Triclosan is found in many household items and may be dangerous
After taking its sweet time, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will make a decision on whether a chemical found in household antibacterial soaps is safe or not.
The chemical triclosan, which is found in about 75 percent of liquid antibacterial soaps in the United States, has been in question for quite some time now. Animal studies have shown that it could lead to infertility and early puberty -- and lawmakers and advocates want the FDA to make a decision now.
The case involving triclosan dates back as far as 1972. At that time, Congress passed a law that made the FDA set guidelines for antibacterial chemicals. The FDA published its first tentative set of guidelines in 1978 for the liquid soaps, which said that triclosan was not seen as "safe and effective" due to lack of research proving otherwise.
The FDA made many drafts since then, but none were ever finalized. Hence, triclosan was never removed from household products like antibacterial soap, toothpaste, deodorants, bedding, and even toys.
Last summer, the FDA said the review would be complete by the end of 2012, but that was later pushed to February 2013. We are now in May 2013, and the FDA is being pushed to finalize the review.
Triclosan is found in antibacterial soap [Image Source: Chicago Tribune]
The FDA was even threatened with a lawsuit by the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council in March of this year.
Right now, the FDA's website states that "the agency does not have evidence that triclosan in antibacterial soaps and body washes provides any benefit over washing with regular soap and water."
In August 2012, researchers at the University of California - Davis and the University of Colorado discovered that triclosan actually affects muscular strength in mice, swimming in fish and muscular contractions in skeletal and cardiac cells.
The researchers reached these conclusions by first exposing living mice to doses of triclosan similar to that humans and animals would be in contact with on a daily basis. After 20 minutes of exposure, the mice had a 25 percent drop in heart function. They also had an 18 percent decrease in grip strength after an hour of exposure.
While the removal of triclosan could prove to be a nuisance for many industries, companies like Johnson & Johnson have already vowed to remove triclosan from all adult products by 2015.
There's no exact date planned for the final review by the FDA, but it's expected to come this year -- hopefully.
The latest food scandal in China - which has seen rat meat passed off as lamb - has raised more questions about food safety in the country.
It seems that barely a day goes by in China without news of yet another food safety scandal.
But the latest case - even by Chinese standards - was truly stomach-churning.
Hundreds of people were arrested after passing off rat meat as lamb.
Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the scandal has given rise to a round of stories about rodents.
I heard one anecdote about a restaurant in southern China that serves up rat meat dishes. Believe me these establishments do exist.
At this particular restaurant, the owners reassured the customers their rats had been caught in the countryside and not in the sewers.
Now, whether the story is true or not, it gives you a flavour of public concern over food safety.
When you eat at cheap restaurants - or roadside stalls for that matter - you are always left with that queasy feeling you may have consumed something you did not order.
From Our Own Correspondent
Insight and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world
My wife recently had lunch at a restaurant and discovered a stone in her soup and then a piece of scrubbing brush in her main course. When I asked why she had not complained, she said she did not want to spoil the meal for her friends.
The irony is that people in China are now eating more than ever before but quality remains elusive.
Obesity, once unheard of, is now becoming an issue.
There has been the largest wave of migration in human history here: tens of millions of rural migrants have poured into the cities to fuel the country's remarkable economic growth.
The journey from the farms to the factories in the last couple of decades has given rise to a vast food supply chain catering for China's urban population.
But the food industry here is often filthy and even downright criminal.
Farmers drown vegetables in pesticides; businesses pump cattle full of steroids; and corrupt officials - after taking their cut - often certify questionable food as safe.
It is little wonder then that people are concerned.
One weekend I joined some city slickers who had become part-time farmers.
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The authorities know they need to deal with the simmering public anger over food safety”
The PR consultants, teachers and computer programmers juggled their iPhones and spades at an organic farm on the outskirts of the capital.
Glistening with sweat, they said their weekend workout was all about ensuring the quality of the produce.
For most people though a return to the land simply is not feasible.
So the Chinese middle class - along with many foreigners - buy their meat from Australia and milk from New Zealand.
With so much mistrust, those with the cash plump for trusted brands.
But if there is one issue that provokes anger here more than most it is formula baby milk.
Back in 2008 a scandal of stunning proportions unfolded in homes across the country.
Hundreds of thousands of babies became sick after drinking contaminated formula. Several of them died.
The authorities initially suppressed the scandal because they did not want bad news breaking before the Beijing Olympics.
