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In a final ruling announced Friday, the Food and Drug Administration is pulling from the market a wide range of antimicrobial soaps after manufacturers failed to show that the soaps are both safe and more effective than plain soap. The federal flushing applies to any hand soap or antiseptic wash product that has one or more of 19 specific chemicals in them, including the common triclosan (found in antibacterial hand soap) and triclocarbon (found in bar soaps). Manufacturers will have one year to either reformulate their products or pull them from the market entirely.
[...] The ruling does not affect alcohol-based hand sanitizers or wipes, which the agency is reviewing separately. It also does not affect antiseptic products used in healthcare settings.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday September 03 2016, @05:57PM
That which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
Yeah, we washed our hands when we thought of it. I hit on that in my original post. And, we dealt with germs, bacteria, and viruses, just as every human and every human-like creature has done since before we climbed down from the trees. We develop resistance to common diseases, unless they kill us. That is how life is - did you read the story about Tasmanian devils developing resistance to their face cancer? Life evolves and grows, or it ends.
While I'd mostly say this is a useful attitude, it needs to be tempered by a few situations where handwashing is essential in normal life: (1) after using the restroom (especially "number 2"), (2) before cooking or during food prep after handling potentially contaminated foods (e.g., raw meats), and (3) when trying not to spread a serious illness (e.g., when you're infected and might come in contact with someone, or when you have been in contact with someone infected, etc.).
Everyday "dirt and grime" like kids get on their hands playing in the mud are unlikely to cause problems. But science has shown us that there are certain targeted places which germs can use as major avenues for transmission. Before modern hygiene, foodborne illness caused huge amounts of problems, and human waste was a major vector for disease spreading. Even today, there are a multitude of outbreaks of serious illness caused each year in countries with decent sanitation when people don't wash hands during food prep or after using the bathroom. A lot of these diseases aren't the sort of thing you "develop resistance" to -- they were often the cause of major plagues or widespread illnesses for thousands of years of human history.
Basically, I concur that everyday "dirt and grime" is useful for developing a healthy immune system. But rather than emphasizing "cleanliness" for the sake of appearance (your hands "look clean"), we should still be sure to emphasize to our kids when particular situations occur where it's truly important to wash hands, not for the dirt, but for the unseen microorganisms we're really trying to target.