8 ms·

I thought bleach and alcohol were thought to not create pressure for resistance because of their nature. It is interesting they talk about benzalkonium chlorid

I thought bleach and alcohol were thought to not create pressure for resistance because of their nature. It is interesting they talk about benzalkonium chloride, that stuff absolutely destroys my hands. When the FDA shut down triclosan all the soaps for paranoid people switched to Benzalklonium Chloride. That stuff absolutely destroy my skin. No matter what anyone complains about they won't stop putting it in all the bathroom soap dispensers in our office. I can go in with my skin fine, if I wash my hands 3x in a day they are almost bleeding by the end of the day. Also interesting Benzalkloium Chloride last time I looked was in limbo with the FDA, they couldn't decide whether to officially approve it or ban it. They know it causes contact dermatitis. It is currently in a state where the manufacturers are preparing evidence to get it approved but yet it is allowed to be on the market.

MengerSponge 4y ago
I've been known to carry a small bottle of Dr Bronner's for this reason. Also, the bleaching agents in a lot of commercial paper towels also chew up my hands. I'll carry a few handkerchiefs in the winter too.
- cma 4y ago
  > Also, the bleaching agents in a lot of commercial paper towels also chew up my hands. Are you saying if you wet a commercial paper towel with plain water and drop it on some cloth it will bleach the fabric? Why would the bleaching agents still be active any more than with printer paper or toilet paper? Wouldn't these be a hazard if someone wiped ammonia with them?
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    Yeah I'm confused about that too. Not to mention most commercial paper towels are the brown unbleached kind. Meanwhile toilet paper I've never seen unbleached... But there is something I've also always found very mildly irritating specifically about unbleached brown paper towels, as well as uncoated corrugated cardboard. Just kind of like a micro-scratchiness.
    - MengerSponge 4y ago
      I'm not a pulp engineer, so odds are I said the wrong chemical class. Maybe it's a detergent/surfactant? I'm not sure.
sometimeshuman 4y ago
"I thought bleach and alcohol were thought to not create pressure for resistance because of their nature." Agreed, and I missed if this article stated otherwise. Also we have been adding chlorine (the active ingredient in bleach) to our water supply for over 100 years ago and that experiment hasn't produced resistant microbes AFAIK.
- balaji1 4y ago
  The article is obviously not proposing a strong suggestion. It even seems to create a case against bleach and alcohol which are least risky and probably very cheap.
__MatrixMan__ 4y ago
I don't think there's a way of killing microbiota that creates no pressure for resistance, that's just evolution. Of course some adaptations are more likely than others, but from a pedantic point of view "use sparingly" is all we have.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  I think in this case it destroys the cell walls, so they’d have to completely evolve how cells work in order to evolve. Thus by definition, if they evolved to survive these substances, they’d be an entirely different organism.
  - pasquinelli 4y ago
    anything evolving in any way at all makes it a different organism. evolution is the word for organisms changing at the population level.
    - withinboredom 4y ago
      I don’t think you understand. Like it would have to evolve into an entirely different class of life, it would no longer be “bacteria” thus “bacteria” can never become resistant to it because to become resistant means that it is no longer “bacteria”
      - fvold 4y ago
        You can't outgrow your lineage in evolution. We're monkeys. KFC is made of dinosaurs. Anything descended from bacteria would still be bacteria.
        withinboredom 4y ago
        They would change taxonomy to archea (see MatrixMan’s comment) thus no longer being bacteria. These are all human issues, the “archea-bacteria” wouldn’t care what we called it, but fun to think about.
anonymouskimmer 4y ago
You can bring in your own soap, either in a dispenser that you keep at your desk and take to the bathroom whenever you need it, or use a travel-sized bottle that you can keep in a pocket.
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  Whenever anyone says "you can just," they're probably being unreasonable and not understanding the problem. I wouldn't tell someone to bring their own soap unless they're travelling to a 3rd world country. It's quite reasonable to expect basic hygiene products to not destroy your hands. > No matter what anyone complains about they won't stop putting it in all the bathroom soap dispensers in our office. Sounds like someone in HR just is ignoring the requests. Someone should call OSHA.
  - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
    I take my own soap when I travel for work in western europe because you cannot rely on these crappy airbnbs my boss rents to have any when you get there.
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    I've done it or I wouldn't have recommended it.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    You'd hate my workplace. The water there is unspeakably foul (I'm sure it's dangerous to drink), so I bring in jugs of my own. > Whenever anyone says "you can just," they're probably being unreasonable and not understanding the problem. Or they're offering a solution that they don't view as being overly difficult.
NegativeLatency 4y ago
I think they will create pressure but having chlorine rip apart your cell membrane seems different enough from disrupting pathways (or something else like an antibiotic does) that it seems as though it would be considerably harder to evolve against. There are things like microbial cysts that are already protective in these cases but the tradeoffs for the organize are pretty large to adopt something like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_cyst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_cyst
giantg2 4y ago
"I thought bleach and alcohol were thought to not create pressure for resistance because of their nature." I think the most famous example is that bleach (at least at normal cleaning concentrations) doesn't kill MRSA. In theory this would give it an advantage.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  Where did you get that information? "List H: Registered Antimicrobial Products with Label Claims Against Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and/or Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis/faecium (VRE)" "5813-50 Sodium Hypochlorite Ultra Clorox Brand Regular Bleach Clorox co." * https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-h-registered-antimicrobial-products-label-claims-against-methicillin https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-h-registered...
  - giantg2 4y ago
    I'm having trouble seeing the concentration for that product. I assume that's full strength 5-7%. If you look at others on that list, you'll see one at 2% sodium hypochlorite rhat requires a contact time of 5 minutes. Most disinfecting products have less than 5% bleach or are not applied for 5 minutes before removal.
    - atkailash 4y ago
      [dead]
    - cratermoon 4y ago
      Longer kill time is still killing. MRSA is not any more resistant to bleach than other pathogens.
      - giantg2 4y ago
        How many people do you know actually leave a product on a surface for 5+ minutes? If you didn't use it properly, then you didn't actually kill it.
Fomite 4y ago
There's concerns for resistance in some non-bleach compounds, especially chlorhexidine. Bleach though remains pretty much microbial napalm, with some exceptions (prions, norovirus & C. difficile spores at the dilutions a lot of people use). By far the bigger risk for bleach, IMO, is chemical exposure hazards.
- riffic 4y ago
  it's easy to accidentally create chlorine gas (this will easily and painfully kill people) and if anyone read the article that's exactly what the concern is here with bleach.
gwbas1c 4y ago
> No matter what anyone complains about they won't stop putting it in all the bathroom soap dispensers in our office. Call OSHA, or at least threaten to do so.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I would recommend against threatening to call OSHA. If you're going to do it, just do it (and be sure they keep you anonymous). Retaliation is a thing.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > Retaliation is a thing. Over soap?
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      Over calling OSHA (or, worse, threatening to call them). OSHA is no joke, and employers strongly dislike drawing their attention. Some companies react with the corporate interpretation of "snitches get stitches". So my advice is that you don't point the gun at your employer in an attempt to coerce them into action. If OSHA intervention is necessary, just call them.
jrootabega 4y ago
I am grateful you mentioned this. I recently got frustrated wondering why my hands seem to dry, crack, and bleed so much when I stay over at a certain household. It really makes a lot of other things difficult for days when that happens. I believe they buy antibacterial hand soap, and their water makes it hard to rinse off completely. I will now make sure to bring my own when I visit.

