251–255 of 255 posts
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What's wrong with regular soap? It worked fine for decades. You don't need to kill the bacteria. Just remove it.
> You don't need to kill the bacteria. Just remove it. I'm pretty sure the lipid-dissolving properties of soap kill bacteria by shredding their cell membranes. It's not effective against viruses, but neither is antibacterial soap.
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It's explained pretty well in the article. Basically the FDA said in 2013 'show us that these chemicals are effective and safe for daily long term use' and companies didn't do it. So there's little to no support for the effectiveness and there may be some long term exposure issues from animal studies.
Isn't this a straw man? These products are used in hostpitals everyday. Nobody doubts they are 'safe'in any meaningful sense. Otherwise they would need to be banned outright. OCD people, and their kids, are a huge problem in society and should be dealt with, but this is not 'science based' public policy at all. Its like asking someone to prove a negatve, which is absurd in many contexts. "why did something not happen…
Also these aren't the same soaps used in hospitals. Hospital soaps are much harsher and use different chemicals.
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Isn't this a straw man? These products are used in hostpitals everyday. Nobody doubts they are 'safe'in any meaningful sense. Otherwise they would need to be banned outright. OCD people, and their kids, are a huge problem in society and should be dealt with, but this is not 'science based' public policy at all. Its like asking someone to prove a negatve, which is absurd in many contexts. "why did something not happen…
Not a straw man at all. Effectiveness should be simple to show and for safety they're not asking for perfect proof of safety just that it doesn't cause long term effects which is done a lot with animal studies. Hundreds of products go through FDA safety testing it's not some impossible test. Also these aren't the same soaps used in hospitals. Hospital soaps are much harsher and use different chemicals.
Lets hope its just one of those shitty translations of 'real science' being lost in translation when subjected to a journalist-friendly press release.
Theres 40 years of data using humans. Nobody doubts that dial sope or other similar soaps is safe in any meaningful sense. The science in this argument is being lost.
If these were legitimate tests they would have been done years ago and there would not be the various exemptions in this policy declaration.
I will insert the caveat here that I'm not a fan of everyday use of anti-bacterials. I also don't doubt that using anti-bacterials and prbably more importantly anti-biotics and various endocrine influencing chemicals and plastics with loose regard for the environment has negative impacts on society.
I think kids should eat dirt, assuming it's clean dirt, etc. They are made to handle the stuff that nature thows at them.
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Because unlike recreational drugs^, antibacterials re-enter the water supply, change the biology of your neighbors and farm animals, and cause existing strains of bacteria to become more antibiotic-resistant. It is possible that within a decade or two, penicillin will be lose its usefulness, and we'll be back to the stage of history where cuts and scrapes could become life-threatening. ^ a related problem is the flus…
Some would equally argue that use of recreational drugs is harmful to the user, harms relationships and undermines society in a lot of respects. These things can all be true but it's not necessarily enough grounds to use the power and resources of the state to actively ban a substance.
Antibiotic abuse could wind up affecting human civilization. It could make plague-level events possible. This is a whole different league, and it's ludicrous to turn this into some kind of libertarian talking point.
> The FDA started asking about triclosan in 1978. What is happening now that will get "fixed" in 38 years. This is great news, but what is being done to reduce this latency? How about having over arching goals of separating people and chemicals, that all chemicals need approval before being introduced into the environment!
> The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act
https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-t...