Footage from one facility showed meat being kept in unsanitary conditions
That decision sparked outrage. Because what it boiled down to was an issue of trust: if the authorities are not prepared to look out for babies - then exactly who will they protect?
During the fallout from the baby milk scandal, the authorities promised to take tougher measures to clean up the food supply chain. They introduced the death penalty for some cases.
But corruption and lax enforcement of regulations mean people here are still looking at their plates every mealtime thinking about the country's terrible record on food safety.
The surest sign of the scale of the problem is that China's leaders are very picky about what they eat themselves.
One gutsy Chinese newspaper reported there were special farms - and carefully monitored producers of fish, pork and poultry - supplying the nation's leadership. That report did not stay online for long.
But while they may be eating from a different plate, the authorities know they need to deal with the simmering public anger over food safety.
Like the appalling air pollution here, it is something they simply cannot afford to ignore.
I think it is obvious that industry/capitalism needs certain regulations to protect the people.
The problem is that the regulators who are supposed to be looking out for the best interests and welfare of the people are instead corrupt and do not provide the needed regulation.
Hence, we have the Monsantos and Big Pharma of the world along with all the various government agencies enriching themselves at the expense of the people.
So, the question is not should we regulate, but how to effectively regulate. Perhaps a private non-governmental method of regulation?
Yes, I agree there. Complexity is ever more rising, which produces products and services whose quality is ever more difficult to assess for consumers. There are a few non-market solutions:
- Company reputation
- More transparency (internet providing data, crowd sourced reviews, etc.)
But as this thread shows, these are insufficient in many cases. I think insulating the regulation process from influence by interested parties would go some way of remedying, but nothing is perfect and there will always be snake-oil salesmen slipping through the net.
The outgoing governor of theBank of Englandhas called on the British people not to "demonise" bankers for thefinancial crisis.
SirMervyn Kingsaid on Sunday that the failings of the financial and regulatory system were the root cause of the turmoil which struck the world economy almost six years ago.
King, who leaves the Bank this summer, told Sky News's Murnaghan programme that there was widespread risk-taking in the runup to thecredit crunch, and it had been a mistake to give the banking sector such a lofty status in the good times.
"Where the banks contributed to the problem was that they themselves had taken too many risks on their balance sheet and they simply didn't have enough capital to absorb the losses that were likely to come along and people took fright, they lost confidence in the banks, they didn't provide money to the banks so the banks couldn't lend to businesses or households.
"I would say to people though, don't demonise individuals here. This wasn't a problem of individuals, this was a problem of failure of a system. We collectively allowed the banking system to become too big, we gave them far too much status and standing in society, and we didn't regulate it adequately by ensuring it had enough capital."
Asked if he regretted not doing more to prevent the crisis, King said he and the Bank had issued warnings.
Conservative MP Brooks Newmark said King could not escape some responsibility for the errors that helped to cause the biggest financial crisis in generations.
"He is the Governor of the Bank of England, it sort of says it on the tin what he is responsible for," Newmark told Murnaghan.
Lord Myners, the former City minister, agreed that King had failed to see the problems building-up in the runup to 2007, and had become "hung up on moral hazard" once the banking sector was being bailed out.
"The judgement of history which with Governors is written about a hundred years later, will say that he failed in two very major respects and also a third one, that he failed to modernise the Bank," Myners added.
King also expressed concern over Britain's new Help to Buy scheme, which involves the government guaranteeing up to 15% of a mortgage on properties worth up to £600,000.
The scheme, which begins in January 2014, is due to run for three years. King warned that there is "no place" for a permanent scheme of this kind.
"This scheme is a little too close for comfort to a general scheme to guarantee mortgages. We had a very healthy mortgage market with competing lenders attracting borrowers before the crisis, and we need to get back to that healthy mortgage market.
"We do not want what the United States have, which is a government-guaranteed mortgage market, and they are desperately trying to find a way out of that position.
"So, we mustn't let this scheme turn into a permanent scheme. Now when is the right time to terminate it will depend on economic conditions at the time."
King also warned that the struggling eurozone economy remains the largest threat to the UK, and criticised European leaders for driving their economies into a "downward spiral".
Britain's "modest recovery" could be derailed, he warned, if the single currency region remains trapped in recession or only achieves low growth.
"It is very difficult to see that they will be growing quickly for a long while, and that downward drag on exports from the UK to Europe, they account for almost half of our exports, and the fact that our banks still have some exposure to the euro here is undoubtedly the single biggest factor dragging down on our economy."
