Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

nbcnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 255 posts

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#91

Post by joesmo »

Kenji wrote: post #63
ryen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof should be on the manufacturers to prove, scientifically, that it's safe and effective. Not the FDA

What? That is an incredibly strange notion. So by default, everything should be banned, and it should only be legal if you can show it's safe? That is not how it works. A ban is an authoritarian action that has to be enforced at gunpoint, always keep that in mind. It is not only a very extreme stance to take, it is a violent one. A ban should only apply on things that are shown to be bad and harmful.

It's thinking like this that leads to disasters like Flint. How many people have to die or get injured before we start caring in America? Apparently way too many for most of the stupid idiots in this country to count to.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#92

Post by deegles »

Kristine1975 wrote: post #81
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…

>Which suggests that the scrubbing actually liberates bacteria found at the margin of the stratum corneum. Wouldn't that mean that after scrubbing the bacteria are no longer there?

Yes, but they have to scrub for at least 3 minutes, which most people don't do.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#93

Post by mindcrime »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #83
mindcrime wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not weird, in fact, you're thinking about a very interesting question. What is "government" or "law"? From whence does it derive its "authority"? What is a valid application of this thing called "government" or "State"? They're old now, but I think some of the best answers to this are found in the writings of Frederic Bastiat.[1] This bit in particular is relevant: ------ What, then, is law? It is the collecti…

I've always found it remarkable that people find this at all illuminating. I take it the applicability of that passage is supposed to go something like this: I, as a third party bystander, would not have the right to intervene(by force, if necessary) and stop person A from selling person B antibacterial soap. I suppose I get that intuition. But if you add in more pertinent details, I think we're just left begging the…

Of course, it should also be mentioned that there are perfectly good schools of political thought under which the powers of government are not merely the aggregated power of individuals.

Certainly such schools of thought exist, but I'd stop short of calling them "perfectly good." I think Bastiat makes the case pretty strongly that there's no moral basis for saying that a group can hold any innate authority beyond that which the individual members hold. And by "authority" I mean the ability to compel people who don't voluntarily consent to the governance of the group to do the group's will. Of course if a group of people voluntarily choose to delegate some decision making authority to a collective, that makes perfect sense.

The state, however, is able to organize behavior in a way that largely solves these problems, meaning that there may be cases where it is acceptable for the state to kill even though no individual person could morally have done so.

I have a hard time with that. How can merely aggregating a bunch of people together create a moral justification that doesn't exist otherwise? What's the basis for saying that this is so?

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#94

Post by Joof »

bko wrote: post #77
gknoy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Yes. The antibacterial claim is misleading because it's not actually more effective and is damaging to the environment.

If homeopathy was damaging to the environment, you're damn right we should outlaw it.

The whole purpose of the FDA is to evaluate these types of claims. They are doing their jobs properly.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#95

Post by ubercore »

afterburner wrote: post #78
fastball wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cross contamination is almost always the concern here. Handle raw -> prepping vegetables for a salad, for instance. Or handling chicken then almost anything else.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#96

Post by cthalupa »

Vraxx wrote: post #38
djschnei wrote: post #33

I guess I'm weird; I have no idea why the government has the ability to dictate what is and isn't in the soap that I choose to buy. I agree however, anti-bacterial soap is silly. Looks like a lot of people here agree. Looks like a market segment to me. Didn't need a gun, theft, or a jail cell to create it.

Well, the big one is that it's a joint effort as a society to not continually strengthen bacteria by selecting for strains that are resistant to these antimicrobials.

I think the main problem is we haven't seen bacteria develop a resistance to antiseptics, so it's a fear based on a what if that seems unlikely based on hundreds of years of antispetic use.

There have been a small number of laboratory studies that imply it might be possible with triclosan, but they used extremely low levels of triclosan, and real world studies have basically shown the opposite.

http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consumer_sa... Page 30

"Furthermore, in most in vitro studies, resistance to triclosan has been measured as an increase in MIC. As mentioned in section 6.2 above, the measurement of resistance based on MIC only, might have little bearing on bacterial survival to concentrations found in situ."

