True about household soaps and cleaners, but rwj has a point with, "stop dosing livestock with antibiotics as a prophylactic."

It's not even a prophylactic. Livestock grow larger, quicker on antibiotics. We're not entirely sure why, but it means more money, so it has to be good, right?

There actually is concern that triclosan resistance may confer resistance to other antimicrobials:

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/mdr.2006.12.83

(as far as I know, antibiotic and antibacterial are largely synonymous)

>(as far as I know, antibiotic and antibacterial are largely synonymous)

Not really.

Antimicrobial: an agent that kills bacteria or fungi.

Antibiotic: an agent that kills bacteria or fungi in the body.

This is a crucial distinction. Phenols have been around as antimicrobial disinfectants for over a century and a half, but you really don't want to take them internally. Whereas something like penicillin VK -- alas, no longer very useful due to widespread resistance -- is pretty much safe to take in large doses, unless an immune response arises.

We've got plenty of antimicrobial agents; what we're short on are ones that don't poison us along with the target organisms when we take them.

Yes, good point. Resistance to antibacterials might also be a problem, so their use in consumer goods is still problematic, but the distinction does undermine my tldr.