MengerSponge 4y ago

I've been known to carry a small bottle of Dr Bronner's for this reason. Also, the bleaching agents in a lot of commercial paper towels also chew up my hands. I'll carry a few handkerchiefs in the winter too.

cma 4y ago
> Also, the bleaching agents in a lot of commercial paper towels also chew up my hands. Are you saying if you wet a commercial paper towel with plain water and drop it on some cloth it will bleach the fabric? Why would the bleaching agents still be active any more than with printer paper or toilet paper? Wouldn't these be a hazard if someone wiped ammonia with them?
- crazygringo 4y ago
  Yeah I'm confused about that too. Not to mention most commercial paper towels are the brown unbleached kind. Meanwhile toilet paper I've never seen unbleached... But there is something I've also always found very mildly irritating specifically about unbleached brown paper towels, as well as uncoated corrugated cardboard. Just kind of like a micro-scratchiness.
  - MengerSponge 4y ago
    I'm not a pulp engineer, so odds are I said the wrong chemical class. Maybe it's a detergent/surfactant? I'm not sure.

sometimeshuman 4y ago

"I thought bleach and alcohol were thought to not create pressure for resistance because of their nature." Agreed, and I missed if this article stated otherwise. Also we have been adding chlorine (the active ingredient in bleach) to our water supply for over 100 years ago and that experiment hasn't produced resistant microbes AFAIK.

balaji1 4y ago
The article is obviously not proposing a strong suggestion. It even seems to create a case against bleach and alcohol which are least risky and probably very cheap.

