Triclosan may enourage staph nasal infections

Beth Mole writes in Triclosan aids nasal invasions by staph that "Soaps that contain triclosan, a commonly used antimicrobial compound, could actually help disease-causing bacteria [staph] colonize the human nose".

Because triclosan usually kills bacteria, the finding was a surprise, says Boles, who works to understand why only some people harbor staph. A person carrying the microbe in his or her nose, he says, has a much higher risk of a staph infection, which can occur in the skin and blood and cause pneumonia and produce toxic shock syndrome.

In the study, 37 people, or 41 percent, had detectable levels of triclosan in their nasal secretions. Of the people that had very little or no antimicrobial compound in their snot, 27 to 32 percent had staph in their nostrils. This fraction fits with previous studies, which have found that staphcolonizes about 30 percent of the general population. But of the people with higher levels of triclosan, 64 percent carried staph.