Back when I was young, the stuff was being touted as a gift to humanity, a germicidal added to soaps, personal hygiene products, baby care products, skin care preparations, and the like. I recall the advertising blitz quite well. Problems soon followed it's widespread use. Some products containing it were Baby Magic Bath by Mennen, pHisoDerm for acne, and one of the most well-known, Dial Soap. "In 1972, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) halted the production and distribution of products containing more than 1% of hexachlorophene.[2] After that point, most products that contain hexachlorophene were available only by prescription from a doctor.[3] The restrictions were enacted after 15 deaths in the United States and 39 deaths in France were reported following brain damage caused by hexachlorophene." But curiously: "At least three companies manufactured over-the-counter preparations incorporating hexachlorophene. One product was Baby Magic Bath by The Mennen Company. Mennen recalled the product in 1971, and it was removed from retail distribution. Immediately after the withdrawal, there was an outbreak of Staphylococcus infections in hospitals across the USA." "The formula for Dial soap was changed to remove hexachlorophene after the FDA put an end to over-the-counter availability in 1972." See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexachlorophene This evening I discovered a much more horrible consequence, by accident, while studying the above link. To understand, one must recall a material called Dioxin, one of the really dangerous and pervasive man-made synthetics. Dioxin, or TCDD, became known as a contaminant in Agent Orange, an herbicide used in the Vietnam War. It was responsible for two of the worst environmental disasters historically: Times Beach, Missouri, and Seveso, Italy. The Expert Group of the World Health Organization considered developmental toxicity as the most pertinent risk of dioxins to human beings. Times Beach, Missouri: Once home to more than two thousand people, the town was completely evacuated early in 1983 due to Dioxin contamination. It was the largest civilian exposure to dioxin in the country's history. "Clean-up" cost: $200 million. Seveso, Italy: The Seveso disaster was an industrial accident which resulted in the highest known exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) in residential populations. The Seveso disaster gives valuable comparative insight into the effects of Agent Orange on flora and fauna in Vietnam, not to mention the Vietnamese people, as TCDD was a significant contaminant in Agent Orange. What's the point of all this: Here: (TCDD) is always a contaminant in the manufacture of Hexachlorophene. So, the millions of pounds of Hexachlorophene used, along with it's load of TCDD, before it was banned in 1972 wound up in the environment, one way or another, to affect population worldwide!
I wasn't aware of the contamination by the dioxin derivatives, but I do remember the Staph problems in the nurseries after hexachlorophene was banned. Do you remember Benylkonium Chloride (Zephiran)? It is still around, but not looked upon as the cleaning and irrigating agent it once was, since the CDC realized it was using it in their media to isolate Pseudomonas/Aeromonas spp. When it was being used to irrigate indwelling catheters, it caused as many infections as it prevented. Not nearly as bad as Dioxin, but another example of misuse.
@Don Alaska IMO, the most serious effect upon us all resulting from the widespread use by humans, and collateral spread via wildlife, is the unknowns related to synthetic chemicals. Many mimic estrogen, indeed are similar chemically, and the human body takes them up, mistaking them for estrogen, and stores them in fat tissue. Gradually, they are "flushed out", but seemingly more are being taken up in general than are being eliminated, with the result that researchers estimate 90+% of humans living today have measurable amounts of endocrine-disruptive chemicals in their bodies. Breast feeding babies pass a load of them along, since the milk is rich in fat. Symptoms are few, except in extreme cases of large exposure. Many are chlorinated organo-phosphates, a class of synthetics which includes most widely-used pesticides and herbicides. These are for the most part directly harmful to humans, while the chemicals which merely "mimic" endocrine hormones are not, other than to cause subtle changes. Unknown are the long-term, generations-ahead effects. By 1996 it had been 3 decades since health researchers discovered that DDT, PCBs, and other persistent chemicals were accumulating in human body fat and breast milk, as well as in every other part of the environment. Consider that in just 6 months of breast feeding a baby in the U.S. or Europe gets the maximum recommended lifetime dose of dioxin. The same baby gets five times the allowable daily level of PCBs set by international health standards for a 150 pound adult. See: Our Stolen Future, by Colborn, Dumanoski, and Myers, 1996.
Frank, you and I are on the same page with this. It is nice to find a kindred soul! Most folks get a glazed look when I mention "estrogen terminals" on synthetics, but if you look at the obesity, feminization of the culture, and rapidly dropping sperm counts, you get an eerie feeling. I haven't read the book you cited, but I have been following this for years. There was a sperm count study done by someone (WHO, I believe) which compared the sperm counts in Denmark and Finland. Denmark sperm counts are rapidly dropping into the infertile range while the counts in Finland are stable. The study authors attributed the drop to exposure to synthetic chemicals in Denmark but little exposure in Finland. Fortunately, few synthetics are used in the environment here and we grow much of our own food, but there are still plastics, purchased meat and produce, and general exposure to synthetic building materials and such.