(KYTX) - Tide. It's the nation's best selling detergent, and while it may keep your clothes clean, a new study says it could give you cancer.
Tests run by environmental group Women's Voices for the Earth finds traces of the chemical "dioxane" in Tide.
The Environmental Protection Agency says the chemical could be causing cancer in rats.
Dioxane is in a lot of every day products we use. That includes other detergents, deodorants, and shampoos.
"Everything nowadays causes cancer. If it's not a laundry detergent it's a vegetable," says Tylerite Karen Foshee.
Foshee says she's not very surprised that a cleaning product may cause cancer.
"With all the stuff they put into them, the dyes, everything. No," she says.
Just because she's not surprised, doesn't mean she's not concerned.
"That's something you use every day," she says. "Unless you're going to hand wash with soft soap or something, yeah that does worry me because that's a product you use daily."
Tylerite Marsha Ross believes the rise in product chemical levels has to do with insistent consumers and industry competition.
"The irony about all this to me, is that the public demands a better product, to clean better," Ross says. "So what the companies put in, is [because of] public demand."
Ross uses Tide and says once she looks into the study, she'll decide whether to switch to another detergent.
"You have to fact check everything these days," she warns.
Tide's parent company Procter and Gamble hopes people will fact check. A company spokesman says the levels of dioxane in Tide detergent are safe.
The Huffington Post reports that the levels of dioxane in Procter and Gamble products, like Tide, are within the EPA's set limits.
The EPA and other environmental and health advocacy groups are still asking the company to lower the levels of dioxane in its Tide products.
Procter and Gamble has done this before. In 2010 it altered levels of dioxane in other products, like Herbal Essence shampoos.
Those conducting the recent test claim they found the highest levels of dioxane in the Original Formula Tide detergent and the Fragrance-Free Tide, "Free & Clear".
