Conversation

So the FDA banned antibacterial soap for consumers partly because it doesn’t work any better than soap and water, but can still cause antibiotic resistance?! But hospitals still use professional grade “real” antibacterial soap. So why do we wash hands at all? Dirt?
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Soap is useful because it cleans germs but does not attack them and increase resistance. Antibacterial soap attacks them - only helpful if you are in a hospital and doing a thorough wash of your hands and forearms (a la a full treatment of antibiotics)
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because most of the effectiveness of handwashing is in the mechanics of the technique, not the soap itself. but in hospitals you still want the extra bit of marginal effectiveness (they would probably be legally culpable if they didn't exploit something that was widely available)