The Iron Yuppie

I heard an interesting point today about my recent use of hand-sanitizer. As we all know, flu season is nearly upon us and one of the best ways to avoid getting the flu is constantly washing your hands and face. I always find this amazing, because I never really think about touching my face that much (and certainly not enough to get flu bacteria into my mouth or eyes or whatever), but I am sure if you had a video camera on me, you’d see me touching my face about every 20 seconds.

Right there! I just scratched my eyelid! What a coincidence!

Anyhow, the discussion was about using those disinfectant instant hand sanitizers on a more regular basis and thus selecting for mutant super strong bacteria which can beat you up and kick your dog and urinate on your car. Naturally, this gave me pause, but then I tried to do the logical extreme. If this stuff is bad, how does it differ from simply washing your hands? Do you simply wash the germs off, or are you killing them? Doesn’t soap kill germs at all? We’ve been using soap and water for 150 years, you’d think that would lead to some kind of soap resistant bacteria, no?

A quick browse around the web led to the following:

• School website saying it’s bad. Interestingly, they also comment on the killing of germs and say that the soap and water simply causes the germs to lose their grip. If so, after 150 years, wouldn’t we have super sticky germs that DIDN’T lose their grip? The other thing this site says is that they’re no ties to anti-bacterial washes and cold/flu. Now that is interesting; I’d love to see the study on that.
• Purell’s website (which of course will be unbiased) claims that the scientist who raised this point was not talking about alcohol-based hand sanitizers (Dr. Stuart Levy if you’re curious)
• Infection Control Today which says that alcohol sanitizers are not encouraging resistance. Just as an aside, this last reference has a footnote, which means that they know what they’re talking about! (Footnotes are a clear indication of quality, as is high quality paper and/or a clear plastic binder)
• CDC Search on the subject seems to indicate they’re using it all over the place. Not that that indicates ultimate credibility, but they’re probably on the right track. (Also in that search, you’ll find "Where to hide during a radiation attack", which I find pretty funny since you’re basically either dead, alive with cancer or not close enough. There’s really not too much in-between.)

My thoughts on it: I think the alcohol basically completely denatures the bacteria without using antibiotics and, though you could generate alcohol resistant germs, you’re probably just as likely to evolve humans with fire-resistant skin. Of course, humans do not really go through millions of generations of evolution in the same time period that bacteria do but I'd like to think the analogy holds.

D