Are Antimicrobial Soaps Breeding Tougher Bugs
Published on November 17, 2007 By danielost In Current Events
If cleanliness is next to godliness, modern America is the land of the faithful -- fighting the good fight against today's so-called superbugs with sparkling countertops and well-washed hands.

Our culture's cleanliness obsession has been fed by a booming business in household products that promise the virtue of sterility. According to estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency, our antimicrobial crusade has us spending almost $1 billion annually on soaps and detergents, toys and cutting boards, bedsheets and toothbrushes, all of them treated with chemical compounds designed to kill the germs that cling to them. At the forefront of this product niche is the antimicrobial hand wash, commonly fortified with the bug-battling chemical triclosan.



(Jupiter Images/¿ Royalty-free/corbis)

TOOLBOX
Resize Text
Save/Share + DiggNewsvinedel.icio.usStumble It!RedditFacebook Print This E-mail This
COMMENT
washingtonpost.com readers have posted 48 comments about this item.
View All Comments »

Comments are closed for this article.
Discussion PolicyDiscussion Policy CLOSEComments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

Who's Blogging» Links to this article
It may be a dangerous, germ-filled world out there, but with your little bottle of -- choose one: Dial, Safeguard, Palmolive -- you can stroll worry-free through it.



by the way some of the childhood diseases are becoming immune to our immune shots.WWW Link
Comments
on Nov 17, 2007
the immune part is not in that link