Antibacterial laundry detergent claims to remove mites but its ingredients are unclear. Who will regulate it?
Compiled by NewsMarket reporters Wang Wen-hao and Lin Hui-chen
In just one month, families across Taiwan will welcome the Lunar New Year, and many households are already busy with spring cleaning, with piles of clothing in particular needing a thorough wash. But which cleaning products can people really trust?
On December 3 this year, NewsMarket partnered with the Homemakers United Foundation to hold a press conference exposing that the anti-mite, anti-allergy claims of "Miaoguanjia Anti-Mite Anti-Allergy Laundry Detergent" actually came from an anti-mite agent containing the insecticide permethrin (Permethrin), which could instead irritate people with sensitive skin.
It was not an isolated case: in mid-December the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (abbreviated AFDA) also noted that many antibacterial hand washes and body washes on the market contain triclosan (Triclosan), which may not truly wash away dirt and could instead breed resistance in some bacteria. In this round of checks by NewsMarket on some brands of laundry detergent sold in stores, triclosan was also found.
Behind the advertising and marketing packaging, many cleaning products given "antibacterial" and "anti-mite" functions are in fact loaded with unknown chemicals misused in daily life, posing health risks and burdening the environment.
After the Miaoguanjia incident broke, the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection of the Ministry of Economic Affairs said it is studying whether to include a ban on adding pesticides and environmental agents into the CNS2477 national standard for laundry detergent, but no country in the world has relevant data. The responsible staff are currently submitting a proposal upward, and next year a budget will be allocated to investigate the ingredients of laundry detergents on the market, with priority given to those advertised as antibacterial and anti-mite, hoping first to clarify what is in laundry detergent before sending it to the technical committee for assessment.
Officials said testing takes time, but under the Commodity Labeling Act, laundries with false labeling can be inspected first.
However, after it was revealed that its products contained the insecticide permethrin, Taiwan Miaoguanjia held successive press conferences and ran newspaper advertisements attacking the Homemakers United Foundation and threatening to sue, attempting to justify adding permethrin to laundry detergent.
Miaoguanjia's move drew questions from professionals, so NewsMarket interviewed Huang Chi-sen, a former section chief of the Toxic Substances Management Division of the Environmental Protection Administration, now an associate professor at University of Taipei and chairman and academic affairs head of the Taiwan Environmental Pest Management Association, to discuss the risks and problems that adding permethrin to laundry detergent may bring, as well as the management of "antibacterial" and "anti-mite" laundry detergents, and to offer policy recommendations.
Laundry detergent claims of antibacterial and anti-mite: no law to govern?
Q: Laundry detergents on the market come in a dazzling array, some advertised as inhibiting bacteria, some said to prevent mites or kill mites. How should consumers choose? What is the mechanism of anti-mite action?
Huang Chi-sen (hereafter "Huang"): As long as a manufacturer claims an "effect," it must provide scientific evidence. Take mosquito repellent as an example: scientific evidence already shows that when mosquito repellent is sprayed on the skin, mosquitoes avoid it when they smell it. Because mosquito repellent acts on the skin and comes into contact with the human body, it must be registered under the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act and can only be sold in pharmacies. If mosquito repellent does not touch the human body and is only sprayed in the home environment, it must be registered with the EPA under the Environmental Agents Control Act.
At present there is no scientific research or safety assessment showing that permethrin added to laundry detergent can prevent mites. Permethrin is often used in textile pre-treatment; for example, during field work surveys, mosquito nets are soaked in a preparation containing permethrin, and mosquitoes that land on the net are killed or driven away by the agent. Preparations containing permethrin must be registered with the EPA as environmental agents, and when used must be diluted with water; they cannot be added directly to laundry detergent.
To control dust mites, treat the cause, not with anti-mite laundry detergent
The premise of claiming anti-mite is that dust mites must be present, just as you would not take a headache pill without a headache, and would not take stomach medicine without stomach pain. When manufacturers put anti-mite agents directly into laundry detergent, even households without dust mites come into contact with the agent. Permethrin is highly irritating to infants' skin and cannot be touched every day; especially when permethrin is added to laundry detergent, it easily remains on clothing after washing, and is even less suitable for washing underwear.
Dust mites are different from head lice: they are not external parasites of the human body and will not stay on our bodies or clothes. Dust mites feed on human dandruff, so the fundamental way to prevent dust mites is to clean the environment well, or to apply agents where dust mites live, in order to wipe them out at once.
Among children prone to allergies today, 70% are allergic to dust mites, 50% to cockroaches and 40% to mold, because whether dead or alive, the excrement of dust mites and cockroaches contains a special protein that easily triggers allergies. This is why manufacturers, seeing parents' worry about children's allergies, bring out anti-mite laundry detergent.
But if a child has allergies, a doctor should first be consulted to diagnose the allergen, just as when ill one should be diagnosed by a doctor and then treated for the cause. The government also should not let manufacturers evade the Environmental Agents Control Act by adding permethrin to laundry detergent and claiming anti-mite function; that is wrong.
