Thyroid-Disrupting Triclosan Jumps Into the Frying PanThyroid-Disrupting Triclosan Jumps Into the Frying Pan

Thyroid-Disrupting Triclosan Jumps Into the Frying Friday, April 09, 2010 - Byron Richards, CCN



The FDA is sounding alarm bells and the national media has jumped on the bandwagon. Triclosan is no longer flying under the radar like hundreds of others of its toxic chemical friends. Like bisphenol A, triclosan has a bull’s-eye on its forehead. This is not only a health story; it is a story of political intrigue. It pits the obesity epidemic against an industry that is helping to cause it. Is Michelle Obama paying attention?

Triclosan is a germ-killing chemical, so it is not surprising that anything toxic enough to kill germs may have some adverse effects to human health if exposure levels rise high enough. In the past decade triclosan has been added to zillions of consumer products, including the clothes you wear and the cutting boards you use to prepare food. It is commonly in liquid hand soap/body washes, deodorant, facial cleansers, acne treatments, facial moisturizers, toothpaste, shaving cream, and some bar soaps. Such products often noticeably promote “Antibacterial Properties” in bold print on their packaging, and triclosan is typically listed in the small ingredient print when required by law. A comprehensive review of the places you may encounter triclosan has been published on the Environmental Working Group’s website.

Animal studies are showing that it is an endocrine-disrupting chemical with a penchant for disrupting thyroid hormone at the level of gene expression. It is worth understanding this issue in a bit more depth.

Mapping the human genome has certainly raised more questions than it has answered. Scientists were hoping to find specific genes causing disease, a simple case of cause and effect Western-medicine thinking. Instead, they have found a massively complex situation wherein genes are incredibly flexible and pliable and prone to being placed at various settings just like you set the thermostat in your house. Once set up in a pattern they often stay that way, for better or for worse.

Almost all man-made chemicals have gotten onto the market through rubber-stamping EPA approval. Similar to the FDA, the EPA’s “advisory boards” are made of industry representatives whose vested interest is having chemicals on the market. Chemicals generally pass a flimsy test of not being too cancer causing. The cumulative burden of all approved chemicals on health and the effects of these chemicals on basic human metabolism have not been benchmarks for approval.

Many chemicals interfere with metabolism at levels far lower than a cancer-causing level of exposure. We know from fat tissue samples taken that exposure to everyone is significant as white adipose tissue typically has at least 100 of these toxic chemicals stored within fat – which obviously disturbs the health of the white adipose tissue that is now recognized as a key endocrine organ.

The weak link in your endocrine system, as far as chemical