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Hexachlorophene Beware

Category: Health News

The following is an extreme example of the differences between the precautionary and risk assessment approaches to public health. The chemical involved is hexachlorophene. This chemical is still used in ‘baby oil, baby powder, brilliantine hairdressings, cold creams, emollients, deodorants, antiperspirants, face masks, hair tonics and medicated cosmetic products.’`Hexachlorophene is a chemical known to be dangerous. It is derived from the deadly organochlorine 2,4,5-T, one of the chemicals used to create Agent Orange. It contains the deadly dioxin TCDD. Like Agent Orange it is also a known neurotoxin. Neurotoxins are central nervous system poisons. Jo Immig notes that ‘exposure [to neurotoxins] can have adverse effects on behaviour and mood, including an impaired ability to learn, emotional instability, short-term memory problems, anxiety and insomnia.’

`Although hexachlorophene was licensed for use in the United States in a 3 per cent solution, scientific tests and evidence on the use of hexachlorophene had revealed:

¤ face pigmenting from use
¤ coma in burns patients washed in hexachlorophene solution
¤ brain damage in rats from very small dosages
¤ very good skin penetration of hexachlorophene, carrying it inside the body
¤ death in children from treatment of burns with a 3 per cent solution.

`It was known and documented by 1971 that the immune systems of infants are underdeveloped and don’t cope with toxic substances as well as adults, and that the skin of infants is softer and thinner and has a higher water content, giving it increased permeability. If a precautionary approach to hexachlorophene had been adopted, it would not have been used as a germicide for babies [can you believe?]. Exposing babies with an immature immune system to such a product to kill innocuous germs immediately after birth in the name of cleanliness should have been considered an unacceptable risk regardless of the apparent safety factor of low dosage. (After all, soap has been used safely for cleaning newborn babies for many years.) This precautionary assessment should have been made regardless of whether acceptable daily intake (ADI) levels were being adhered to, which in fact didn’t happen.’ (Kevin Farrow, Skin Deep, p.14-15)

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