Have you ever gone to the bathroom and squirted hand sanitizer into your hands? Do you use hand sanitizer before you eat or after? Personally, I try to use hand sanitizer after I go to the bathroom and as much as possible. When I go to dinner at East Commons, I always see students using hand sanitizer after eating dinner. The question going around is… Is hand sanitizer toxic? Or is this just a rumor?
The primary concern that has been circling around the usage of hand sanitizer is the main ingredient in non-alcoholic hand sanitizers; triclosan. Allison Aiello, an epidemiology professor at the University of Michigan, states, “There’s no good evidence that triclosan-containing products have a benefit. In Europe and the United States, hospitals won’t even use them…it’s thought that they don’t reduce infections or illness.” Dr. Anna Bowen, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), exclaims, “Triclosan-containing products don’t provide any disease protection beyond what you get from washing with soap and water.” Research has displayed that triclosan can intervene in the endocrine system, which can greatly increase the amount of testosterone in our bodies. Research has also shown that it can even damage our immune systems, which has been proven in animal studies. However, whether triclosan harms the endocrine and immune systems in humans is currently being looked at.
There has been further concern when exposing triclosan out into the environment. According to Aiello, when bacteria is exposed to this ingredient in hand sanitizers, it can generate antibiotic resistance. Once this resistance is moved, the bacteria itself can become resistant to a variety of antibiotics.
Overall, the main concern with hand sanitizer is that triclosan does not protect us against viruses. This is a big worry because viruses are what cause colds, not bacteria. According to researchers, we should skip using non-alcoholic sanitizers, and using hand soap is better for us. However, using alcohol based sanitizers are more beneficial because they kill approximately 60 percent bacterial pathogens (according to Bowen). Alcohol-based sanitizers can also kill some viruses, so they can easily prevent more colds and illness than non-alcoholic sanitizers. According to Deb Group, “Alcohol and alcohol-free hand sanitizers have been used in a variety of elementary school settings with significant (30% to 50%) reduction of infectious disease rates. Alcohol hand sanitizers have also been used in daycare centers by staff and by children under strict direction from staff, again providing significant infection rate reductions.” Studies based on this issue have been conducted in the United States, Sweden, and Finland.
There has been a growing concern of whether hand sanitizers are toxic. Children under the age of two years should not use any products in which alcohol is involved. According to infection investigators, day care children can use hand sanitizer products as long as they are under the supervision of an adult and use it with careful direction. A study conducted by Deb Group showed that using alcohol-based hand sanitizer five to ten times a day demonstrated no toxic impacts. The only way toxicity has been showed with hand sanitizer is if the individual has a previous skin condition in which their skin is highly sensitive to certain ingredients (such as alcohol) in skin products.
A study was reviewed by Regina Bailey when it comes to the usage of a variety of hand sanitizers. She came to the conclusion that hand sanitizers in general don’t greatly reduce the amount of bacteria on our hands. In addition, she notes that washing hands with hand soap may in fact be better than using hand sanitizer. According to the Food and Drug Association, they have recommended that hand sanitizers should not be used as a replacement for hand soap and water. Instead, they state that we should wash our hands with soap and water, and then use hand sanitizer as a supplement afterwards. So, how come manufactures of hand sanitizers have said they kill 99.9% of all germs? Bailey states that the researchers test the hand sanitizers on “inanimate surfaces”, enabling them to say the hand sanitizers exterminate 99.9% of germs. Bailey declares, “If the products were fully tested on hands, there would be no doubt be different results. Since there inherent complexity in the human hand, testing hands would definitely be more difficult. Using surfaces with controlled variables is an easier way to obtain some type of consistency in the results.”
In conclusion, there has not been strong enough evidence to show any strong correlations and casual relationships between hand sanitizers and toxicity. Studies conducted on this issue can easily be due to chance just like most experiments (chance cannot be ruled out). Even though hand soap has proven to be more effective than hand sanitizers, that does not mean hand sanitizers are not safe. Alcohol-based and non-alcohol sanitizers are both fine to use, but using them in conjunction with hand soap and water is the best option. Further research is being conducted by scientists to investigate if hand sanitizers have any significant damaging effects.
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/16/health/hand-sanitizer-toxic-upwave/
http://info.debgroup.com/blog/bid/337803/Is-it-Safe-for-Children-to-Use-Hand-Sanitizers
I do not think hand sanitizer is bad. I believe it has no effect. I believe the best way to clean your hands is to wash your hands with soap and water, however if you need a quick wash hand sanitzer will do the trick. You provided a ton of useful information in the blog that will help me consider weather or not i use hand sanitizer or soap. There are times when i will use hand sanitzer just to clean my hands randomly throughout the day but for the most part i will not replace soap with hand sanitizer. What i don’t get is how when i go to the doctors office, i always see my doctors use hand sanitzer before they come in the room. In offices and hospitals they have sanitizes hung up on the walls. Why is this if they are considered to be bad? I hope sanitzer does not have harmful effects because it is used all over the place by many doctors and in hospitals. I will still continue to use hand sanitzer when a sink is not available to me.
I think that part of the reason we would use hand-sanitizers instead of hand washing with soap is for convenience. It’s easy to put Purell in your bag to make sure your hands are cleaner than they would be without the soap and water. Although it might not be as effective, some protection is better than none at all if you can’t get to a sink to thoroughly wash.
There was a lot of useful information in the blog that I will take into consideration the next time i decide to wash my hands. However, is it safe to use alcohol based hand sanitizers? Or just non-alcohol based products? If it is toxic to use hand sanitizer, then why should we use it even in conjunction with soap and water? Shouldn’t we just do away with it considering hand soap and water does the job just as well without all the risks? I will look more into this. Thanks!
I like this post! Every time when I feel the pungent smell from the alcohol contained in sanitizer, I would wonder if I can really use my hand washed by sanitizer to touch French fries directly. After reading your article, I feel a kind of safe about the sanitizer used daily. Although the chance may work on the result of that research, it still proved that there’s no clear relationship between toxicity and sanitizer. That’s definitely a good news, because sometimes when people have no time to go to the bathroom and use the soap there, sanitizer will help them out easily.
Super interesting article by the way!
In seventh grade my science class did an experiment regarding the “99.9%” claim hand sanitizers and Lysol use. Both products failed (Lysol was definitely worse though, to be fair). Since then, I have been wary about using hand sanitizers before eating. I always choose to wash my hands first. Over the summer when I volunteered at a hospital they still used hand sanitizer before and after entering a patient’s room, but they made sure to wash their hands every hour. Also, before surgery doctors wash their hands with soap and water. If they really believed hand sanitizer was as effective, they would just sanitize their hands (it’s much quicker and more convenient). I hope it doesn’t have any harmful effects. I’ll definitely continue to use hand sanitizer when I can’t get to a sink– some protection has to be than none.