How to Avoid the Flu

  • Research finds that Americans don't wash their hands enough (Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Health experts say handwashing is the single most important thing you can do to reduce your chance of getting sick or making other people sick. But as Rebecca Williams reports, recent research finds antibacterial soap is not any better than plain soap at keeping us from getting sick. And some scientists and doctors worry there might be risks to widespread use of antibacterial products:

Transcript

Health experts say handwashing is the single most important thing you can do to reduce your chance of getting sick or making other people sick. But as Rebecca Williams reports, recent research finds antibacterial soap is not any better than plain soap at keeping us from getting sick. And some scientists and doctors worry there might be risks to widespread use of antibacterial products:

Some studies estimate about 70% of liquid soaps on store shelves have antibacterial ingredients in them. Ingredients such as a chemical called triclosan.

Allison Aiello teaches epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Aiello is lead author of a paper in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

She examined more than two dozen studies on antibacterial soaps containing triclosan. She says triclosan kills bacteria by going after the bacterium’s cell wall.

“The cell wall cannot be kept intact anymore; it’s not able to survive.”

But Aiello says there’s a growing body of evidence that even though antibacterial soap kills bacteria, it’s no better than regular soap at preventing illness.

Regular soap doesn’t kill bacteria, but Aiello says it works just as well at getting rid of bacteria and viruses like swine flu.

“Regular soap, is basically, it has a surfactant in it and what it does is it allows bacteria to be dislodged from hands and then the motion that you’re using under water helps dislodge it and make it go down the drain, basically.”

Aiello says it’s important to note that the soap studies were done with basically healthy people.

She says more research needs to be done to find out if antibacterial soaps could be more effective for elderly people or people with compromised immune systems.

But Aiello says generally, for healthy people, antibacterial soaps are no better than plain soaps at keeping you healthy.

And she says there could be risks to antibacterial products. She says there’s evidence from lab studies that antibacterial soaps might be adding to the emergence of super-bugs: bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.

“In the laboratory setting, it is clear that there are mechanisms that can lead to antibiotic resistance when bacteria are exposed to triclosan.”

Aiello says they haven’t seen this play out for antibacterial soaps in the real world yet. But she says researchers need to keep an eye on it because antibiotic resistance might take some time to develop.

The soap industry dismisses the idea that antibacterial soaps might have something to do with antibiotic resistance.

Brian Sansoni is with the Soap and Detergent Association.

“The last thing we want to see is people discouraged from using beneficial products. Antibacterial soaps have proven benefits, they’re used safely and effectively by millions of people every day. Consumers should continue to use these products with confidence.”

The Food and Drug Administration has the final word on antibacterial soaps. But they’re still trying to figure out what to say about them.

The FDA has been trying to come up with rules for the products for more than 30 years. Right now there are no formal rules about the levels of antibacterial chemicals in soaps. And there aren’t any rules about how the products can be marketed or labeled.

There’s one thing both the soap industry and doctors agree on – Americans don’t wash up often enough with any kind of soap.

A recent study found one out of every three men walk out of the bathroom without washing their hands. Women did better than the guys, but still, about one of every ten women didn’t wash their hands either.

Experts say after you sneeze, cough or visit the restroom, you should scrub your hands with soap and water for 20 to 30 seconds.

That’s as long as it takes to sing the happy birthday song twice.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Fire Retardant Chemicals Ring Alarm Bells

  • Meredith Buhalis and her daughter Zoe. Meredith's breast milk was tested for PBDEs as part of a study by the Environmental Working Group. (Photo by Meredith Buhalis)

Flame retardant chemicals help make our lives safer.
The chemicals are designed to keep plastics and foam from
catching on fire, but the flame retardants are worrying some
scientists because these chemicals are turning up in people’s
bodies, sometimes at alarmingly high rates. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

Flame retardant chemicals help make our lives safer. The chemicals are designed
to keep plastics and foam from catching on fire. But the flame retardants are
beginning to worry some scientists because these chemicals are turning up in
peoples’ bodies. Sometimes at alarmingly high rates. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:


If you take a look around your house, you can find a lot of things that have
flame retardant chemicals in them. They’re in your television set, the cushions
in your couch, and the padding underneath your carpet. They’re known as poly-bromiated-diphenyl
ethers, or PBDEs. And they’re either mixed in or sprayed on plastics and foam to keep a fire
from spreading.


Five years ago a Swedish study found these chemicals were accumulating in women’s breast
milk. Studies in the U.S. followed, and researchers also found PBDEs in Americans, but at
even higher levels. In fact, Americans have some of the highest levels ever measured. And
over time, the levels have been going up.


(sound of baby)


Meredith Buhalis was one of those people measured in a study by an envrionmental organization
called the Environmental Working Group. Buhalis and 20 other first time moms sent in samples
of their breast milk. When the samples were tested, all of them had some level of PBDEs in
them. Buhalis says when she read the results she didn’t know what to think.


