Stanford Expert Explains Antibacterial Soap Ban

> Related, it appears school supplies are not only ineffective against bacteria that cause diarrhea, pneumonia, and impetigo, but may cause these ailments.

Obviously we need to reduce the amount of school supplies these children are exposed to. I suggest we force them to replace everything with tablets. That will undoubtedly solve this problem once and for all. Anyone that objects to this just doesn't care about child health in developing countries. /s

It's actually kind of depressing to write that, and realize the sarcasm marker is desperately needed not just because Poe's law, but because it's all too plausible to think this might be a common conclusion. :/

We used waterwipes as well but ended up switching at the time. I don't remember exactly the cause, but the fruit juice (I think it is grape or rapeseed extract) had some problems and was linked to some health problems. I honestly don't remember what it was (been a while) but give it a google, it may have been overblown at the time, or maybe not.

We still use very basic ones but don't really remember the brand, but if you are interested I can ping my wife tomorrow about it.

> We've know for almost ten years (via peer reviewed science) that these compounds are unsafe and ineffective.

Ineffective? Evidence agrees.

Unsafe? Overall evidence does not agree (with exceptions for the very small number of people like me who appear to be allergic).

The main issue is that these things are ineffective and they can have some negative effects for small numbers of people. So, if they are ineffective, why take any risk at all?

FWIW, we found that we can dilute Dr. Brommer's soap with water and it works really well in those same foaming soap dispensers (and it foams!). Pure organic saponified oils for washing my hands... for the win.

> Also why on our newborn I purchased Waterwipes (wiper + fruit juice only).

This is a tangent, but my wife and I switched to dry wipes and a squirt bottle (the kind you'd use in a kitchen for oil or vinegar) for our daughter. It's cheaper. It's way better at avoiding diaper rash aggravation. And it's nearly as convenient as prepackaged wet wipes. We keep the bottle filled with tap water (use purified if you're paranoid or your tap water is unsafe) and every so often run the bottle through the dishwasher.

meta reply: curious why people are downvoting this? Seems on topic and insightful to me. What am I missing?

Many of the soap brands have both antibacterial and standard soaps available, including both Softsoap and store brands.

I'll also note that the reaction may not have been to triclosan or the like but to methylisothiazolinone, which is or has been used in a very wide variety of products and is often used with at least one other product also known for allergic contact dermatitis. I HIGHLY recommend checking your child's shampoo for this, the significant scalp and palm tingling I was encountering during showers disappeared with a change of shampoo and conditioner.

I will also note the irony of 'wipes' that cause an itchy tingling dermatitis reaction...

Not necessarily due to the automatic vs. manual distinction but the mechanical design of the valves.

"While the precise reasons for the higher bacterial growth in the electronic faucets still need clarification, the researchers say it appears that standard hospital water disinfection methods, which complement treatments by public utilities, did not work well on the complex valve components of the newer faucets. They suspect that the valves simply offer additional surfaces for bacteria to become trapped and grow."

Better are those winged levers you can close with your arm or elbow. Most of the staff bathrooms in the hospital I worked in had those along with proper antibacterial soap. Not the Triclosan kind, the high alcohol content kind that's actually effective in a 15 seconds application.

It's Johns.

One of the things that surprised during my time going to school there was that even buildings less than a year old would have taps with standard levers. I guess they took their own findings to heart.

What's annoying about automatic faucets is that with most of them you can't change the temperature of the water, and 95% of the time it's too damn hot.

I used to work with someone who would turn the water on, not wash his hands, and walk out. Could never figure that one out.

A surgeon I know recommends at least 20 seconds and he does this 100x a day. I'm amazing his hands don't fall off.

> Always wash your hands after:

> Touching an animal or animal toys, leashes or waste

I guess having a puppy lick your face is right out then?

FWIW, my dentist recommended Colgate Total because it had Triclosan in it; I don't remember exactly what she said -- it was years ago --- but something along the lines of it being the one toothpaste that seemed demonstrably better than others.

(The usual YMMV/talk to your own dentist/etc. disclaimers apply).

The FDA put the burden of proof on companies to show that the antibacterial additives had a positive effect on health. This was not done for the hand soap, but was done for the toothpaste, where studies DID show a positive effect from the additives in the toothpaste.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/well/live/why-your-toothpa...

The basic Ivory is essentially only soap. The sunlight bar soap is sold for laundry but it's basically a pure soap made from vegetable fat (that was the big innovation, it wasn't made with tallow rather palm oil.)

If it's cheap enough for you, Trader Joe's has "tea tree oil pure vegetable soap" in packs of 2 bars for $2

Isn't Ivory a pure, plain soap? If Dial goes away or changes, that's still an option.

Plain soap is already very cheap and widely available. With fancy hand-made soaps you're paying for the image, and usually also scents and colorings that add nothing to the cleaning power. The inefficiency of small batch production is likely worse for the environment. If you want to support your local community I think it's better to support local services than local products, because services don't benefit from the same economies of scale.

In my locale, a problem with soap is soap scum, due to hard water. My household uses all detergent based "soap" because of this.

From the article: "Antibacterial soaps are biologically active, and they have no proven efficacy. So, I don't see dumping tons of them into the environment each year as being a good idea."

Independent of any direct harm these products might cause to those using them, excess use of antibiotics is bad for everyone because it promotes the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of disease-causing bacteria in the wild. Everything we can do to minimize the unnecessary usage of antibiotics is beneficial.

Your misapprehension is addressed specifically at the top of the article:

Of those chemicals, the most commonly found in liquid antibacterial soap is triclosan, and the most common in bar soap is triclocarban. These compounds have been found to disrupt development of the reproductive system and metabolism in animals, and may contribute to making bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

In bringing attention to antibacterial soap, the FDA cited a study led by Stanford epidemiologist Stephen Luby showing no significant difference in results from plain soap and antibacterial soap. To better understand the issues around antibacterial soap, we spoke with Luby, a professor with the Stanford School of Medicine and a senior fellow with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

That is:

* The ingredients listed as "active" have no measureable positive outcomes effects when tested.

* Which means that the claims of manufacturers are not supported. If the manufacturers are making those claims with an awareness of this fact, they are committing fraud.

* There are demonstrable and highly probable harms of the ingredents on the environment.

So yes, your stated assumptions are incorrect. The product is not only "not useful", it is actively harmful, and doesn't work as advertised.

Further cheap shots do little to ameliorate the initial false premises.

The FDA has efficacy requirements for most things it regulates: it must be effective at doing the thing it claims to do.

Seems like there are lots of undesirable externalities to misuse of these products, so, I'm all for banning them.

Do you propose that selling products that don't behave as advertised should be legal?