Laundry detergent makers often use special adjectives, such as bacteria-inhibiting and antibacterial, to evade the control of relevant regulations. In fact, whether manufacturers use words like "prevent," "resist" or "inhibit" to control bacteria, dust mites or insects, the mechanism of action is killing (kill), and the function should be that of a drug, yet too many products on the market emphasizing antibacterial and anti-mite evade drug-related regulations. Therefore the government should carry out a comprehensive survey, and from both the legal and scientific sides, resolve the problem of abuse of antibacterial or anti-mite agents added to laundry detergent.
Opening laundry detergent to permethrin is undoubtedly opening Pandora's box
Q: What impact does the use of permethrin have on health and the environment?
Huang: There are two kinds of permethrin. One has a cis-trans isomer ratio of 40:60 and has been proven in animal experiments to be carcinogenic; it is already an environmental agent banned by EPA announcement. The other has a cis-trans isomer ratio of 25:75 and may be used, but is still under monitoring. It is not known which kind of permethrin was detected in Miaoguanjia this time, but both are substances banned or monitored under the Executive Yuan's "Environmental Hormone Control Plan." But whichever kind of permethrin is used, adding it to cleaning agents and using it in large quantities will affect the environment.
When permethrin flows into reservoirs or rivers, it causes bioaccumulation and biomagnification, entering the human body through the food chain and accumulating in fat, which over the long term may cause cancer or lower fertility.
What is worrying is that current drinking water quality standards do not test for the 500 kinds of insecticides and pesticides existing in the environment, nor for permethrin, organophosphates and pyrethroids; only DDT, gamma-BHC, polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins and a few organochlorines are tested.
As for why the Council of Agriculture has not banned permethrin as a pesticide: because after permethrin is sprayed on farmland, it is easily broken down by sunlight, and there are also microorganisms in the soil, so it decomposes within a few hours to one or two days.
Permethrin belongs to the pyrethroid insecticides. Although its oral toxicity is low and its volatility toxicity is low, its toxicity to the skin is high and it is irritating, which is bad for allergic groups, children and pregnant mothers.
If permethrin is later allowed to be added to laundry detergent, and the EPA tests drinking water and finds permethrin, can it tell laundry detergent manufacturers not to add it? If high-risk chemicals are legalized for uses where they should not be used, the health of 23 million people will be sacrificed.
In addition, we have no concept of total quantity control. It is like every factory's effluent meeting discharge standards, but whether only three factories discharge wastewater or 10,000 factories discharge wastewater in total, the environment's carrying capacity is different. The same goes for laundry detergent: if adding permethrin is allowed, and every household discharges 0.1 ppm when washing clothes, then 3 households give 0.3 ppm, and 300 households give 300 ppm; over the long term, can the environment bear it?
The EPA should take responsibility
Q: The EPA is in charge of environmental sanitation agents, but the EPA believes that once permethrin is added to laundry detergent it becomes a commodity and falls under the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Which agency should ultimately be responsible for this matter?
Huang: The national standard CNS 2477 now sets rules for laundry detergent, but for manufacturers it is only voluntary compliance. At most, the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection of the Ministry of Economic Affairs can use the Commodity Labeling Act to check whether manufacturers honestly label ingredients, but even if ingredients are labeled, the public does not know what permethrin is.
I believe that if manufacturers secretly add anti-mite agents to cleaning agents without labeling them, that violates the Commodity Labeling Act. But if it is clearly written that the product has anti-mite, sterilization and other functions, it should be governed by the Environmental Agents Control Act.
At present Taiwan's drugs are managed under four major categories of regulations: the Environmental Agents Control Act, the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act, the Animal Drugs Control Act and the Pesticide Control Act, distinguished by use. Products claiming therapeutic effect fall under the Ministry of Health and Welfare; products claiming to prevent mites, bacteria, insects or household rats fall under the EPA.
Suppose the permethrin used by Miaoguanjia is the type approved by the EPA with a cis-trans isomer ratio of 25:75; used in laundry detergent, it should fall within the scope of household environmental sanitation, and under the Environmental Agents Control Act it should be registered with the EPA as an environmental agent.
But now Miaoguanjia evades the law and does not need to register with the EPA, so what about other manufacturers that register with the EPA as required and conduct and provide toxicological test reports as required? Their registration costs are higher and their prices are naturally higher too. Facing Miaoguanjia's low-price competition, is that fair?
Therefore, to resolve the phenomenon of Miaoguanjia adding permethrin to laundry detergent, and even to determine what chemical substances are added to all laundry detergents claiming antibacterial and anti-mite functions, the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection of the Ministry of Economic Affairs should comprehensively test the ingredients of laundry detergent and finally transfer the matter to the EPA, because the EPA has the Toxic Chemical Substances Control Act and can require manufacturers to register chemical substances for assessment and management. If after assessment it does not fall within the scope of the toxic substances control act, then the chemical substance is judged by its intended use to determine which regulation applies.
For example, permethrin is not listed under the toxic substances control act, and can simply be managed by intended use under the four major drug regulations. Therefore, when manufacturers add antibacterial and anti-mite ingredients to laundry detergent, this falls within the scope of household environmental sanitation and should be regulated by the Environmental Agents Control Act, rather than being in the current state where no authority is responsible.