New(ly Discovered) Threat to the Environment

Our environment may already be embracing a new eco-challenge (as if there weren't enough already). Mankind, it seems, is ever ensnared by the Law of Unintended Consequence. More and more, the science that is intended to make our lives easier and safer, fosters malevolent byproducts and/or collateral damage.

It's Bad Medicine
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Yesterday, in Medical News Today, an article was published which details the results of a study of the environmental effects of antibacterial soaps. Aside from the fact that their usage yields little benefits over "regular soap and water," the study shows that the two primary, closely related, antimicrobials, triclosan and triclocarban have been accumulating in estuary sediments for many years.

"Now, Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University researcher Rolf Halden and co-workers, in a feat of environmental detective work, have traced back the active ingredients of soaps - used as long ago as the 1960s - to their current location, the shallow sediments of New York City's Jamaica Bay and the Chesapeake Bay, the nation's largest estuary."

"'Our group has shown that antimicrobial ingredients used a half a century ago, by our parents and grandparents, are still present today at parts-per-million concentrations in estuarine sediments underlying the brackish waters into which New York City and Baltimore discharge their treated domestic wastewater,' said Halden, a new member of the institute's Center for Environmental Biotechnology. 'This extreme environmental persistence by itself is a concern, and it is only amplified by recent studies that show both triclosan and triclocarban to function as endocrine disruptors in mammalian cell cultures and in animal models.'"

Although these east coast estuaries were the focus of this study, the implication is that the same type of accumulation might be found anywhere. The entire article can be found here. The recommendation is that we limit or eliminate the use of antibacterial soaps. The research shows adverse effects for shellfish and crabs among other species, but, being at the lower end of the food chain, these organisms' decrease or demise could eventually propagate up the chain.

Mother Earth Knows
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An equally compelling argument for eschewing antibacterial soap can be found in an article at Mother Earth News, called Why You Should Abandon Antibacterial Soap.

This article states:

"Triclocarban (TCC) is one of the most commonly used antimicrobials and is also a pesticide. TCC leads to reproductive complications (for mammals) as well as cancer, and, for human babies, can cause blue-baby syndrome. When TCC residue washes down the drain, it's immune to water treatments, meaning that most of the TCC resurfaces in municipal sludge and is found in over half of U.S. streams. Since municipal sludge is often used as crop fertilizer, TCC can even potentially appear in our food supply."

It would seem that the risks far outweigh the benefits of these products.

There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments, there are consequences. Robert Ingersoll (1833 - 1899)