FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps • Hacker News Board

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#71

Post by jcrites » Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 4:45 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #66

ythl wrote: post #2

Good. It's pointless to disinfect and reinfect your hands so many times in a day. Soap should be used to make lipids and other grime water-soluble. That's it. If you need to sterilize your hands, then you should use a separate product dedicated to that because chances are you are a doctor. Not sterilizing your hands all the time is actually good (in most cases) because it allows your body to sample the latest and gre…

Ban [something] because it's not effective. Un-ban [something] because it's not really harmful and it's about choice of what I do with my body I never understood which someyhing to put in which category. Perhaps you can argue that no one gets any utility for the thing you want to ban since it's a fraud, but people are spending their money on that thing so surely they get some utility. Not really my place to say

I think the first category is "ban something if it's ineffective and there's a tragedy of the commons from using it". Antibacterial soaps are probably not any more effective than regular soaps, but they might contribute to bacterial immunity (to antibacterials).

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#72

Post by gknoy » Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 4:47 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #66

ythl wrote: post #2

Good. It's pointless to disinfect and reinfect your hands so many times in a day. Soap should be used to make lipids and other grime water-soluble. That's it. If you need to sterilize your hands, then you should use a separate product dedicated to that because chances are you are a doctor. Not sterilizing your hands all the time is actually good (in most cases) because it allows your body to sample the latest and gre…

Ban [something] because it's not effective. Un-ban [something] because it's not really harmful and it's about choice of what I do with my body I never understood which someyhing to put in which category. Perhaps you can argue that no one gets any utility for the thing you want to ban since it's a fraud, but people are spending their money on that thing so surely they get some utility. Not really my place to say

> Ban [something] because it's not effective.

In the case of antibacterial soap, it's somewhat harmful: those antibacterial chemicals get in the water supply, and exert extra evolutionary pressure on bacteria, leading to increased chance of resistant bacteria.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#73

Post by bko » Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 4:49 PM UTC

jcrites wrote: post #71

bko wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban [something] because it's not effective. Un-ban [something] because it's not really harmful and it's about choice of what I do with my body I never understood which someyhing to put in which category. Perhaps you can argue that no one gets any utility for the thing you want to ban since it's a fraud, but people are spending their money on that thing so surely they get some utility. Not really my place to say

I think the first category is "ban something if it's ineffective and there's a tragedy of the commons from using it ". Antibacterial soaps are probably not any more effective than regular soaps, but they might contribute to bacterial immunity (to antibacterials).

Surely there is some negative effects to any recreational drug use, especially alcohol. Theres always a trade off , I just think that the bar to making something illegal should be higher.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#74

Post by balabaster » Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 4:49 PM UTC

Taking the article at face value:

So they can order the removal of anti-bacterial agents because they haven't scientifically been proven beneficial and there are potentially unknown side effects. Err on the side of caution, that's a wise decision.

... yet they use terms like GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe) for things like Roundup Ready crops which have been scientifically (allegedly, I haven't read and understood all the science, but it seems reasonably credible to the layman) proven to contain significantly increased doses of POISON in food on the supermarket shelves which (admittedly unproven but) highly suspiciously correlated skyrocketing food allergies.

I don't get it (genuinely). Why one application of a seemingly sane rule with unknown repercussions in one instance and a complete disregard for it in the other in the face of a huge amount of evidence that it is in fact unsafe?

Is this because antibacterial agents in soaps are not funded by Monsanto? (okay, I asked that facetiously, but still)

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#75

Post by greglindahl » Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

philip1209 wrote: post #8

What's the medical standard for soap? Also, this may sound silly, but does "anti-bacterial" vs. "anti-septic" factor in here? Could soap just be made more caustic to achieve the same effect without drugs?

The article points out that soap is already achieving the same effect without drugs... that's what the FDA concluded after studying the evidence.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#76

Post by nommm-nommm » Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #69

mratzloff wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It contributes to antibacterial resistance, which is a shared good. It's a case of the tragedy of the commons, which the free market is incapable of moderating on its own. This is exactly the kind of thing the government should be doing.

actually that's kind of not true. There's a throwaway line in the article where manufacturers have already started the process of removing the antibacterial compounds, before FDA guidance came in, because it seems like the market itself has already started to reflect the scientific wisdom; as in: People aren't that stupid. (Or maybe they're buying into the whole probiotic fad?)

You missed the part where the FDA lit a fire under the industry's ass in 2013 to prove antibacterial soap have value over non antibacterial soap and gave them a year timeline.

Everyone saw the writing on the wall that a ban was coming.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#77

Post by bko » Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

gknoy wrote: post #72

bko wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban [something] because it's not effective. Un-ban [something] because it's not really harmful and it's about choice of what I do with my body I never understood which someyhing to put in which category. Perhaps you can argue that no one gets any utility for the thing you want to ban since it's a fraud, but people are spending their money on that thing so surely they get some utility. Not really my place to say

> Ban [something] because it's not effective. In the case of antibacterial soap, it's somewhat harmful: those antibacterial chemicals get in the water supply, and exert extra evolutionary pressure on bacteria, leading to increased chance of resistant bacteria.

Some people enjoy using the product for whatever reason and spend their money on these products. Should we just ignore those preferences? Why are we so quick to disregard those preferences in some cases and not in others, such as recreational drug use?

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#78

Post by afterburner » Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 4:52 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #49

ythl wrote: post #2

Good. It's pointless to disinfect and reinfect your hands so many times in a day. Soap should be used to make lipids and other grime water-soluble. That's it. If you need to sterilize your hands, then you should use a separate product dedicated to that because chances are you are a doctor. Not sterilizing your hands all the time is actually good (in most cases) because it allows your body to sample the latest and gre…

What about cooking? e.g. handling raw meat and such?

Well, if you're cooking, the bacteria on the raw meat and whatever you added with your hands get cooked. Most skin bacteria probably don't do too well in the mouth and stomach anyways.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#79

Post by metalon » Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

henrikschroder wrote: post #70

mkane848 wrote: post #3

Is there any reason why these companies would include a seemingly ineffective element into their product other than being able to say "antibacterial" on the label? It couldn't possibly have been CHEAPER to add them to soaps when it became the new meta, so it'd be interesting if marketing was the sole reason for it.

I saw some funny old ads from the 50s for toothpaste and mouthwash WITH CHLOROPHYLL! Same thing there, it had probably just entered shared knowledge, it sounded sciency and natural at the same time, so why not add it to toothpaste? It must be good, right? Completely worthless, pure marketing gimmick, yet people bought it.

Chlorophyll does actually help against bad breath, since it absorbs gases. You can still buy dragees in pharmacies

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#80

Post by boobsbr » Fri, Sep 02, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

niels_olson wrote: post #65

We have no evidence that surgeons scrubbing before donning gloves makes sense either. In fact, there's an undergraduate experiment where people scrub for up to 3-4 minutes and swab after every 10 seconds and plate the swab. The plates actually show more colony-forming units until about 3 minutes, which is much longer than most surgeons scrub. Which suggests that the scrubbing actually liberates bacteria found at the…

VERY interesting. Care to share the paper?

EDIT: Some surgeons argue that having a beard can carry more bacteria into a surgery room, while others argue that shaving might make the surgeon more susceptible to infection by bacteria from the surgery room, since epitelial cells are removed by the razor blade.