“I guess I kind of read the results and the study was like, ‘Oh, well that sort of sucks.’
I wish I knew more about what that meant. ‘Cause I don’t. You know, they don’t know what
that means.”


Scientists don’t know how or if the chemicals affect human health. And some scientists
think the government and the chemical companies aren’t doing enough to look into PBDEs.


(sound of typing)


In his office at the University of Texas in Dallas, Dr. Arnold Schecter is working on an
article about the flame retardants. He’s been studying toxic chemicals for more than thirty
years. He and some of his colleagues think PBDEs are a lot like another type of chemical…


“It reminds us of PCBs. PCBs structurally are similar to the PBDEs. So there is the worry,
or the concern, that they may have many, if not all, the toxic effect that PCBs have on humans.”


So far the data on PCBs strongly suggest that the chemicals can cause cancer in humans as
well as other human health effects such as damage to the nervous and immune systems. The
companies that manufacture the flame retardants say it’s not fair to compare PBDEs with
PCBs. They say the chemicals are vastly different.


But no one really knows whether the chemicals are similar in the way they affect human
health. That’s because no one’s studied the human health effects of PBDEs.


“Unfortunately, there are no published human health studies and I don’t believe any have
been funded by the federal government to date. Nor by industry, nor by any foundations,
which is a bit different than the situation with PCBs and dioxins years ago when many
studies were being funded.”


Some animal studies suggest that the chemicals can permanently disrupt the hormone and
nervous systems, cause reproductive and developmental damage, and cause cancer. All that
makes scientists such as Dr. Schecter especially concerned about the most vulnerable
population – developing babies.


Because of the concerns, the biggest manufacturer of these chemicals in the U.S. has agreed
to stop making two of the PBDE formulations that were found to accumulate in people. Great
Lakes Chemical says production will stop by the end of this year. The chemicals will be
replaced with another type of brominated flame retardant.


The Bromine Science and Environmental Forum is a trade group that represents companies
that make the flame retardants. Peter O’Toole is the group’s U.S. Director. He says so
far the amount of chemicals found in people doesn’t concern the companies, but the upward
trend does.


“And again, it wasn’t of alarming numbers, but the manufacturer was concerned that these
numbers were going up nonetheless. And they thought it was prudent, and they talked to the
EPA and EPA thought it was prudent if there was some sort of mutual phase out of those materials.”


Dr. Schecter says he commends the company for taking this step. But he says even though these
two formulations will be phased out, the flame retardants are already in our environment now.
He says his research has found high levels of PBDEs by wiping the plastic casing on television
sets, and in the dust found in homes. He says what’s in our homes now isn’t going to vanish,
so we need to figure out how the chemicals get into us, so we can avoid potential health problems.


For its part, the U.S. Envrionmental Protection Agency says large-scale human health studies
take a long time to develop. An agency spokesperson says the EPA first needs to learn how a
person becomes highly exposed. After that, they say researchers will be able to ask the question,
“for the highly exposed people, are there any health effects?”


(sound of baby)


That leaves people such as Meredith Buhalis, with a lot more questions than answers.


“We are thinking of having another baby, and I think I would really like to know more about
PBDEs. I think about it when I think about that.” (to her daughter) “Oh thank you. Hi, baby.
Hi, Zoe.”


The Federal government doesn’t plan to regulate the chemicals anytime soon. But some states
aren’t waiting for more studies. A handful of states have placed restrictions on certain
types of PBDEs. And in other states, legislation is pending.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

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Relief on the Horizon for Allergy Sufferers?

  • To those who may recoil in terror from this picture, relief from peanut allergies may just be a vaccine away. (Photo by Mike Froese)

A new vaccine that reduces food allergies in dogs could
some day help people who suffer dangerous reactions to food like
peanuts, milk and wheat. The vaccine is also more evidence in
support of the so-called “hygiene hypothesis.” The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

A new vaccine that reduces food allergies in dogs could some day help people who suffer
dangerous reactions to food like peanuts, milk and wheat. The vaccine is also more
evidence in support of the so-called “hygiene hypothesis.” The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:


Allergies to foods like peanuts have become much more common over the past 20 years.
Some researchers believe it’s because, as a hygiene-conscious society, we’re no
longer exposing our bodies to infections that stimulate the immune system and protect
us from allergies. Pediatrician Dale Umetsu of Stanford University mixed a component
of Listeria bacterium and peanuts into a vaccine. He then gave it to dogs
with allergies so severe that one peanut made them sick.


“After the treatment, the dogs could tolerate up, on average, to 30 to 40 peanuts,
so this was quite an increase and the effect lasted several months, at least,
after the treatment.”


Umetsu says it could be five years or more before a vaccine is available for human trials.
A vaccine could help millions of people with food allergies.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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