Mouthwash with chemical content that exceeds the allowable limit might do the user more harm than good, the Consumers’ Foundation said yesterday.
Mouth rinses are commonly used to get rid of germs and prevent bad breath.
However, there are concerns about the safety of some products, because there are currently no standards regulating their contents, the foundation said.
Using the standards set for toothpaste, the foundation inspected 15 mouthwashes bought in supermarkets and cosmetic shops and found that six had a pH lower than 5 and one contained enough chlorhexidine gluconate to be labeled as over-the-counter medication.
An oral environment with a pH lower than 5 can easily lead to cavities caused by the overgrowth of acidic bacteria, and the inspection the average pH value of all tested products was about 7, the agency said.
The concentration of three different chemical substances — triclosan, fluoride and chlorhexidine — in mouthwashes was also tested.
Triclosan is commonly found in antibacterial hygiene products, but can cause tumors or hormonal imbalance if used excessively.
Health authorities have set the limit for the concentration of triclosan in toothpastes. at 0.03 percent
The foundation did not find any mouthwashes exceeding this limit.
Fluoride, which is widely used to prevent cavities, can cause damage to teeth and bones if used in large doses. The national standard (for toothpaste) is 1,500 parts per million and all items were found to be within these limits as well, the foundation said.
However, one brand of mouthwash tested had a chlorhexidine gluconate concentration higher than is allowed in a general commercial product.
The foundation warned consumers against using mouthwash for periodontitis prevention, as most mouthwashes on sale contain little or no antibacterial substances.
In addition, swallowing mouthwash with fluoride can be extremely harmful to a person’s health, especially children’s, it said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods