 Tracic. Hey, everybody. Dr. O'Hare. This video, we're going to talk about triclosan. So triclosan is an example of a bisphenol. We already covered the cresols, the phenols, and the phenolics, like what you'd find in lysol, and hexachlorophen, which is a different bisphenol we covered in a separate video. But I wanted to kind of pause and talk about triclosan because it is very significant. So right at this point, about 75% of liquid hand soaps and 25-30% of your bar soaps are going to have triclosan in it. And that's what makes many of your antibacterial soaps antibacterial. Now, you're seeing those numbers come down, and we'll talk about why that is. You can also get triclosan. I've seen it like in cutting boards and in shower curtains and all sorts of things, even in clothing. So you can see it imbibed into different things like that. So triclosan has been spewed all over the place because of its antibacterial action. And like the other phenolics, it does work by denaturing proteins and disrupting membranes. So I'm definitely not saying that it doesn't kill microbes, right? It is antimicrobial. It's especially effective against your skin organisms, which is why you'd see it in antibacterial soaps. But a couple of big things have happened because of the use of triclosan, which is why it is being phased out and replaced. So number one, it appears that triclosan can affect immune function, which means it would make you more likely to develop conditions like allergies and other things. It also appears to impair endocrine function and reproductive function, especially during development. So triclosan does kill microbes, but it also seems to come at a cost that this isn't worth it. And to me, the main reason that it's not worth it is studies consistently show that washing your hands with soap and water works just as well as washing your hands with antibacterial soap and water. So to me, I'm always thinking risk reward, right? If there's no extra reward to using a chemical like triclosan in your soap, then there's no acceptable risk. So I can't say how big of a risk there is that triclosan will affect immune function and endocrine function, reproductive function. But if there's no reward, then to me, there really is no acceptable risk. So this is why you're seeing triclosan being removed. Also, you have the issue of anytime you use chemicals, unless you can eradicate organisms and kill all of them, you are forcing some evolution. So we are now seeing triclosan-resistant bacteria. And this happens anytime we use chemicals. We're fighting an evolutionary arms race with microbes that are better at evolving and adapting than us. And that's a scary situation. So the one, the triclosan-resistant bacteria that appears to be the most significant at this time is salmonella enterica, so one of the strains of salmonella. Last thing I would say here is, a lot of times, we remove chemicals and replace them with other chemicals. You look at when they made a lot of products, BPA-free, and I'm nothing wrong with that, but there's still lots of other chemicals in those plastics that potentially have estrogenic activities, right? And then you've got, in some cases, they replace those chemicals with other ones that appear to be potentially even worse. And we might be dealing with that here. So for decades, they've been researching triclosan and realized that we should probably remove it from our antibacterial products. But one of the things that I've been seeing clinically, and I have patients bring in hand sanitizers and these types of things, or students and patients. But when you look at now a lot of these antibacterial soaps or antibacterial hand sanitizers, et cetera, are using benzalconium chloride, they're using these quats, these quaternary ammonium compounds. And these are now being studied, and they may impair mitochondrial function. So by replacing one antibacterial soap that might impair immune function with another antibacterial soap that might impair mitochondrial function, not a good idea. So my personal opinion, this is not medical advice, but my personal opinion is washing your hands effectively with non-antibacterial, just good old fashioned soap and water appears to be the way to go. So just chemically though, just remember that triclosan is one of the best phenols and this is what makes many of our antibacterial products antibacterial. So I hope that helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.