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5 Reasons to End Our War on Germs Before It Kills Us All


Health & Wellness  (tags: health, war on germs, antibacterial soaps, pollution, environment, protection, prevention, disease, Body-Mind-Spirit, study, society, news, illness, humans )

Cal
- 210 days ago - alternet.org
Our war against germs is doing more harm than good.



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Comments

Rana Sinha (42)
Thursday October 25, 2012, 3:15 am
Good point, noted.
 

Stephen Brian (23)
Friday October 26, 2012, 12:30 am
The poison, as always, is in the dosage. Normal hand-washing with triclosan or any other standard antibacterial agent does not lead to the problems described. Problems #2,#3, and #4 noted in the article only come into play when a person or child's family is excessive. This is roughly the same issue that we see with over-prescription of antibiotics: Used correctly, they are wonderful. Used excessively, they are useless at best. Problem #1 appears to depend upon a study of frogs. Looking at the structure of triclosan, it appears to be built to attach to water-molecules. Frogs' tissues are highly porous to water, so they would likely see effects of triclosan unlike those any mammal would experience. Issue #5 simply does not appear to be true. Antibacterials and triclosan cost money to produce. If there were no significant benefit to it, why would it be added to soap?
 

Joy Wong (63)
Friday October 26, 2012, 4:11 am
Noted, thanks.
 

John S. (232)
Friday October 26, 2012, 4:11 am
Thanks, noted.
 

Frans Badenhorst (307)
Friday October 26, 2012, 7:08 am
noted and thanks for posting, yes I also think we are BREEDING super-viruses and germs with all our "preventative" measures...
 

Gloria picchetti (205)
Friday October 26, 2012, 8:57 am
It's best to have a little balance between clean & dirty. Unless you live in a surgery the house doesn't have to smell of bleach.
 

Claudia O. (74)
Friday October 26, 2012, 2:42 pm
It is as wrong to kill all germs as it is to kill other animals in our environment. We cannot keep killing off other species without paying a very high price. We don't know everything about how this planet works, no matter how smart we think we are.
 

Fred Krohn (32)
Friday October 26, 2012, 2:55 pm
While a reasonable degree of cleanliness wards off illnesses based on coliform, typhoid, diphtheria, and other common 'bad water' illnesses, overdoing it and being OCD about cleaning gives little to no added benefit outside a medical facility or microcircuitry assembly plant. While we should strive to avoid getting sick from our own intestinal bacteria, we should also not kill them off inside our own guts.
 

june t. (39)
Friday October 26, 2012, 5:20 pm
I try to make a point of not buying products labelled antibacterial, but I've noticed that almost every hand soap has it now, and I spend a lot of time searching the aisle for the one or two brands that don't have it. This is definitely over kill when you are lucky to find something without it. How did we survive with just plain soap in the "old" days before these anti-bacteria times?
 

Kara C. (14)
Friday October 26, 2012, 9:20 pm
I never buy anything anitibacterial, we have immune systems for a reason. Makes me sick whenever I sit down to watch TV there are always countless ads to promote anitibacterial everything and how evil germs are, it's no surprise people are getting sick more often and allergies are on the rise.
 

Jules W. (61)
Friday October 26, 2012, 9:37 pm
Ty, Gloria !
 

Julie W. (13)
Saturday October 27, 2012, 3:40 am
Plain soap and water works for me! Never get sick or have tummy upsets, and I work outside in the dirt a lot.
 

Lois Jordan (42)
Saturday October 27, 2012, 4:08 pm
Noted. I'm for anything natural that cleans without drying out my skin.
 

Patricia H. (9)
Monday October 29, 2012, 2:21 am
noted
 

Mike and Janis B. (6)
Tuesday October 30, 2012, 10:19 am
With more and more allergies people are utterly daft to reduce their immune systems with this rubbish.
 

Sharon W. (3)
Wednesday October 31, 2012, 2:57 pm
Finally a widely unknown truth!
Of course, washing hands is ok and often very useful, but these sanitizers are horrible and should not be used anywhere but around infectious or chronically sick people.
 
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