9 ms·

I guess I'm weird; I have no idea why the government has the ability to dictate what is and isn't in the soap that I choose to buy. I agree however, anti-bacte

I guess I'm weird; I have no idea why the government has the ability to dictate what is and isn't in the soap that I choose to buy. I agree however, anti-bacterial soap is silly. Looks like a lot of people here agree. Looks like a market segment to me. Didn't need a gun, theft, or a jail cell to create it.

Kenji 10y ago
You are not weird. The FDA holds enormous power, dictating what substances we may use and what we may not use. A desire for self-determination is only natural.
spankalee 10y ago
In this case, all humans are at a potentially grave risk from the actions of others. Seems like the perfect place for regulation.
Vraxx 10y ago
Well, the big one is that it's a joint effort as a society to not continually strengthen bacteria by selecting for strains that are resistant to these antimicrobials.
- djschnei 10y ago
  Not debating that. I agree. I guess I just think there is a more morally justifiable way to go about it than edict. Again, this non-antibacterial soap belief doesn't seem like one that needs force to spread.
  - Vraxx 10y ago
    That's true I suppose, laws are a lot harder to redact than to enact, so we should take care not to over-legislate. That being said, I think it's still an applicable scenario in this case due to the potentially society scale threat. In many other smaller-scale scenarios, I would tend to agree with your stance on it.
- cthalupa 10y ago
  I think the main problem is we haven't seen bacteria develop a resistance to antiseptics, so it's a fear based on a what if that seems unlikely based on hundreds of years of antispetic use. There have been a small number of laboratory studies that imply it might be possible with triclosan, but they used extremely low levels of triclosan, and real world studies have basically shown the opposite. http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consumer_safety/docs/sccs_o_023.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consumer_sa... Page 30 "Furthermore, in most in vitro studies, resistance to triclosan has been measured as an increase in MIC. As mentioned in section 6.2 above, the measurement of resistance based on MIC only, might have little bearing on bacterial survival to concentrations found in situ." "Ledder et al. (2006) investigated acquired high-level triclosan resistance in a number of distinct environmental isolates and reported that a relatively small number of strains showed a decrease in triclosan susceptibility (E. coli, Klebsiella oxytoca, Aranicola proteolyticus and S. maltophilia) while the susceptibility of the remaining 35 species remained unchanged. They concluded that repeated exposures to triclosan did not systematically produce high-level triclosan resistance in all bacteria. Furthermore, among the strains with decreased susceptibility, there was no change in antibiotic susceptibility or susceptibility to other biocides. Similarly, another study by the same group on repeated exposure of dental bacteria to triclosan resulted in the same conclusions" "Cole et al. (2003) collected 1238 isolates from the homes of users and non-users of antibacterial product and were unable to demonstrate any cross-resistance to antibiotic and antibacterial agents in target bacteria. In addition, this study showed an increased prevalence of potential pathogens in the homes of non-users of antibacterial products. " "With our current state of knowledge, it is generally accepted that antibiotic resistance in clinical isolates is not necessarily associated with resistance to biocides. " "urthermore, the antibiotic susceptibility profile of the oral streptococci investigated did not change following the use of triclosan containing toothpaste. Aiello et al. (2004) did not find any statistical significance between elevated triclosan MICs and antibiotic susceptibility in bacterial isolates taken from the hands of individuals using antibacterial cleaning and hygiene products for a 1-year period." "The authors did not observe any increase in triclosan MIC in these bacteria"
  - Vraxx 10y ago
    Hmm. Yeah, it does read from this analysis that it seems to be more of a fear rather than a confirmed fact. At this point they may be just being overly cautious I suppose. From the abstract they seem to rule out a lot of the posed threats and leave the rest as "Have not been accurately studied". As far as I've read from this though, it doesn't apply to the use of actual antibiotics, which do cause strain resistance. That is the issue that I am definitely in support of, and it seems I wrongly correlated anti-bacterial soaps in that issue as a fact when it does not appear to be so.
iambateman 10y ago
To me, consumer protection is a valid use of government. And if "antibacterial" soap isn't better, and might be worse, then I'm all for restricting it.
mratzloff 10y ago
It contributes to antibacterial resistance, which is a shared good. It's a case of the tragedy of the commons, which the free market is incapable of moderating on its own. This is exactly the kind of thing the government should be doing.
- dnautics 10y ago
  actually that's kind of not true. There's a throwaway line in the article where manufacturers have already started the process of removing the antibacterial compounds, before FDA guidance came in, because it seems like the market itself has already started to reflect the scientific wisdom; as in: People aren't that stupid. (Or maybe they're buying into the whole probiotic fad?)
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    You missed the part where the FDA lit a fire under the industry's ass in 2013 to prove antibacterial soap have value over non antibacterial soap and gave them a year timeline. Everyone saw the writing on the wall that a ban was coming.
    - dnautics 10y ago
      maybe it's the groups that I run in, but I know several people among my friends (with an admittedly small sample size since I don't often accompany them on shopping trips) who specifically avoid antibacterial soap, myself included.
      - mratzloff 10y ago
        You're a founder of a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit science research organization. I think it's safe to say it's the groups you run in. By contrast, my parents and family in the Midwest have no clue about it. Antibacterial means cleaner, right?
        dnautics 10y ago
jowiar 10y ago
"I have no idea why" seems like a good place to start doing some research. In short (and as mentioned elsewhere in this thread), "the soap you choose to buy" may affect the ecosystem we live in. In particular, the bacteria that may infect us. When products on the market cause a public health concern, it is absolutely within the purview of government to regulate said products.
- Lawtonfogle 10y ago
  What about all the pain caused by alcohol? From liver damage to its use as a date rape drug to drunk driving. The liver damage is personal, so that might get a pass, but the rest hurts people who don't choose to drink. Is there evidence showing antibacterial soap does more harm than alcoholic drinks?
  - jowiar 10y ago
    Well, with alcohol, we tried (and largely for the reasons you mentioned). On net, the effects caused by the abolition of alcohol (and probably other drugs) were arguably worse than the effects caused by its existence. In particular, demand for (and use of) alcohol didn't disappear, and thus black markets + organized crime thrive, which cause problems worse than the original problem. I'm highly skeptical that if antibacterial soap were banned, demand would drive a a black market. People are far more aware of and particular about their Shiraz and Saison (and the intoxicating effects thereof) than their Softsoap's antimicrobial properties.
  - wfo 10y ago
    This analogy is not a good one. None of the alcohol-related effects fall into "tragedy of the commons" territory the way creating antibiotic-resistant super germs does. Liver damage is a person harming themselves by their own choice. Drunk driving is a collection of specific instances of a person breaking the law and taking action which will cause direct harm to another. Alcohol as date rape is just a non sequitur designed to be incendiary. It only effects people who drink and, again, is just a person using alcohol to aid them in committing a crime. Commonly available antibacterial hand soap hurts everyone even if you are using it reasonably, legally, and responsibly. The harm to the commons is directly proportional to the quantity of it that is used in the normal, reasonable way by everyone. Alcohol is not great for "society" because it increases the likelihood people will make bad decisions, and can cause specific health problems for the people who choose to use it. This is akin to emissions standards, which I assume you oppose as well? Saying you are comparing apples and oranges wouldn't be accurate, because at least apples and oranges are both foods.
nsaslideface 10y ago
The FDA must regulate the contents of some consumable goods; can you provide a better model of governance than the current one which dictates where the line is to what the FDA can or cannot regulate? Or even a more philosophical explanation as to why we should instinctively distrust the current model without any examination into its basis, as seems to be your implication?
- exclusiv 10y ago
  I'm not saying the FDA is all bad, but there are a lot of people that are dying that would like to try certain drugs that could save them but they can't.
mindcrime 10y ago
You're not weird, in fact, you're thinking about a very interesting question. What is "government" or "law"? From whence does it derive its "authority"? What is a valid application of this thing called "government" or "State"? They're old now, but I think some of the best answers to this are found in the writings of Frederic Bastiat.[1] This bit in particular is relevant: ------ What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups. Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces? If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all. ------ [1]: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
- pdabbadabba 10y ago
  I've always found it remarkable that people find this at all illuminating. I take it the applicability of that passage is supposed to go something like this: I, as a third party bystander, would not have the right to intervene(by force, if necessary) and stop person A from selling person B antibacterial soap. I suppose I get that intuition. But if you add in more pertinent details, I think we're just left begging the question. What if I sell parson A selling antibacterial soap to person B by misrepresenting the fact that it contains a chemical that will kill bacteria when, in fact, that chemical is ineffective as advertised. This sounds a bit like fraud to me--and it touches on an especially important sphere of life to boot--health and medicine--where fraud-like concerns are especially important. Do I, as a third party, have the ability to intervene under these facts? I think there's a cogent case to be made that I do. And, at any rate, I know of no simple analysis that one could apply here to make answering the simplified interpersonal case any simpler than the government-regulation case that it is supposed to help us think about. Of course, it should also be mentioned that there are perfectly good schools of political thought under which the powers of government are not merely the aggregated power of individuals. Here's a thought just to get the intuitions flowing: there might be things that we allow the government, but not individuals, to do because the government acts by way of a deliberative process that can produce more reliable or better justified decisions than we would trust any individual person to make. For example: you might think that it is never acceptable for one person to kill another, even in retribution for a crime, because individual actors can't be relied upon to evaluate guilt and innocence properly, or because their actions would not have the expressive value necessary to warrant such an act. The state, however, is able to organize behavior in a way that largely solves these problems, meaning that there may be cases where it is acceptable for the state to kill even though no individual person could morally have done so. (I actually oppose the death penalty, so I have other objections to this line of argument. But this seems like a potentially useful example nonetheless.)
wonder_er 10y ago
You're correct. Most regulation is a lagging indicator of where the market is already going. If they tried to regulate something in a way that no one wanted to follow, no one would follow it, and they'd be ignored. So, when a portion of the population starts changing their mind on something, the FDA might determine that there's enough political will for a new regulation, and if they move quick, they can be seen as a progressive and helpful industry. The FDA causes incalculable harm in other ways, mostly by prohibiting good things from coming to market. For example, factory farming is incredibly harmful, but local alternatives are mostly illegal, for not complying with FDA regulations (which only approve factory farms). [0] Another example: An amazing, cheap, reversible male birth control option called Vaselgel has been functioning in India for decades, and a few organizations have tried to bring it to the USA, only to be unable to afford the FDA regulatory hurdle. Male birth control is an amazing option for so many different groups, and prohibiting it has real costs on society. It's slated for human trials in 2017. [1] By working against these interests, the FDA causes far more harm than it prevents. This soap antibiotics ban is (to my cynical view) an easy win for the agency, in an attempt to build good-will or trust in the market. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-Do-Illegal-Stories/dp/0963810952 https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-Do-Illegal-Stories/dp... [1] https://www.parsemusfoundation.org/projects/vasalgel/ https://www.parsemusfoundation.org/projects/vasalgel/
CommanderData 10y ago
That can be said for a lot of things. I'd say the gov is right in this case to listen to the Scientists advising them. If there was a secret agenda behind this I'd say they'd be encouraging people to use anti-bacterial soap because of all the concerns already raised by people in this thread.
byuu 10y ago
My issue was that I can't find non-anti-bacterial hand soap at my local grocery store. The only option would be bar soap, and I hate those. They get all slimy on the bottom between uses, and it's gross and inconvenient. I would buy hand soap without it, if it were for sale. But everyone seems to think it's safer, so all the manufacturers are encouraged to add it, and it's a negative feedback loop.

Kenji 10y ago

You are not weird. The FDA holds enormous power, dictating what substances we may use and what we may not use. A desire for self-determination is only natural.

spankalee 10y ago

In this case, all humans are at a potentially grave risk from the actions of others. Seems like the perfect place for regulation.

Vraxx 10y ago

Well, the big one is that it's a joint effort as a society to not continually strengthen bacteria by selecting for strains that are resistant to these antimicrobials.

djschnei 10y ago
Not debating that. I agree. I guess I just think there is a more morally justifiable way to go about it than edict. Again, this non-antibacterial soap belief doesn't seem like one that needs force to spread.
- Vraxx 10y ago
  That's true I suppose, laws are a lot harder to redact than to enact, so we should take care not to over-legislate. That being said, I think it's still an applicable scenario in this case due to the potentially society scale threat. In many other smaller-scale scenarios, I would tend to agree with your stance on it.
cthalupa 10y ago
I think the main problem is we haven't seen bacteria develop a resistance to antiseptics, so it's a fear based on a what if that seems unlikely based on hundreds of years of antispetic use. There have been a small number of laboratory studies that imply it might be possible with triclosan, but they used extremely low levels of triclosan, and real world studies have basically shown the opposite. http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consumer_safety/docs/sccs_o_023.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consumer_sa... Page 30 "Furthermore, in most in vitro studies, resistance to triclosan has been measured as an increase in MIC. As mentioned in section 6.2 above, the measurement of resistance based on MIC only, might have little bearing on bacterial survival to concentrations found in situ." "Ledder et al. (2006) investigated acquired high-level triclosan resistance in a number of distinct environmental isolates and reported that a relatively small number of strains showed a decrease in triclosan susceptibility (E. coli, Klebsiella oxytoca, Aranicola proteolyticus and S. maltophilia) while the susceptibility of the remaining 35 species remained unchanged. They concluded that repeated exposures to triclosan did not systematically produce high-level triclosan resistance in all bacteria. Furthermore, among the strains with decreased susceptibility, there was no change in antibiotic susceptibility or susceptibility to other biocides. Similarly, another study by the same group on repeated exposure of dental bacteria to triclosan resulted in the same conclusions" "Cole et al. (2003) collected 1238 isolates from the homes of users and non-users of antibacterial product and were unable to demonstrate any cross-resistance to antibiotic and antibacterial agents in target bacteria. In addition, this study showed an increased prevalence of potential pathogens in the homes of non-users of antibacterial products. " "With our current state of knowledge, it is generally accepted that antibiotic resistance in clinical isolates is not necessarily associated with resistance to biocides. " "urthermore, the antibiotic susceptibility profile of the oral streptococci investigated did not change following the use of triclosan containing toothpaste. Aiello et al. (2004) did not find any statistical significance between elevated triclosan MICs and antibiotic susceptibility in bacterial isolates taken from the hands of individuals using antibacterial cleaning and hygiene products for a 1-year period." "The authors did not observe any increase in triclosan MIC in these bacteria"
- Vraxx 10y ago
  Hmm. Yeah, it does read from this analysis that it seems to be more of a fear rather than a confirmed fact. At this point they may be just being overly cautious I suppose. From the abstract they seem to rule out a lot of the posed threats and leave the rest as "Have not been accurately studied". As far as I've read from this though, it doesn't apply to the use of actual antibiotics, which do cause strain resistance. That is the issue that I am definitely in support of, and it seems I wrongly correlated anti-bacterial soaps in that issue as a fact when it does not appear to be so.

iambateman 10y ago

To me, consumer protection is a valid use of government. And if "antibacterial" soap isn't better, and might be worse, then I'm all for restricting it.

mratzloff 10y ago

It contributes to antibacterial resistance, which is a shared good. It's a case of the tragedy of the commons, which the free market is incapable of moderating on its own. This is exactly the kind of thing the government should be doing.

dnautics 10y ago
actually that's kind of not true. There's a throwaway line in the article where manufacturers have already started the process of removing the antibacterial compounds, before FDA guidance came in, because it seems like the market itself has already started to reflect the scientific wisdom; as in: People aren't that stupid. (Or maybe they're buying into the whole probiotic fad?)
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  You missed the part where the FDA lit a fire under the industry's ass in 2013 to prove antibacterial soap have value over non antibacterial soap and gave them a year timeline. Everyone saw the writing on the wall that a ban was coming.
  - dnautics 10y ago
    maybe it's the groups that I run in, but I know several people among my friends (with an admittedly small sample size since I don't often accompany them on shopping trips) who specifically avoid antibacterial soap, myself included.
    - mratzloff 10y ago
      You're a founder of a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit science research organization. I think it's safe to say it's the groups you run in. By contrast, my parents and family in the Midwest have no clue about it. Antibacterial means cleaner, right?
      - dnautics 10y ago

jowiar 10y ago

"I have no idea why" seems like a good place to start doing some research. In short (and as mentioned elsewhere in this thread), "the soap you choose to buy" may affect the ecosystem we live in. In particular, the bacteria that may infect us. When products on the market cause a public health concern, it is absolutely within the purview of government to regulate said products.

Lawtonfogle 10y ago
What about all the pain caused by alcohol? From liver damage to its use as a date rape drug to drunk driving. The liver damage is personal, so that might get a pass, but the rest hurts people who don't choose to drink. Is there evidence showing antibacterial soap does more harm than alcoholic drinks?
- jowiar 10y ago
  Well, with alcohol, we tried (and largely for the reasons you mentioned). On net, the effects caused by the abolition of alcohol (and probably other drugs) were arguably worse than the effects caused by its existence. In particular, demand for (and use of) alcohol didn't disappear, and thus black markets + organized crime thrive, which cause problems worse than the original problem. I'm highly skeptical that if antibacterial soap were banned, demand would drive a a black market. People are far more aware of and particular about their Shiraz and Saison (and the intoxicating effects thereof) than their Softsoap's antimicrobial properties.
- wfo 10y ago
  This analogy is not a good one. None of the alcohol-related effects fall into "tragedy of the commons" territory the way creating antibiotic-resistant super germs does. Liver damage is a person harming themselves by their own choice. Drunk driving is a collection of specific instances of a person breaking the law and taking action which will cause direct harm to another. Alcohol as date rape is just a non sequitur designed to be incendiary. It only effects people who drink and, again, is just a person using alcohol to aid them in committing a crime. Commonly available antibacterial hand soap hurts everyone even if you are using it reasonably, legally, and responsibly. The harm to the commons is directly proportional to the quantity of it that is used in the normal, reasonable way by everyone. Alcohol is not great for "society" because it increases the likelihood people will make bad decisions, and can cause specific health problems for the people who choose to use it. This is akin to emissions standards, which I assume you oppose as well? Saying you are comparing apples and oranges wouldn't be accurate, because at least apples and oranges are both foods.

