9 ms·
Good. It's pointless to disinfect and reinfect your hands so many times in a day. Soap should be used to make lipids and other grime water-soluble. That's it.
by ythl 10y ago
Good. It's pointless to disinfect and reinfect your hands so many times in a day. Soap should be used to make lipids and other grime water-soluble. That's it.
If you need to sterilize your hands, then you should use a separate product dedicated to that because chances are you are a doctor.
Not sterilizing your hands all the time is actually good (in most cases) because it allows your body to sample the latest and greatest baddies and keep immunity up-to-date.
- fastball 10y agoWhat about cooking? e.g. handling raw meat and such?
- frandroid 10y agoWe seem doing well with most workers in butcher shops and restaurants just washing their hands with regular soap.
- initram 10y agoAre they, though? I suspect most butcher shops and restaurants are using antibacterial soap at this point. I go out of my way to try to buy non-antibacterial soap and it's often impossible to find. I imagine most businesses just order whatever's the first thing they see in the catalog/web site, and it's probably antibacterial because that's what most people think they want at home.
- infecto 10y agoRegular soap works perfect here. You just need something to help breakdown the lipids and remove from the surface of your skin.
- afterburner 10y agoWell, if you're cooking, the bacteria on the raw meat and whatever you added with your hands get cooked. Most skin bacteria probably don't do too well in the mouth and stomach anyways.
- deelowe 10y agoWhat's wrong with regular soap? It worked fine for decades. You don't need to kill the bacteria. Just remove it.
- busyant 10y agoSoap is a remarkably good antibacterial as well. Im on mobile but will try to look up refs for this later. I used to work in this area and a colleague was an expert on antibacterial properties of detergents.
- vel0city 10y agoYes, cell membranes are largely made of phospholipids. Soap can disrupt the membrane and essentially leak the contents of cells.
- busyant 10y agoSoap is a remarkably good antibacterial as well. Im on mobile but will try to look up refs for this later. I used to work in this area and a colleague was an expert on antibacterial properties of detergents.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> You don't need to kill the bacteria. Just remove it. I'm pretty sure the lipid-dissolving properties of soap kill bacteria by shredding their cell membranes. It's not effective against viruses, but neither is antibacterial soap.
- deelowe 10y agoThanks for the correction.
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoIt is actually more important to wash your hands properly than it is to use antibacterial soap. This is why most restaurants and medical facilities teach folks how to do it - and why some places install timers on their sinks. Basically, you need to lather for 10-15 seconds, making sure to get between the fingers, top part of the wrist, and your fingernails. I've heard this action is actually more important than the soap bit for the anti-bacterial properties. But soap helps remove things like grease and 'juice' from the meat really well and helps us be less lazy when doing so.
- bko 10y agoBan [something] because it's not effective. Un-ban [something] because it's not really harmful and it's about choice of what I do with my body I never understood which someyhing to put in which category. Perhaps you can argue that no one gets any utility for the thing you want to ban since it's a fraud, but people are spending their money on that thing so surely they get some utility. Not really my place to say
- manigandham 10y agoPeople (in mass) are generally stupid and public good is something that needs to be carefully maintained. Much of our regulation is around maintaining a balance between freedom for an individual against the safety and peace for everyone. In this case, there is far more harm than good.
- jcrites 10y agoI think the first category is "ban something if it's ineffective and there's a tragedy of the commons from using it". Antibacterial soaps are probably not any more effective than regular soaps, but they might contribute to bacterial immunity (to antibacterials).
- bko 10y agoSurely there is some negative effects to any recreational drug use, especially alcohol. Theres always a trade off , I just think that the bar to making something illegal should be higher.
- ethbro 10y agoDepends on whether one is thinking like a mountain or willing to be blind past the horizon of his or her own lifetime. Sometimes negative effects compound with time or, as jcrites noted, the negative effects of two people doing a thing is greater than 2x one person doing it.
- nopinsight 10y agoThere is likely negative externality to other people from its widespread use (more bacterial resistance), and the benefit is at most a placebo effect. Many users may not even care that much--it's just another optional checkbox at little extra cost. The manufacturers also fall into a prisoner's dilemma and cannot avoid offering it if a number of buyers are not aware of or care about externalities. Only the government can pull them out together. Should we allow smoking in most public places?
- DanBC 10y ago> Not sterilizing your hands all the time is actually good (in most cases) because it allows your body to sample the latest and greatest baddies and keep immunity up-to-date. The other reason people shouldn't be using harsh chemicals on their hands is because it damages the skin, and thus creates a better environment for bacterial contamination. The CDC was saying this years ago. Here's one good article that summarises the evidence in 2001. http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/7/2/70-0225_article http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/7/2/70-0225_article > Issues regarding hand hygiene practices among health-care professionals have been widely discussed and may be even more complicated than those in the general public. Unless patient care involves invasive procedures or extensive contact with blood and body fluids, current guidelines recommend plain soap for handwashing (38,39); however, infection rates in adult or neonatal intensive care units or surgery may be further reduced when antiseptic products are used (40-42).
- Lawtonfogle 10y agoWould you say good to a ban on alcoholic drinks? They do a great deal of damage directly and indirectly. Education, not prohibition, is needed.
- ythl 10y agoIt depends, right? Prohibition of anti-bacterial usage in soap is unlikely to create black markets and mafias. Therefore prohibition is an effective solution. Prohibition of alcohol does create black markets and mafias, so an alternate solution is needed.
- qdog 10y agoAlcoholic drinks sold in a package come with warning labels. I've seen reports 1-2 drinks a day may improve longevity, but I doubt it would be acceptable to label every beer as "youth potion", you have to limit intake for possible benefit. For the soap, to receive a benefit also requires more than the label indicated. The substance banned takes hours to kill the bacteria (according to the article), so I would say it's marketed in a mis-leading way. I doubt many people actually buy the soap thinking a multi-hour exposure is needed.
- chii 10y agoAlcohol's effect is limited in scope. It affects the individual, affects the immediate surroundings, and perhaps their family. It cannot affect some one in another country. The resistant bacteria can grow to a problem of global proportion.
- arikrak 10y agoAfter traveling on the subway and picking up various germs should one make sure to put their hands in their mouth and eyes to sample the "latest and greatest"?