Chemical in many antibacterial soaps linked with impaired muscle function

FoxNews.com ^ | Thursday, August 14, 2012 | Loren Grush

[HiTech RedNeck]

What did your garbage ever do to deserve that?

[Carriage Hill]

I remember it from Grandma’s Home, back in the 50s. She lived to 103, so maybe there’s something to it! LOL.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Anti-bacterial soaps are the biggest marketing scams ever. I watch all kinds of people slavishly lather on the stuff all day. Even the folks at communion squirt it on before handling the host.

Fact: the most common casually communicable illnesses (like the flu) are viruses. Second fact: AB soap does nothing to prevent the spread of viruses. NOTHING! Only washing under warm, continuous water removes viruses from your hands.

AB soaps and lotions work by dehydrating the cells of bacteria (that's why they have such a high concentration of alcohol in them). Viruses don't have cell walls... and thus are not affected by AB soaps.

The only time you are likely to come in contact with significant amounts of bacterial are when you handle raw meat or fecal matter. So yes, if you have just scooped raw hamburger out of a pile of dog poop, squirt the AB soap on before you serve communion. Otherwise, just wash your hands, you scientifically illiterate sheep...

[HiTech RedNeck]

This sounds an awful lot like one of those “dose makes the poison” issues. Modern chemical tests are wondrous. They can sniff out a few molecules in a billion. Is normal biology equally sensitive to such traces of pollutants? Whether you hold that modern life forms were created in their present state or whether you hold they had been evolved into it, such sensitivity sounds implausible.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

*Note to previous post*

By high alcohol content, I was referring to the AB lotions (I realized I wasn’t clear the way I said it). Soaps tend to use the aforementioned chemical (that this article is about) to dehydrate the bacterial cells. And it still doesn’t kill viruses...

[Carriage Hill]

Thanks for the list.

Crap, I've been using Old Spice® for 40yrs! I'm a goner. I'll have to go back to my old standbys, Brut® or Aramis®...

[Moltke]

...triclosan has become an increasingly popular ingredient in many antibacterial soaps and other personal-care items, such as deodorants and mouthwashes.

"FRANCE NOT AFFECTED."

[Carriage Hill]

Well put! Mine have been very healthy and protective over the past 62yrs, but this triclosan can do some damage, apparently.

[Carriage Hill]

LOL!

[RedMDer]

[Third Person]

Hibiclens... the good stuff:

[Carriage Hill]

It’s in the same bag with the Polonium-210 Salad Dressing.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Dehydrating, yes and no. It is a common mechanism shared by antibiotics to keep bacteria from synthesizing strong cell walls as they multiply. Weak cell walls then rupture, spilling the cell contents out, resulting in the death of the bacteria.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Yours is a more complete explanation than I gave. Mine was shortened for brevity... and because my general point was that bacteria (outside of cooking and composting) is not a big enough threat to use various specialized products continuously... anti-bacterial soaps and lotions won’t prevent a single case of cold or flu... but most people don’t know that...

[Carriage Hill]

W.O.W. That’s quite a database, b! I got lost for 15mins in all of the layers of layers of layers of stuff. Heh.

[Old Sarge]

Didn’t we have a discourse over the virtues of homemade soaps, once?

[Carriage Hill]

Thanks; it’s now on my shopping list to see if any stores around here, have it.

[Born to Conserve]

pHisoHex. That was the real stuff. They used to dip us kids in it. When the stopped using it, there was a staphylococcus outbreak. It really worked.

[chaos_5]

I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Sure, if you are one of those nuts who walks around with a tub of hand sanitizer… Anyway, I use AB soap for the dishes and countertops. These are my food preparation and serving surfaces so I think it’s a good idea to keep them as clean and a free from bacteria as conveniently plausible. If they pulled the stuff tomorrow I would use a little bleach water to do the same.

The article said the chemical is easily metabolized too so I highly doubt my incidental usage is over exposing me.

The biggest takeaway for me is the possible health risk from accidental overexposure. Something to keep in mind if a child takes a sip of soap or something like that LOL.

[Carriage Hill]

The only time I’ve ever used it is after changing the cat litter boxes. For simple hand-washing, I use Irish Spring Bar Soap. My immune system and antibodies are 62yrs old and still exceptionally strong.