Warning: Toxic chemical triclosan can turn your toothpaste into chloroform

Monday, February 13, 2006 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: triclosan, toxic chemicals, personal care products

For years, I have warned people of the danger of personal care products. If you look at the ingredients manufacturers put in their products -- soaps, deodorants, toothpastes and so on -- you will be horrified. These ingredients are highly toxic and cause cancer. They promote leukemia, nervous system disorders and liver problems. Now, some new information has come from Virginia Tech. Researchers that have found that the chemical triclosan, which is found in a lot of antimicrobial soaps and toothpaste products, can react with chlorine in the tap water. Guess what you get? (This is the horrifying part.) Chloroform. This is a toxic chemical that can give you cancer. In the old movies, you might have seen someone give a person chloroform to knock them unconscious. If you breathe enough chloroform, you will die.

If you are brushing your teeth with toothpaste that has triclosan in it, and you are rinsing with tap water that has chlorine in it, you are getting a little chemical reaction right in your mouth. What a wonderful gift from the toothpaste manufacturers. That's not to mention that some of the toothpastes contain fluoride that isn't really fluoride but fluorosilicic acid, which is a toxic waste product that is molecularly similar to fluoride but has a much different effect on the human body -- a toxic effect. When you wash your hands with antibacterial soap that contains triclosan, you are getting the fumes emitted from this chemical reaction.

Your home could be full of toxic chemicals

Most people's homes are toxic waste dumps. They have products that contain triclosan, deodorants that contain aluminum (absorbed right through your skin), shampoos that have toxic fragrance chemicals and hair coloring products that contain cancer-causing chemicals. There are perfumes and colognes that people just slather on like they are taking a bath in them. Their senses get dulled, and soon they can't even smell the stuff anymore.

People also put on clothes that have been washed in detergent loaded with fragrance chemicals. These people run around in these clothes and sweat, which helps the toxicity absorb into the skin and bloodstream where it promotes cancer. There are fake air fresheners and furniture polishes that contain toxic chemicals. These products are all promoted as being helpful when really they are quite deadly. Toothpaste is supposed to help you clean your teeth, but the number one ingredient in toothpaste is calcium carbonate, which is just ground-up seashells that actually mar the enamel on your teeth, giving bacteria a place to hide out and replicate. Some toothpaste also has formaldehyde in it.

The answer to why you are diseased is that if you are the average American consumer, you are bathing and living in a system of toxic chemicals that you have purchased and brought home. You use dish detergents that contain toxic chemicals and then eat off of the plates that were washed in them. How crazy are we in this country that we keep on making products that kill people and putting them on the shelves and printing little "25 percent off" coupons?

You are seriously misled if you think you can just wipe out all of the bacteria in your house with antibacterial soap. Do you think you are going to be germ free? Have you checked your doorknobs and your own skin? What about your toothbrush? I bet there are more colonies of bacteria in your toothbrush than there are people in the entire city in which you live. These antibacterial products are useless. They have no value on the market or in your home. It is all a huge marketing gimmick.

You need immune distress to be healthy

Do you think the microbes on your counter are giving you the flu? That's not what is giving you the flu. You have the flu because you poison your body with all these other toxic products, metabolic disrupters in the food supply and poor nutrition. These poisons create a weak body and weakened immune system, allowing opportunistic bacteria to replicate that wouldn't stand a chance if you had a healthy immune defense in the first place.

Even worse, the use of antimicrobial soaps promotes the spread of superbugs around your house. If you want to be a healthy individual, you have to have a little immune distress. If you don't, your immune system doesn't learn how to defend itself. Your immune system makes a pattern of every invading microbe, and it remembers that pattern forever, so it knows how to beat that invader in the future. If you try to maintain a sterile environment, then your immune system never gets to learn how to do its job. You need some level of exposure to these germs or mild infectious agents if you want to have an active immune system.

Let's talk about fragrances a little more. Even guys that wouldn't wear perfume go out and buy laundry detergent that has perfume in it. When I go to the grocery store, I can't even go near the aisle with all the detergents or I get a headache. I am very sensitive to this because of my sensory acuity. I can pick up subtle sights, sounds and smells thanks to a healthy nervous system.

The manufacturers of products that have triclosan in them keep saying that it is perfectly safe and that it only affects the nervous systems of various organisms. They also say it's safe because you don't drink it. Sure, we aren't swallowing the stuff, but we sure are touching it and bathing in it. Do you think the skin is impermeable? The skin absorbs chemicals, and it can certainly absorb something like triclosan as well. How do you think the nicotine patch works? If nothing was absorbed through the skin, then these patches wouldn't work.

Studies show triclosan is toxic to your health

This Virginia Tech study shows that triclosan is a real health hazard. However, the companies using it are going to say that the study was flawed, and the amount that is used is so minimal that it is well within the safety levels established by the Environmental Protection Agency.

They may claim some other silly nonsense, too, but the truth is this ingredient has no place in or around the human body. Only fools coat their body with products containing triclosan. Unfortunately, most people are fooled by this chemical, and they don't understand its real dangers. Personally, I don't need to wash my mouth out with something that is going to create chloroform. This is basic common sense. The fact that these products are even being allowed on the shelves defies common sense. Where has the sanity gone in our consumer products industry? It has been replaced by the profit motive.

Triclosan is put into these products for the convenience of the manufacturers. It will stop their product from going bad, and it allows them to make ridiculous claims on the label. For example, a label may say, "Proven to kill 99.99 percent of bacteria." This sells products, yet it isn't based on any kind of science whatsoever.

If you are new to all this and think everything I just said is crazy, doesn't make any sense or is overly worrisome, then do your research. Don't believe everything I just said -- start doing some reading on triclosan. Start reading about aluminum in deodorants and fragrance in shampoos and perfume, and then you will discover the truth for yourself. You can search Google for information right now. Just search for "triclosan" and see what you find.

If you do the research and are honest with what you find, you will quickly discover that these products are a hazard to your health. They are a threat to you and your family and should be outlawed. They should be reformulated without cancer-causing ingredients. Of course, that would cost Big Business a lot of money. Companies use these ingredients because they are cheap. Where do you think the color comes from in mouthwash? It's from an artificial color chemical. What most manufacturers care about is moving products, and until Congress demands they stop using harmful ingredients, they're going to keep doing so.

I encourage you to find out about more about triclosan and stop using products that contain the chemical. Shop at health food stores. Stop giving your money to manufacturers who are poisoning and exploiting you for profit.