nsaslideface 10y ago

The FDA must regulate the contents of some consumable goods; can you provide a better model of governance than the current one which dictates where the line is to what the FDA can or cannot regulate? Or even a more philosophical explanation as to why we should instinctively distrust the current model without any examination into its basis, as seems to be your implication?

exclusiv 10y ago
I'm not saying the FDA is all bad, but there are a lot of people that are dying that would like to try certain drugs that could save them but they can't.

mindcrime 10y ago

You're not weird, in fact, you're thinking about a very interesting question. What is "government" or "law"? From whence does it derive its "authority"? What is a valid application of this thing called "government" or "State"? They're old now, but I think some of the best answers to this are found in the writings of Frederic Bastiat.[1] This bit in particular is relevant: ------ What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups. Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces? If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all. ------ [1]: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

pdabbadabba 10y ago
I've always found it remarkable that people find this at all illuminating. I take it the applicability of that passage is supposed to go something like this: I, as a third party bystander, would not have the right to intervene(by force, if necessary) and stop person A from selling person B antibacterial soap. I suppose I get that intuition. But if you add in more pertinent details, I think we're just left begging the question. What if I sell parson A selling antibacterial soap to person B by misrepresenting the fact that it contains a chemical that will kill bacteria when, in fact, that chemical is ineffective as advertised. This sounds a bit like fraud to me--and it touches on an especially important sphere of life to boot--health and medicine--where fraud-like concerns are especially important. Do I, as a third party, have the ability to intervene under these facts? I think there's a cogent case to be made that I do. And, at any rate, I know of no simple analysis that one could apply here to make answering the simplified interpersonal case any simpler than the government-regulation case that it is supposed to help us think about. Of course, it should also be mentioned that there are perfectly good schools of political thought under which the powers of government are not merely the aggregated power of individuals. Here's a thought just to get the intuitions flowing: there might be things that we allow the government, but not individuals, to do because the government acts by way of a deliberative process that can produce more reliable or better justified decisions than we would trust any individual person to make. For example: you might think that it is never acceptable for one person to kill another, even in retribution for a crime, because individual actors can't be relied upon to evaluate guilt and innocence properly, or because their actions would not have the expressive value necessary to warrant such an act. The state, however, is able to organize behavior in a way that largely solves these problems, meaning that there may be cases where it is acceptable for the state to kill even though no individual person could morally have done so. (I actually oppose the death penalty, so I have other objections to this line of argument. But this seems like a potentially useful example nonetheless.)

wonder_er 10y ago

You're correct. Most regulation is a lagging indicator of where the market is already going. If they tried to regulate something in a way that no one wanted to follow, no one would follow it, and they'd be ignored. So, when a portion of the population starts changing their mind on something, the FDA might determine that there's enough political will for a new regulation, and if they move quick, they can be seen as a progressive and helpful industry. The FDA causes incalculable harm in other ways, mostly by prohibiting good things from coming to market. For example, factory farming is incredibly harmful, but local alternatives are mostly illegal, for not complying with FDA regulations (which only approve factory farms). [0] Another example: An amazing, cheap, reversible male birth control option called Vaselgel has been functioning in India for decades, and a few organizations have tried to bring it to the USA, only to be unable to afford the FDA regulatory hurdle. Male birth control is an amazing option for so many different groups, and prohibiting it has real costs on society. It's slated for human trials in 2017. [1] By working against these interests, the FDA causes far more harm than it prevents. This soap antibiotics ban is (to my cynical view) an easy win for the agency, in an attempt to build good-will or trust in the market. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-Do-Illegal-Stories/dp/0963810952 https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-Do-Illegal-Stories/dp... [1] https://www.parsemusfoundation.org/projects/vasalgel/ https://www.parsemusfoundation.org/projects/vasalgel/

CommanderData 10y ago

That can be said for a lot of things. I'd say the gov is right in this case to listen to the Scientists advising them. If there was a secret agenda behind this I'd say they'd be encouraging people to use anti-bacterial soap because of all the concerns already raised by people in this thread.

byuu 10y ago

My issue was that I can't find non-anti-bacterial hand soap at my local grocery store. The only option would be bar soap, and I hate those. They get all slimy on the bottom between uses, and it's gross and inconvenient. I would buy hand soap without it, if it were for sale. But everyone seems to think it's safer, so all the manufacturers are encouraged to add it, and it's a negative feedback loop.