The wrong kind of soap is bad. Very bad.

I thought I was getting ahead of the curve for once, but The Wife one-upped me.

It seems that a triclosan and triclocarban, common additives to hand soap, dish washing liquid, toothpaste and hundreds of other common household cleaners, has been linked to all sorts of scary stuff, including dermatitis, affect sex hormones (and not in a good way), interfere with the nervous system, possibly be a cause of autism, toxify your liver and inhalation system, and poses a danger to fetal and childhood development.

According to Dan Chang, PhD, "a professor of environmental engineering at U.C. Davis and one of the researchers involved, says he doesn't want to cause a panic, but ""the public should be aware of some of the concerns.""

Gee, that's reassuring.

Triclocarban and triclosan were initially used as antiseptic cleaners in hospitals in the 1950s and 60s. Freaked out germaphobes, helped along by articles like this, turned antibacterial soaps into multibillion dollar businesses starting in the 1990s. The claim by the EPA and the soap industry (what I like to call "Big Bubble") that the products are safe are based on testing done on animals in the 1960s and 70s, when testing standards were quite looser than they are today. But the old products got grandfathered in.

According to an article on WebMD, the UC Davis researchers suspect that any harmful effects from these agents are most likely to occur during pregnancy, in early childhood, and adolescence. You know, the times when everyone is always freaked about about washing hands and stuff.

The stuff also has a nasty habit of sticking around. White coat-types at Johns Hopkins have reported that 75% of triclocarban survives wastewater treatment plants and ends up in water used on food crops. found triclosan in the urine of 75% of people aged 6 and older.

In addition to all this, it's been widely reported that common use of antibacterial soaps are no better than regular soap, and are likely contributing to more drug resistant bacteria.

Okay. No antibacterial soap (although purell and the like are a different story).

The Environmental Working Group provides a handy mouse-over map of your home showing where triclosan may be lurking. Basically, it's in everything from soap to shoes to shower curtains. They suggest running naked through a hidden grotto drinking naturally purified rainwater and eating free range spores.

So, all of this had convinced me to start looking in horror at my bottle of cheapo dishsoap. It seemed like such a bargain at 98 cents! Okay, off to Trader Joe's to buy some human and earth friendly crap. Hey, here's a nice one: lavender scented. We used to calm Cinderella with lavender oil when she was a restless babe.

This is when the wife one-upped me.

Her: "Lavender? Are you out of your mind? Haven't you read about lavender????"

Me: "Ha ha! No. Is orange okay?"

Her: "Of course. What could be bad about orange?"

Me: "I'll be right back."

Turns out, some white coat types have discovered that lavender and tea tree oil have been found to cause young boys to develop breasts. Spurs estrogen growth or something. In a culture obsessed with boobs, pretty much everyone can agree that nobody wants them on prepubescent boys. Not sure what it does do 4 year old girls like mine, but we're not about to find out.

Swimming Pools: Summer Fun or Cauldron of Death?

Summer heat means it's time to head for a relaxing dip in the pool. Not according to a worrying article from WebMD. The biggest dangers are recreational water illnesses (RWIs):

RWI refers to any illness or infection caused by organisms that contaminate water in pools, lakes, hot tubs, and oceans, resulting in diarrhea, skin rashes, swimmer's ear, and other conditions. And they are on the rise. The rate has more than doubled in the past 10 years, according to data from the CDC.

"No one who swims is safe from RWIs," says Alan Greene, MD, an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., and author of several books including From First Kicks to First Steps.

Okay, but doesn't chlorine keep it clean?

Chlorine in properly disinfected pools kills most germs that can cause RWIs in less than an hour, but it takes longer to kill some germs, such as cryptosporidium, which can survive for days in even a properly disinfected pool.

What to do if you come down with one of these nasties? Antibiotics are the usual treatment, but the article notes that they are over-prescribed, leading to increased resistance to antibiotics. The article warns that avoiding the pool altogether isn't a good alternative, considering America's obesity epidemic.

Happy swimming!