(Business Week) – Earlier this week, Angela Pollock ditched Colgate Total toothpaste after using it for about 15 years and bought Crest Pro-Health instead.
Pollock, a 57-year-old sociology teacher in Knoxville, Tennessee, had just learned that Colgate Total contained triclosan, an antibacterial chemical linked to cancer-cell growth and disrupted development in animals.
“If Colgate is that lax in putting this kind of chemical in their product, I don’t think I’ll buy other Colgate-Palmolive brands,” Pollock said.
Total is a tiny percentage of Colgate-Palmolive Co.’s sales, but it’s inextricably entwined with the Colgate brand so the triclosan controversy could inflict long-term damage, said Michael Stone, who runs Beanstalk, a New York-based brand-licensing agency owned by Omnicom Group Inc.