The eurozone economy has now been shrinking for the past 18 months, with sharp recessions in countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece where tough spending cuts and tax rises have been imposed.
It isn't remarkable that the lack of financial regulation is blamed for the financial crisis (lack of regulation enabled the shadow banking system to emerge, without any limits on leverage, or the emergence of largely unregulated derivatives markets trading extraordinarily complex products).
However, Mervyn King was in charge of the Bank of England (BoE) at the time, so this is a remarkable mea culpa, even if it isn't stated in these terms.
The traditional role of the banking sector is the assessment of credit risk. It's an intermediary between those with surplus funds to those with investment needs, and different time horizons also play a role.
However, when banks were able to repackage dicy mortgages into extraordinarily complex derivatives, and subsequently shift these instruments, and therefore the credit risk off their balance sheets, this vital banking function became suspended. This led banks to take on as much dicy mortgages as possible, it became a volume business, as they simply weren't the ones bearing the associated risk, why should they continue assess that risk?
Regulatory agency's even provided triple A ratings to these instruments, which greately helped marketing them, hence risk disappeared from visibility and became systemic.
For an idea to get a viable financial sector, see here
'kommonsents' pid='22606' datel Wrote:I think it is obvious that industry/capitalism needs certain regulations to protect the people. The problem is that the regulators who are supposed to be looking out for the best interests and welfare of the people are instead corrupt and do not provide the needed regulation. Hence, we have the Monsantos and Big Pharma of the world along with all the various government agencies enriching themselves at the expense of the people. So, the question is not should we regulate, but how to effectively regulate. Perhaps a private non-governmental method of regulation?
kommon -
I agree with you. One of the challenges though is separating the wheat from the chaff. The "throw the bums out" doesn't work. In my experience there are a lot of competent, well meaning people in the public sector more than capable of doing good work on the public's behalf. Unfortunately, it is too easy to take a few exceptions and use them to characterize the whole.
How to avoid that? I suspect that involves abandonment of one's beliefs, but not one's principles. A good dose of history helps in that regard. Just saw "42" about Jackie Robinson and came away with the idea I was watching different players, different time and different venue but the same phenomina as it relates to enlightened understanding of what we the human race can achieve. Unfortunately an element of our humanity is always there to get in the way. Overcoming THAT reality is our perpetual challenge.
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Former employees of Willy Selten plant tell how horse entered European food chain over at least five years
"Everything passed through my hands: beef, horse, old meat that stank, sometimes even 'fresh' meat but it wasn't exactly fresh … Yes, I cut horse. I suspected there was something wrong but I just did what I was told to do," Jan Kowalski told us.
Kowalski (not his real name) is one of 85 Polish migrant workers who were employed at a meat processing plant in the Netherlands that was raided by the Dutch authorities in February as part of their investigation into horsemeat fraud.
Guardian interviews with Kowalski and an official from the Dutch meat union representing the Poles have thrown new light on how thousands of horses allegedly entered the food chain in place of beef over many years at the Willy Selten factory in Oss, south of Rotterdam.
They said that the horsemeat was processed at the end of the day, after the normal shift had finished and the plant had been cleaned, and that workers were tasked with cutting and mixing beef, some of it defrosted from consignments with labels as old as 2001, with horse deliveries. They had to cut out "green" putrid beef, which smelled so bad that they could keep working only by tying towels around their faces. They also described having to endure brutally tough working conditions and filthy, overcrowded accommodation.
The firm has been required by the Dutch food safety authority (NVWA) to recall 50,000 tonnes of meat that was distributed from the factory to more than 500 companies across Europe, including eight in the UK and one in Ireland, in the past two years, because it was unable to show its origin. The NVWA is still investigating and on Thursday Dutch police arrested the owner, Willy Selten on suspicion of false accounting and fraud. The prosecutor's office said that the business had allegedly received 300 tonnes of horsemeat from England, Ireland and the Netherlands in 2011 and 2012 but its accounts only recorded beef. It delivered to supermarkets, meat processing factoires and butchers throughout Europe.
A spokesman for Selten denied that horse had ever been relabelled as beef. "It never happened," said Selten's lawyer, Frank Peters. However, the NVWA revealed this month that its tests on more than 150 samples of meat labelled as beef from his factory had found horse DNA in 21% of them.
