Four companies are reformulating the anti-bacterial soap they sell in Australia to get rid of chemicals that might be doing more harm than good.  They're following the lead of the US, which banned these chemicals.

Woolworths, Aldi, Colgate-Palmolive, and Reckitt Benckiser - which owns Dettol - are taking out the ingredients triclosan and triclocarban.  These are still legal in Australia, but banned in the US over the Food and Drug Administration's concerns they promote antibiotic resistance, disrupt hormones and, potentially, cause cancer in mice.  The companies told the ABC that these chemicals will be out within twelve months.  A fifth company, Johnson & Johnson, says it is "exploring options" for reformulating its acne treatment soap Gamophen.

Microbiology professor Liz Harry from University of Technology Sydney's ithree institute believes the Federal Government ought to follow the US lead, because the current formulations of anti-bacterial soap is pushing the emergence of "super bugs", infections that cannot be treated with the medicines available today.

"An antibiotic, a drug that you take for infection is the same type of entity that's in an antibacterial soap. They're just different types of chemicals. But they're all called antibacterials," she told the ABC.  "Bacterial DNA can encode resistance.  On these same pieces of DNA are resistance to things like penicillin and your basic antibiotics," Professor Harry continued, "So that whole piece of DNA goes from one bacteria to millions of others on the bathroom floor."

"Then they're all resistant, not just to the antibacterial in your wash, but also an antibiotic.  That's where you have a problem.