrobials are a way to reduce infections, but in most products there is no evidence that they do,”\u00a0said\u00a0Ted Schettler<\/span>, MD, MPH, Science Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. In 2016,\u00a0Dr. Schettler authored a report on\u00a0antimicrobials in hospital furnishings<\/a>\u00a0for the nonprofit Health Care Without Harm.<\/p>\n

“Added antimicrobials are marketed as beneficial in building products from countertops to doorknobs and light switches,”\u00a0said\u00a0Bill Walsh<\/span>, President of Healthy Building Network, which recently produced a white paper on\u00a0antimicrobial building products<\/a>. “Antimicrobial preservatives are useful in certain products like paints, but we found claims about health benefits to be largely invalid.”<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, sales of “antimicrobial” performance products are projected to grow.<\/p>\n

Scientists and health professionals agree that non-medical uses of antimicrobials should be reduced.\u00a0“Environmental and human exposures to triclosan and triclocarban are widespread, affecting pregnant women, developing fetuses, and breast-feeding babies,” said\u00a0Rolf Halden<\/a>, PhD, PE, professor of engineering at\u00a0Arizona State University<\/span>.\u00a0“We must develop better alternatives and prevent unneeded exposures to antimicrobial chemicals.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A consensus\u00a0statement published\u00a0in the peer-reviewed scientific journal\u00a0Environmental Health Perspectives\u00a0concludes that common antimicrobial products do not provide benefits and cause health and environmental harm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,4,35],"tags":[1793,19,20],"class_list":["post-3483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-wellness-2","category-newsmakers","category-wellness-2","tag-antimicrobial","tag-health","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3485,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3483\/revisions\/3485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}