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from the kills-99.99%-of-zombie-viruses dept.
The maker of Purell hand sanitizers is washing away some unproven marketing claims that its products reduce school absenteeism and prevent infections from germs such as Ebola, norovirus, flu, and certain drug-resistant infections.
The marketing disinfection comes after the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter to Purell's parent company, GOJO Industries.
[...]Among the questionable claims are that Purell sanitizer:
- "kills more than 99.99% of most common germs that may cause illness in a healthcare setting, including MRSA [methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus] & VRE [vancomycin-resistant enterococci]."
- "can reduce student absenteeism by up to 51%... Additionally, teachers who follow this program also experience a 10% reduction of absenteeism."
- "may be effective against viruses such as the Ebola virus, norovirus, and influenza."
[...]On an FAQ page, GOJO also says that "the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are recommending the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizer as a preventive measure for flu prevention."
But it should be noted that the WHO and the CDC emphasize hand washing as a primary method to prevent the spread of influenza (aside from vaccination). The CDC only recommends using hand sanitizer "if soap and water are not available."
[...]went on to say that GOJO has "begun updating relevant website and other digital content as directed by the FDA and are taking steps to prevent a recurrence."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Friday January 31 2020, @09:40AM (4 children)
All it takes is one instance of some ebola that gets swiped away by the sanitizer. Surely that can happen.
The problem is that in $$$ driven america, other than corporations wanting to milk you for the last penny, there are people and lawyers going through ads and labels looking for a way to sue. This in the interest of insurance companies, who got new markets artificially opened to insure against the risk of a frivolous lawsuit. There is a word for this and it is the good old fashioned "terror", that is terrorism perpetrated by the system on its prisoners.
In an ideal world instead:
- "Purell said these thingies fight ebola, i tried to use them against ebola and it did not work, I want one zillion dollars for the irreplaceable loss of life"
- "what's written on the label? maybe effective?"
- "well yes"
- "and you didn't care to know why it is written maybe and proceed to use it as it was always effective? sorry, you are unfit to have a job and drive a car in this country. You will be given a pension and work social services 8 hrs a day. Under supervision. Next!"
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @09:51AM (2 children)
99.99% isn't very effective. Let's say you start with a 10k, kill 9,999 and the germ replicates every 20 min.
After 1 hr you have 1*2^3 = 8, 2 hr is 1*2^6 = 64, 4 hr would be 2^12 = 4096, 8 hr is 16,777,216.
So it would take about 5 hrs to get back to the initial pop size. Multiply by however many germs are left after the initial wash to get the absolute number of germs.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @03:04PM
https://xkcd.com/1161/ [xkcd.com]
eww...
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Friday January 31 2020, @03:07PM
Indeed. Even worse, the rapidly replenished population of germs will all be descended from the 0,.01% of the original population that survived the first disinfection. And there's a pretty good chance that at least some of those survived because they were resistant to the disinfectant.
So your newly replaced population will likely have inherited that resistance, and the next disinfection may only kill 99.9% of the population. Repeat the cycle a few times, and the disinfectant won't do much good at all.
Hospitals the world over are being increasingly faced with that problem, except for the few that have banned disinfectants in favor of soap and water - which is at least as effective, and doesn't breed resistance against our most potent anti-microbial weapons for situations where soap and water aren't an option.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday January 31 2020, @02:00PM
The problem is that hand washing is much more effective, and these things, which are nearly placebos, tend to get used in place of hand washing.
*IF* it's really impossible to wash your hands, they are slightly effective, but the emphasis is on the slight, and they aren't that much more effective than just rubbing your hands together briskly. A stronger solution would make them more effective one a single use basis, but would also damage the skin, making them less effective on an "over time" basis until the skin had had a chance to heal.
I'm not even sure how effective the medical foam that nurses are supposed to use between patient visits is. But is suspect that it's less effective than hand washing with a decent soap...say a Castile soap.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Friday January 31 2020, @12:06PM (1 child)
I'm honestly surprised this day in age to see a company have to change their lies/marketing. Marketing has always been about bullshitting, but it seems like it is standard practice these days for companies to outright lie about their products in order to make people buy them, and no one ever complains.
Don't forget to download our FREE app/spyware! It's FREE!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @03:01PM
It worked fine for Joe Isuzu's car commercials.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJMq_7alQpU [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 31 2020, @05:07PM
Did the FDA use Purell to sanitize the unproven claims made by Purell?
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @10:47PM
It's interesting that the norovirus is a non-enveloped virus and non-enveloped viruses are resistant to alcohol based detergents. Yet they claim that this will stop that?