Ok with the COVID-19 thing going on hand sanitizer is at a premium and impossible to get
But my question is this … I can’t remember exactly why but about 4 or 5 years ago there was another sickness which brought such products to national attention and it sold like wildfire and was offered everywhere (in fact some places never stopped which makes them seem ahead of what’s going on today)
But 2 or 3 years ago didn’t the FTC and FDA say the hand sanitizers active ingredient triclosan didn’t do anything in commercial hand sanitizer because although it killed germs it took industrial-sized amounts to do it and ordered all the popular brands off the market?
So whats changed in them between then and now that makes them effective or are we forgetting about what was said officially before?
Triclosan was in antibacterial soap, not hand sanitizers. While in theory it could kill germs, it didn’t stay on your hands long enough, and you would kill most germs and wash away the rest anyways. In practice, it didn’t kill any more germs than regular soap and hand washing.
Hand sanitizers mostly use alcohol at 60%, which is an effective antibacterial and virucide.
Triclosan was most definitely used in hand sanitizers. And it most definitely could kill bacteria, not theory. The reason it was banned in OTC products was because manufacturers couldn’t prove its safety to human health. However, it’s not an across-the-board ban. It just couldn’t be used as an active ingredient to claim antibacterial property.
Most of the hand sanitizers right now are following the WHO guideline and are either 80% ethanol, 75% isopropyl alcohol, or 60% isopropyl with about 0.125% h2o2 as the active ingredients. The 75% ipa has been verified by one European lab as acceptable as a presurgical sanitization method when used for 3-5 minutes and refreshed if the surgery goes over 2 hours.
So there is pretty good evidence that the current hand sanitizers work. Even if you should be performing open heart surgery after using the ethanol based or lower IPA base.