If hand sanitizer kills 99.9% of germs, what stops us from using that all of the time instead of hand washing?
In: Biology
The single most life saving discovery in the history of medical science is hot soapy water. There is little need to be concerned about killing all of the germs, which is impossible, when you can just wash them off of you. In a modern city that would be sending live germs into the sanitary sewer system where there is a extremely low risk of someone being there to be harmed by them.
Hand sanitizer doesn’t remove dirt and oil from your skin, even if it does kill germs just like (proper) hand washing
Sanitizer doesn’t ‘clean’ your hands. If you have dirt all over them and sanitize, then you have “relatively” germ free, dirty hands.
Personally, hand sanitizer dries my skin out so much to the point where it cracks and bleeds. so i never use it.
Most importantly (imo) is hand sanitizer does not kill the Norovirus which is responsible for most stomach illness.
Lots of good points on here, but noone has mentioned the fact that bacteria, viruses and microbes on our hands that we can kill with hand sanitiser also make waste- so we can kill the cells but the only way to get rid of the waste is by washing.
This occurred to me in relation to another thread (sorry don’t have the link) discussing why it’s safe to cut the mould off a piece of cheese and eat the good but, but not bread- the mould makes waste that contaminates the bread as its soft but not the cheese as its hard. (Or something like) the waste products are more harmful than the mould. So surely the waste products of germs on the skin are also harmful
I can think of two reasons. Hand sanitizer dries out the hands and doesn’t remove physical grime as effectively. Thus, proper hand-washing keeps your hands healthier and cleaner.
It’s total false advertising. Read the label on what 99.9% of germs it kills. It’s a very small list of germs. Hand sanitizer is a sham. Use soap and water.
Soap acts as an emulsifier which lifts dirt and oil that otherwise don’t mix with water off of the skin, while hand sanitizer only has germ killing properties. A mechanic for example is just as interested with getting non water soluble oils off of his hands as disinfecting therefore would much rather a soap than alcohol.
Oh! I have a really good answer for that!
Taken C. diff. for example. It’s a somewhat common bacteria that you can get mostly at hospitals, but really anywhere (it causes horrible diarrhea).
It’s not affected by alcohol-based sanitizers. In fact, bleach is the only thing that kills it.
So washing your hands is a really good way at making sure you don’t get infected by it.
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