"Ledder et al. (2006) investigated acquired high-level triclosan resistance in a number of distinct environmental isolates and reported that a relatively small number of strains showed a decrease in triclosan susceptibility (E. coli, Klebsiella oxytoca, Aranicola proteolyticus and S. maltophilia) while the susceptibility of the remaining 35 species remained unchanged. They concluded that repeated exposures to triclosan did not systematically produce high-level triclosan resistance in all bacteria. Furthermore, among the strains with decreased susceptibility, there was no change in antibiotic susceptibility or susceptibility to other biocides. Similarly, another study by the same group on repeated exposure of dental bacteria to triclosan resulted in the same conclusions"

"Cole et al. (2003) collected 1238 isolates from the homes of users and non-users of antibacterial product and were unable to demonstrate any cross-resistance to antibiotic and antibacterial agents in target bacteria. In addition, this study showed an increased prevalence of potential pathogens in the homes of non-users of antibacterial products. "

"With our current state of knowledge, it is generally accepted that antibiotic resistance in clinical isolates is not necessarily associated with resistance to biocides. "

"urthermore, the antibiotic susceptibility profile of the oral streptococci investigated did not change following the use of triclosan containing toothpaste. Aiello et al. (2004) did not find any statistical significance between elevated triclosan MICs and antibiotic susceptibility in bacterial isolates taken from the hands of individuals using antibacterial cleaning and hygiene products for a 1-year period."

"The authors did not observe any increase in triclosan MIC in these bacteria"

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#97

Post by Kenji »

greglindahl wrote: post #85
Kenji wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? That is an incredibly strange notion. So by default, everything should be banned, and it should only be legal if you can show it's safe? That is not how it works. A ban is an authoritarian action that has to be enforced at gunpoint, always keep that in mind. It is not only a very extreme stance to take, it is a violent one. A ban should only apply on things that are shown to be bad and harmful.

The reason that we've had so many people hurt by nutritional supplements is that they're allowed to add anything until it's proven to be unsafe. In the medical field, which has strict rules today, it was the era of dangerous and ineffective "patent medicine" that caused our existing policies to be created. If you're going to advocate change, don't you think it's important to understand historical and modern examples…

I am certain that the FDA, with its ban on certain substances, has caused more deaths and misery than it has ever prevented. Not to mention financial losses.

Before you ask accusory questions, why not refine your own position and brush off the smugness?

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#98

Post by westward »

bko wrote: post #73
jcrites wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's unclear what your point is about alcohol and drugs which are highly regulated.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#99

Post by exclusiv »

nsaslideface wrote: post #48
djschnei wrote: post #33

I guess I'm weird; I have no idea why the government has the ability to dictate what is and isn't in the soap that I choose to buy. I agree however, anti-bacterial soap is silly. Looks like a lot of people here agree. Looks like a market segment to me. Didn't need a gun, theft, or a jail cell to create it.

The FDA must regulate the contents of some consumable goods; can you provide a better model of governance than the current one which dictates where the line is to what the FDA can or cannot regulate? Or even a more philosophical explanation as to why we should instinctively distrust the current model without any examination into its basis, as seems to be your implication?

I'm not saying the FDA is all bad, but there are a lot of people that are dying that would like to try certain drugs that could save them but they can't.

Re: FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed from Consumer Soaps

#100

Post by wonder_er »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #83
mindcrime wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not weird, in fact, you're thinking about a very interesting question. What is "government" or "law"? From whence does it derive its "authority"? What is a valid application of this thing called "government" or "State"? They're old now, but I think some of the best answers to this are found in the writings of Frederic Bastiat.[1] This bit in particular is relevant: ------ What, then, is law? It is the collecti…

I've always found it remarkable that people find this at all illuminating. I take it the applicability of that passage is supposed to go something like this: I, as a third party bystander, would not have the right to intervene(by force, if necessary) and stop person A from selling person B antibacterial soap. I suppose I get that intuition. But if you add in more pertinent details, I think we're just left begging the…

You're right that if fraud is being committed, you should not be a passive observer.

But education is a much better option than regulation. Regulation is inflexible, and subject to enforcement by people who have the exact same set of flaws and bad judgements as the groups that we're trying to defend ourselves from.

You're right about this being a "schools of thought" difference. You have a good example, about "might we give the government powers to do things, because it could be better at it than we."

That's really the fundamental question, and I appreciate that you got to that core issue so quickly!

My thought (I'm not OP, but I think he and I might agree) is that since the fundamental weakness we're trying to fix is a part of human nature.

Some people will act against the interest of others, even while saying they are acting in their good.

So, the solution is not to give more power to one group (who's subject to the same weaknesses as any other group) but to make sure we avoid giving power to one group where they can have undue influence over others if they fall prey to those weaknesses of human nature.

I fully expect to have companies try to screw me. I fully expect the government to do the same, in some situations. I wish, however, that I could disregard the negative impact of the government as easily as I could the negative impact of the companies.

But I cannot, because one of those groups can override my preferences with its own.

Post reply on HN