Why are we told to ignore fancy antibacterial handwashes and use warm soapy water?
Surely thats the first thing that bacteria have become resistant to.
Or maybe they’re just not expecting it…
The idea behind warm soapy water is to wash the bacteria off, not necessarily to kill them.
The bacteria, in addition to being washed off, are also sheared apart by the mechanical action of your hands as well the chemical action of the soap itself.
Gypsy: Tom, I don’t get you.
Tom Servo: Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.
Most hand soaps contain a base of lye, which few bacteria ever get used to but the main purpose of a soap is to emulsify and remove the bacteria along with any form of dirt clinging to the skin.
Anti bacterial soaps do not always, if ever, contain an antibiotic, but a chemical which kills the bacteria on contact, like a mild acid.
Not exactly scientifically sound, but:
When I did computer support, my co-workers and I all got used to a vigorous application of antibacterial waterless hand sanitizer after we worked on someone else’s PC. Reason: in general, people let their keyboards get disgustingly grimy, and we were getting exposed to every keyboard in the building.
About 6 months passed without a single illness among our little clan, which was absolutely astonishing, considering our previous record. Before that, someone came down with something at least once a month.
So, they do seem plenty useful, particularly in a work setting like ours.
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Uncle Cecil answered this extensively at Why men have to wash after peeing. He also talked about the issue of baterial infestation in Does flushing the toilet cause dirty waterto be spewed around the bathroom?.
The short of it is: some bacteria get killed by soap; most don’t, but you wash off the oil which allows them to stick to you. Since soap has been around for a long time, you aren’t hurting the situation by using it, whereas you potentially make things worse by using stronger anti-bacterial agents which helps induce by natural selection the survival of resistant bacteria. Since you aren’t really out to kill the bacteria anyway, just keep the colonies under control, soap is good enough for that. 
Since I’m not a bacteriologist, I can’t say whether that’s an accurate view or not.
Ummm, they may do something about bacteria, but they don’t do squat for viruses, which have to be washed off. duh.
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You Don’t Know Jack!
Another way to think of it is this:
Bacteria can’t become resistant to soap just like people can’t become “resistant” to decapitation. The action of washing your hands creates such a huge mechanical distress to the bacteria that it can’t be counteracted in the subtle way that antibiotics are.
Well, you know, Alph, you don’t exactly just squirt the hand sanitizer on your hands and let it sit there - you rub it in, with much the same motions you’d use washing your hands. Would that not give similar benefit?
And does that mean you’d get some benefit from just wringing your hands? No wonder those evil villains seem to live forever…
BTW, nice catch, kbutcher. The line struck me as hilarious this past weekend, so I made myself a sig.
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I gotta question this one. I cannot see how rubbing you hands together, with or without soap and water, would mechanically destroy something as small as a single cell. I’m really not meaning to seem overly confrontational, but do you have any backup for this?
Sorry, the last post was directed at Alph…
Eyer, never feel bad about asking for a supporting cite. Some discussion groups require one everytime you open your mouth.
Eyer and Max, I’m not claiming that wringing by itself does much good, just like dumping soap on your hands and immediately rinsing it off is really useless too. I should have been more clear.
You need the combination of wringing with the soap. In addition to removing layers of dirty dead skin, the soap, being a chemical detergent will solubilize the lipid membrane of the bacteria on your hand, killing them. The effect is dramatically increased when you wring your hands.
My comment was trying to say that antibiotics are a chemical that attacks a specific crucial pathway in a bacterial growth cycle. A bacteria can gain resistance by intercepting that chemical before it acts. Hand washing is not a precise chemical procedure. It is a massive physical event (to a bacteria anyway), like a decaptiation. So bacteria won’t become resistant to soap, as the OP was concerned.
I never use the antibacterial lotion stuff. I like the idea of rinsing the bugs off my hands rather than killing them where they are. I’m not saying the lotion is ineffective, it’s just a mental thing that many of us looney microbiologists have…
Gypsy: Tom, I don’t get you.
Tom Servo: Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.
People touch the faucet to turn the water on, then wash, then touch the faucet again putting the same germs back on their hands. dumb.
Well at the risk of seeming non-scientific, it’s just plain gross for someone to NOT wash hands after using a bathroom, male OR female.
And handy, I turn on the faucet, wash my hands with soap and water, then grab a paper towel to dry off, then I use said paper towel to turn the faucet off. Simple as that.
Well, about six years ago I adopted the practice of never touching anything in a public restroom. I use a paper towel or TP to handle everything. I used to catch a couple of colds every year, but now I have only had one in six years. May be a coincidence, but the causal connection does seem reasonable.