The " Over Use " Question ?

Over a decade ago we had a serious health problem in our hospitals.  "Golden Staph " was an infection with increasing resistance to antibiotics that was spreading from patient to patient.   Health professionals were urged to be meticulous and wash their hands frequently.  The limited wash facilities and the number of people involved was quickly found to be causing time bottlenecks.

Anyone recently visiting a hospital will notice a major change.   At the foot of every patients bed is a bottle of strong disinfectant, and similar bottles are handily positioned in doorways and on walls throughout all the wards.   Doctors and nurses now have the ingrained habit of squirting a little disinfectant on their hands and rubbing them together every few minutes as they make their rounds.  Hospital infection figures have improved accordingly.

The commercial world is not slow to act on opportunity.   Where industry used to sell bars of soap it now pushes anti-bacterial wash in one form or another.  Commonly, these products claim to kill 99% of all germs, although that claim seems to be fast disappearing from product advertising.

Alarm bells are ringing because an "over use " factor is causing harm.    Just as patient demand for antibiotics caused scripts to be written for unsuitable illnesses and for patients to discontinue when they felt a little better, the germs began to build immunity.   We now have a very limited base of antibiotics at our disposal.

The American health authorities have slapped a ban on nineteen ingredients commonly used in antiseptic hand washes.  All these quickly degrade with constant use and the bugs they are supposed to kill gain the ascendancy.   They are no more effective than soap and water.

The situation here in Australia is alarming.   The industry has heavily advertised germicidal hand washes and much of this has been directed at children.   The presentation is appealing.   The product comes in bright and appealing colours and the smell is very attractive.  The advertising industry is aware of the power of child demand.   What the kids want - Mum will buy !

Chemical analysis reveals that a product called Triclocarban is the main ingredient of the anti bacterial washes sold in Australia, and this is subjected to the time decay of exposure by way of over use.   Unfortunately the good properties of common soap have been discarded in favour of colour and smell in most handwash products and we can expect a sharp efficiency drop in the near future.

The solution would appear to be simple.   A rebalancing of handwash products to reduce the germicidal effect and replace it with common soap will eliminate the problem.  Advertising has been effective in training kids to wash their hands and there is no reason that the appealing smell and colour of an adjusted product can not be retained.    The only problem would be to justify the price disparity - because soap is a lot cheaper than germicide  !