Is if true that antibacterial soaps are not any more effective at killing germs then regular soaps ?

One quick search in Google shows many results for this question and most point to studies showing how regular soap is just as effective, if not better, than antibacterial soaps. This one study from HealthFinder.gov is particularly interesting.

Jersey,

The soap itself might be able to kill germs, but the most effective way to be rid of germs is to SCRUB YOUR HANDS UNDER RUNNING WATER. This might sound like an oxymoron, but it is true. The soap is actually loosening the germs from your hands and arms, and then being washed away by the running water.

Why do you think surgeons and medical professionals spend so much time before surgery and such simply washing hands? If the soap was such a cure-all for germs they'd be using that instead. Nope, it is the friction of the scrub and the running water that does it.

I haven't tried to search them out for this answer, but in fact several studies have been done showing that certain antibacterial soaps are more effective at killing bacteria than others, and than plain soaps. There's no question that when taking samples of hands after washing with various soaps it can be shown that there are fewer remaining bacteria with certain antibacterials added. Hospitals provide such soaps for handwashing, for a reason. However, there are not, as far as I know, studies that show lower incidence of hospital-based infection when one soap is used over another. Handwashing of any kind may be sufficient (not known, necessarily) and it's probably not necessary for the routine home situation to get a particular soap; washing will do the trick.

I think i know the study you are thinking of. It measured accumulated bacteria. One group washed their hands with normal soap for, i believe, a month. The other washed their hands with antibacterial soap for the same period. After this period of regular handwashing, both groups were found to have fewer bacteria on their hands than before the period, but the antibacterial group didn't have fewer than the regular group. This study didn't measure the bacteria right after handwashing, so it didn't show whether or not antibacterial soaps kill more bacteria, but it did show that, in the long run, people who use antibacterial soaps do not have fewer bacteria on their hands.

A side-note: There are no regulations concerning the word "antibacterial" in soap. Anyone can, legally speaking, label any soap they want to as antibacterial.

[This message was edited by methos5000 on 02-22-03 at 02:01 PM.]

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Originally posted by Sherasi:
The soap is actually loosening the germs from your hands and arms, and then being washed away by the running water.

Why do you think surgeons and medical professionals spend so much time before surgery and such simply washing hands? If the soap was such a cure-all for germs they'd be using that instead. Nope, it is the friction of the scrub and the running water that does it.

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That's really amazing, Sherasi!

actually, the studies to which I referred were in surgical journals and had to do with cultures taken right after washing.

This is one article I just found:
Symp Ser Soc Appl Microbiol 2002;(31):136S-143S    (ISSN: 1467-4734)

Gibson LL; Rose JB; Haas CN; Gerba CP; Rusin PA
Department of Marine Sciences, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg 33701, USA.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have estimated that there are 3,713,000 cases of infectious disease associated with day care facilities each year. The objective of this study was to examine the risk reduction achieved from using different soap formulations after diaper changing using a microbial quantitative risk assessment approach. To achieve this, a probability of infection model and an exposure assessment based on micro-organism transfer were used to evaluate the efficacy of different soap formulations in reducing the probability of disease following hand contact with an enteric pathogen. Based on this model, it was determined that the probability of infection ranged from 24/100 to 91/100 for those changing diapers of babies with symptomatic shigellosis who used a control product (soap without an antibacterial ingredient), 22/100 to 91/100 for those who used an antibacterial soap (chlorohexadine 4%), and 15/100 to 90/100 for those who used a triclosan (1.5%) antibacterial soap. Those with asymptomatic shigellosis who used a non-antibacterial control soap had a risk between 49/100,000 and 53/100, those who used the 4% chlorohexadine-containing soap had a risk between 43/100,000 and 51/100, and for those who used a 1.5% triclosan soap had a risk between 21/100,000 and 43/100. The adequate washing of hands after diapering reduces risk and can be further reduced by a factor of 20% by the use of an antibacterial soap. Quantitative risk assessment is a valuable tool in the evaluation of household sanitizing agents and low risk outcomes.

Sorry Sid, I should have specified who "you" was. That was directed to Jersey.

I meant to indicate that that study was probably the one that prompted her question and to point out that it showed no difference in long-term sanitization but did not study short-term sanitization.

You are, of course, correct that some soaps kill bacteria better than others in the short term.

So what about dish soaps? Sometimes that's all that's around. Is it just as effective??

I remember reading an article about that a while back. The basic problem, I think, was that people did not wash their hands for long enough or in hot enough water.

Another problem with bar soap is that people don't wash their soap before using it.

That may not make much sense, but you have to realize bar soap is a REALLY GREAT medium for growing bacteria. So you need to wash it off under running water to work up a lather and THEN wash your own hands the way I discussed earlier.