Michiel Al, organiser for the Dutch meat workers' union, the FNV, said Polish workers had told him that the mixing and repacking of horse had gone on for at least five years at the Selten plant. Kowalski said he had been involved in repacking horsemeat for two and a half years. The horse trucks would come from England and Germany, and for every 10-15 parts of beef about four of horsemeat would be mixed in.
"The worst meat was always processed in overtime or on Saturdays, not on the normal shift. We'd do it to earn a bit extra. Overtime was paid in cash in envelopes," Kowalski said.
The meat would then be repacked and relabelled, some of it as organic beef, the Polish workers claim.
The workers were on zero-hours contracts and paid about €500 a month less than the minimum required by Dutch regulations for the meat sector, according to Al. The union is preparing a claim against Selten for unpaid wages.
Kowalski and other workers described regular accidents at the factory in which employees were seriously injured by butchering knives. They alleged that a Dutch worker would treat injuries in the canteen but that the company made no effort to take employees to hospital when necessary, leaving this to their Polish colleagues.
The employees were housed by Selten in mobile homes on a campsite or in a rented farmhouse in the village of Nistelrode, where the Dutch businessman has his own home. No one answered at Selten's upmarket house when the Guardian visited.
When the factory was raided, the Polish workers suddenly found themselves without a job and without money, although they were still required to pay rent. At that point, 50 of them joined the union, which has been supporting them since. Some have found other work in the Netherlands; several have returned to Poland.
Al said conditions were very poor and overcrowded when he visited the Poles in their accommodation. Six to eight workers slept in bunk beds in each mobile home. At the farmhouse, walls were brown with grime and the floor was crammed with mattresses. Kowalksi said there were up to 30 workers living in the four-bedroom house and in a neighbouring property.
The landlord, Adrie van den Berg, a former pig farmer, said he thought there were 12 per house and blamed the Polish men themselves for not being clean, and for chain-smoking and drinking beer.
Peters rejected several of the workers' allegations. Horse had been mixed with beef to meet specific orders but only for 10 months and it had never been relabelled as beef, he claimed. Where meat was old it was being recycled for pet food, he said, adding that workers were paid the legal minimum wage and wanted the flexibility of zero-hours contracts and cash for overtime.
He said that small injuries were treated in the canteen but in serious cases workers went to the doctor with a colleague. The Polish workers were responsible themselves for cleaning their accommodation and "some had stayed for years without complaints".
He said all the workers were invited and came to family and company parties. "The atmosphere was top!" he said.
The UK and the Dutch authorities have refused to identify who was taking horses to, and meat from, Selten's factory, while their investigations continue, but the Guardian revealed last month that horses had been regularly delivered from the Red Lion abattoir in Cheshire.
John Young, a spokesman for the Turner family, who own Red Lion, said horse deliveries had been properly labelled as such and were legal, although he admitted that one horse had been the subject of a recall, having tested positive for bute, the horse drug banned from the food chain.
All horses processed at the Red Lion site had been passed for slaughter by official vets, he said.
The phthalate chemicals used in packaging are banned in some countries and have been blamed for many ailments. So should you ban them from the house?
Clingfilm … a health issue or not? Photograph: Photocuisine / Alamy/Alamy
If you've had to fight though plastic packaging to get to your food you won't be surprised to hear it can raise your blood pressure – but it's the phthalate chemicals used in the packaging rather than the effort involved, that's to blame. These chemicals are generally used to make plastic soft, for example in credit cards or plastic shower curtains. A study of nearly 3,000 children in the Journal of Pediatrics found that children between the ages of six and 19 who had been exposed to phthalates (measured by levels of breakdown products of the chemicals in their urine) had higher levels of blood pressure than those who didn't.
When I asked the lead researcher, Leonardo Trasande from New York University School of Medicine, if the small, clinically insignificant rise in blood pressure was likely to mean anything, he said it could do so in later life. "We know that phthalates damage the walls of arteries by oxidative stress and they may directly damage heart cells," he says. "We know these chemicals get into food from plastic wrappings and gloves, and that they are in PVC flooring and cosmetics. We think they may have a effect on cardiovascular health and that children and adolescents should have limited exposure."
The solution
The debate about phthalates, specifically those with low molecular weight such as DEHP, DBP and BBP, has gone on for years. They are known as endocrine disruptors as they are also accused of messing with hormones and causing girls to reach puberty earlier, as well as reducing sperm count in boys. Denmark has banned some of them and may extend this further, while other countries have banned them from toys. A report from the WHO said more research was urgently needed on their effect on rising rates of a range of diseases such as diabetes and ADHD. The report stressed the WHO's concern over the exposure in young children of phthalates and other environmental chemicals that seem to interfere with human hormones. Phthalates have also been linked to allergies and asthma.
