Triclosan Safety Questioned

Excerpt:

GELLERMAN: The chemical triclosan can be found in thousands of household products - toothpaste, kids' toys and face creams, computer keyboards, yoga mats and soaps - especially soaps. Tricolosan is in so many products because it kills germs.

Triclosan has been around for 40 years, and for nearly all that time U.S. officials have been investigating the chemical for safety and effectiveness. Now the Canadian government has just declared the antibacterial agent an environmental toxin, and has proposed regulations that would sharply curtail its use in Canada. Nichelle Harriott is with the environmental group Beyond Pesticides. It's leading a coalition of 80 organizations trying to get triclosan banned in the United States.

HARRIOT: Every product that triclosan is in, is essentially washed down the drain and directly goes into the environment. In surface water, it degrades to another chemical, 240CP, which is known under the Clean Water Act as a priority pollutant, which means that EPA is supposed to regulate that chemical. We know that it is probably taken up by plants and by crops that we eat, and we don’t actually know what the effects are because no one is looking at this, yet we are putting this chemical out into the environment.

Full transcript & audio below...

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=12-P13-00013&segmentID=2