Throw Out the Antibacterial Soap
You've seen the ads, I'm sure - the ones that suggest you're a smarter mom; dad; consumer if you have antibacterial soap in your bathroom. What the companies promoting their soaps don't tell you about those soaps is something you might want to know, however.
Allison Aiello has no problem with talking about those soaps and she has some interesting data to divulge. Aiello is a public health professor at the University of Michigan where she led a team in a comprehensive analysis of the performance of antibacterial soaps compared to plain soaps.
Aiello and her team examined 27 studies conducted between 1980 and 2006 and found antibacterial soaps to work no better than plain soaps do at preventing the spread of infectious illnesses. Nor did they remove any more bacteria from washed hands than plain soaps did. They did, however, seem to show a tendency in lab tests to acclimatize e-coli bacteria to triclosan, the main active ingredient used in many antibacterial soaps. So what, you say? Well, the reason you want to rethink your use of those soaps in light of this little revelation is that e-coli bacteria are the ones found in fecal matter.
If you're filling your bathroom soap dispenser with an antibacterial formulation, you may actually be helping you and your family to become sick, rather than protecting them from illness. Once these bacteria have been exposed to triclosan and had the opportunity to mutate, they can become resistant to some commonly used drugs, such as amoxicillin.
Naysayers (read, the companies that want you to buy their soap) will declare that these changes have not been found at the population level. What they might more honestly say, is that they have not been found, yet. The e-coli bacteria exhibited the resistance after exposure to as little as 0.1 per cent wt/vol triclosan soap. The manufacturers should tell their customers that means the e-coli were able to survive in the concentrations of triclosan used in consumer formulated antibacterial soap. Higher concentrations are used in hospitals and may be more effective at reducing illness, but the antibacterial soap sitting on your bathroom counter right now is anything but effective at doing what you bought it for.
Even the title given to Aiello's study results could give you reason to pause. Published by the University of Chicago Press in the August edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases and titled "Consumer Antibacterial Soaps: Effective or Just Risky?" the paper states "the lack of an additional health benefit associated with the use of triclosan-containing consumer soaps over regular soap, coupled with ... a potential risk, warrants further evaluation by governmental regulators..."
Kinda' makes you want to toss the stuff out the bathroom window and run out to get a little of the good ol'-fashioned "plain" soap, doesn't it?
Allison Aiello has no problem with talking about those soaps and she has some interesting data to divulge. Aiello is a public health professor at the University of Michigan where she led a team in a comprehensive analysis of the performance of antibacterial soaps compared to plain soaps.
Aiello and her team examined 27 studies conducted between 1980 and 2006 and found antibacterial soaps to work no better than plain soaps do at preventing the spread of infectious illnesses. Nor did they remove any more bacteria from washed hands than plain soaps did. They did, however, seem to show a tendency in lab tests to acclimatize e-coli bacteria to triclosan, the main active ingredient used in many antibacterial soaps. So what, you say? Well, the reason you want to rethink your use of those soaps in light of this little revelation is that e-coli bacteria are the ones found in fecal matter.
If you're filling your bathroom soap dispenser with an antibacterial formulation, you may actually be helping you and your family to become sick, rather than protecting them from illness. Once these bacteria have been exposed to triclosan and had the opportunity to mutate, they can become resistant to some commonly used drugs, such as amoxicillin.
Naysayers (read, the companies that want you to buy their soap) will declare that these changes have not been found at the population level. What they might more honestly say, is that they have not been found, yet. The e-coli bacteria exhibited the resistance after exposure to as little as 0.1 per cent wt/vol triclosan soap. The manufacturers should tell their customers that means the e-coli were able to survive in the concentrations of triclosan used in consumer formulated antibacterial soap. Higher concentrations are used in hospitals and may be more effective at reducing illness, but the antibacterial soap sitting on your bathroom counter right now is anything but effective at doing what you bought it for.
Even the title given to Aiello's study results could give you reason to pause. Published by the University of Chicago Press in the August edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases and titled "Consumer Antibacterial Soaps: Effective or Just Risky?" the paper states "the lack of an additional health benefit associated with the use of triclosan-containing consumer soaps over regular soap, coupled with ... a potential risk, warrants further evaluation by governmental regulators..."
Kinda' makes you want to toss the stuff out the bathroom window and run out to get a little of the good ol'-fashioned "plain" soap, doesn't it?
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