__MatrixMan__ 4y ago

I don't think there's a way of killing microbiota that creates no pressure for resistance, that's just evolution. Of course some adaptations are more likely than others, but from a pedantic point of view "use sparingly" is all we have.

withinboredom 4y ago
I think in this case it destroys the cell walls, so they’d have to completely evolve how cells work in order to evolve. Thus by definition, if they evolved to survive these substances, they’d be an entirely different organism.
- pasquinelli 4y ago
  anything evolving in any way at all makes it a different organism. evolution is the word for organisms changing at the population level.
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    I don’t think you understand. Like it would have to evolve into an entirely different class of life, it would no longer be “bacteria” thus “bacteria” can never become resistant to it because to become resistant means that it is no longer “bacteria”
    - fvold 4y ago
      You can't outgrow your lineage in evolution. We're monkeys. KFC is made of dinosaurs. Anything descended from bacteria would still be bacteria.
      - withinboredom 4y ago
        They would change taxonomy to archea (see MatrixMan’s comment) thus no longer being bacteria. These are all human issues, the “archea-bacteria” wouldn’t care what we called it, but fun to think about.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago

You can bring in your own soap, either in a dispenser that you keep at your desk and take to the bathroom whenever you need it, or use a travel-sized bottle that you can keep in a pocket.

gwbas1c 4y ago
Whenever anyone says "you can just," they're probably being unreasonable and not understanding the problem. I wouldn't tell someone to bring their own soap unless they're travelling to a 3rd world country. It's quite reasonable to expect basic hygiene products to not destroy your hands. > No matter what anyone complains about they won't stop putting it in all the bathroom soap dispensers in our office. Sounds like someone in HR just is ignoring the requests. Someone should call OSHA.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
  I take my own soap when I travel for work in western europe because you cannot rely on these crappy airbnbs my boss rents to have any when you get there.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  I've done it or I wouldn't have recommended it.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  You'd hate my workplace. The water there is unspeakably foul (I'm sure it's dangerous to drink), so I bring in jugs of my own. > Whenever anyone says "you can just," they're probably being unreasonable and not understanding the problem. Or they're offering a solution that they don't view as being overly difficult.

NegativeLatency 4y ago

I think they will create pressure but having chlorine rip apart your cell membrane seems different enough from disrupting pathways (or something else like an antibiotic does) that it seems as though it would be considerably harder to evolve against. There are things like microbial cysts that are already protective in these cases but the tradeoffs for the organize are pretty large to adopt something like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_cyst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_cyst

giantg2 4y ago

"I thought bleach and alcohol were thought to not create pressure for resistance because of their nature." I think the most famous example is that bleach (at least at normal cleaning concentrations) doesn't kill MRSA. In theory this would give it an advantage.

Eisenstein 4y ago
Where did you get that information? "List H: Registered Antimicrobial Products with Label Claims Against Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and/or Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis/faecium (VRE)" "5813-50 Sodium Hypochlorite Ultra Clorox Brand Regular Bleach Clorox co." * https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-h-registered-antimicrobial-products-label-claims-against-methicillin https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-h-registered...
- giantg2 4y ago
  I'm having trouble seeing the concentration for that product. I assume that's full strength 5-7%. If you look at others on that list, you'll see one at 2% sodium hypochlorite rhat requires a contact time of 5 minutes. Most disinfecting products have less than 5% bleach or are not applied for 5 minutes before removal.
  - atkailash 4y ago
    [dead]
  - cratermoon 4y ago
    Longer kill time is still killing. MRSA is not any more resistant to bleach than other pathogens.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      How many people do you know actually leave a product on a surface for 5+ minutes? If you didn't use it properly, then you didn't actually kill it.

Fomite 4y ago

There's concerns for resistance in some non-bleach compounds, especially chlorhexidine. Bleach though remains pretty much microbial napalm, with some exceptions (prions, norovirus & C. difficile spores at the dilutions a lot of people use). By far the bigger risk for bleach, IMO, is chemical exposure hazards.

riffic 4y ago
it's easy to accidentally create chlorine gas (this will easily and painfully kill people) and if anyone read the article that's exactly what the concern is here with bleach.

gwbas1c 4y ago

> No matter what anyone complains about they won't stop putting it in all the bathroom soap dispensers in our office. Call OSHA, or at least threaten to do so.

JohnFen 4y ago
I would recommend against threatening to call OSHA. If you're going to do it, just do it (and be sure they keep you anonymous). Retaliation is a thing.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > Retaliation is a thing. Over soap?
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Over calling OSHA (or, worse, threatening to call them). OSHA is no joke, and employers strongly dislike drawing their attention. Some companies react with the corporate interpretation of "snitches get stitches". So my advice is that you don't point the gun at your employer in an attempt to coerce them into action. If OSHA intervention is necessary, just call them.

jrootabega 4y ago

I am grateful you mentioned this. I recently got frustrated wondering why my hands seem to dry, crack, and bleed so much when I stay over at a certain household. It really makes a lot of other things difficult for days when that happens. I believe they buy antibacterial hand soap, and their water makes it hard to rinse off completely. I will now make sure to bring my own when I visit.