antimicrobial chemicals

ANTI-MICROBIALS

TEXTILE WORLD MAGAZINE this month has an extensive article about antimicrobials chemicals.

They give the history which dates back to the ancient Egyptians who used ‘spices and herbs” to preserve mummy wraps and hundreds of years ago the Chinese used bamboo which contains an antimicrobial substance called bamboo-kun in housing structures and design. If I am not mistaken all of the spices, herbs and bamboo are natural products. Therefore, they cannot, do not have any negative affect on living organisms such as people.

Modern day fabrics are laden with all kinds of chemicals that have to be presented to the Food and Drug Administration for approval.

The following quote is from the article; “During WW II the polluting effects of antimicrobials was not considered, and just about any chemical compound was used to protect the precious military gear”. I further quote; “Military fabrics were treated with mixes of chlorinated waxes, copper and antimony salts”.

Now we enter the 1960’s and they article says the following; I quote; “antimicrobial textiles had entered the modern era. Following the 1962 publishing of the groundbreaking Rachel Carson book Silent Spring ecologists, scientists, industrial chemists and the public and private organizations that hired them worked hand-in-hand to create more eco-friendly antibiotics. This is the first time I have ever heard of the antimicrobials referred to as antibiotics. What do antibiotics do (?) they kill off infections and they also kill off non-infectious cells I believe. We know this from the use of chemicals used in the treatment of cancer generally called chemo therapy. If this antibiotic kills off good cells why would other even less potent antibiotics not do the same?

The FDA has published requirements that these antibiotic chemical treatment must satisfy, the primary one is and I quote; “Safe for use on skin or area of application”. From what I have read about these antimicrobial chemical treatments they are basically insecticides. My question therefore is, how safe can these chemicals be when you are wearing a garment that covers most of your body?

It would not surprise me in the least to learn that people who were never chemically sensitive as a result of wearing garments that have been treated with antimicrobial chemicals develop chemical sensitivities as a direct result to the exposure to these antimicrobial chemicals.

The article concludes as follows and I quote; Commercial opportunities abound for antimicrobial fabrics. There are obvious unfulfilled needs for odor control, degradation prevention, and controlling the spread of infectious microorganisms”.

The main theme of the article was applying antimicrobial chemicals the fabrics for garments, presumably to be sold to people who don’t want to smell when they are actively working out. So I do not understand the comments about “degradation prevention and controlling the spread of infection microorganisms”. The only thing that I think will degrade is the human wearing these garments, and the human will also be subject to infections due to an altering of the body’s natural defense of microorganisms.

As I see it when I was in my youth years and playing lots of ball as were all of my contemporaries which was significantly more than is seen today (no cell phones or computers) we did sweat a lot and nobody ever complained about odors. Nowadays when people go to the gym to work out for an hour I guess they are afraid to sweat because they “might” generate an offensive odor. If they do it is probably because they are wearing a garment that has been treated with one of the antimicrobial chemicals that has killed the microbes in their pores that once dead putrefy, hence the odor of dead creatures.

My recommendation is that you wear a good cotton outfit that actually absorbs your sweat and then wash it.