A pediatrician expert in infectious diseases, Offit is particularly focused on vulnerable children, who do not have the agency to make choices for themselves. In such instances, deluded parents can prevent a child with a potentially curable malignancy from receiving proven therapies, while pursuing remedies that are not only nonsensical but also noxious. Early in the book we are introduced to Joey Hofbauer, a seven-year-old who, in 1977, developed a lump in his neck. He soon received a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s disease; his prognosis was excellent, with a 95 percent chance of complete remission: “Joey could live a long and fruitful life. But for Joey Hofbauer, the road to recovery wasn’t going to be easy.” The barriers in his path were not a lack of insurance or of access to expert oncologists. Rather, his parents, John and Mary Hofbauer, believed that there must be a more “natural” way to cure their son than toxic chemotherapy and radiation. They decamped to the Fairfield Medical Center in Montego Bay, Jamaica, to receive laetrile, a touted cancer “cure” extracted from apricot pits.
Typically absent from the claims about many “alternative treatments” are their risks.
The state of New York tried to take custody of Joey, and a legal battle ensued. While the dispute raged, John Hofbauer secretly gave Joey several doses of laetrile. To the dismay of the state’s Child Services, Judge Loren N. Brown of the Saratoga Family Court agreed to allow the Hofbauers to treat Joey with laetrile for six months, so long as they identified a licensed physician willing to administer it. The parents found Michael Schachter, a psychiatrist from Nyack, New York. As Offit recounts, Schachter had them sign a consent form releasing him of all responsibilities, and it included the statement that he was not a cancer specialist and had no direct experience with orthodox cancer-therapy modalities of chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery, and was not in a position to advise the Hofbauers about the benefits and risks of treatments for the malignancy. But despite these limitations, Schachter was not averse to assuming care and providing laetrile—along with “raw milk, raw liver juice, cod liver oil, soft-boiled eggs, Staphylococcus phage lysate (staph bacteria infected with a virus), pancreatic enzyme enemas (which partially dissolve the lining of the colon), massive doses of vitamin A (which cause blurred vision, bone pain, and dizziness), a vaccine to prevent ‘Progenitor cyrptocides’ (a bacterium believed by a physician named Virginia Livingston to cause all cancers), a vegetarian diet, daily coffee enemas made by adding three heaping tablespoons of regular coffee to one quart of water (coffee enemas had already caused two deaths), seven injections of an ‘autogenous vaccine’ (made from bacteria in Joey’s urine), and Wobe-Mugos enzymes (a combination of several pancreatic enzymes obtained from pigs).”
At the end of six months, several oncologists testified before Judge Brown that the cancer had grown in its original location and spread to other parts of Joey’s body. Offit notes that “Schachter apparently didn’t realize that Joey’s ‘occasional nausea and abdominal cramps’ were probably caused by cyanide poisoning from large doses of laetrile, having never obtained blood cyanide levels to check it out.” Despite all the evidence that the cancer was advancing, Schachter contended that his therapies were succeeding. Judge Brown ruled in favor of the parents, contending that they were “concerned and loving” and that Dr. Schachter was “duly licensed.”
There were formidable allies who supported the Hofbauers, among them the John Birch Society, intent on eliminating government oversight. The Birch Society founded the Committee for Freedom of Choice in Cancer Therapy. Such groups had great sway in the laetrile debate: in 1976, Alaska legalized the manufacture and sale of the extract from apricot pits and, by 1979, twenty-one states had followed.
The Saratoga County Department of Social Services appealed to higher courts but failed to have the decision about Joey Hofbauer reversed. In July 1980, at the age of ten, the boy died of Hodgkin’s disease, his body riddled with the lymphoma. Four months later, the actor Steve McQueen died of an aggressive type of lung cancer, called mesothelioma; he had left Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and gone to receive laetrile in a clinic in Mexico. A year later Charles Moertel, an oncologist at the Mayo Clinic, led a multi-center clinical trial of 178 patients with advanced cancer, testing laetrile and high doses of vitamins. There was no sign of benefit, and several of the patients suffered symptoms of cyanide poisoning from the treatment. In 1987, the FDA banned the sale of laetrile.
