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How Antibacterial Soap Works · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from how stuff Works dot Com? Hi, welcome to the podcast.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. I'm a staff writer here at how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. With me, as always is my
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  Speaker 1: very attractive and trustee editor Chris Pallette Chrisis, you're gokie.
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  Speaker 1: Oh it's great. Thanks asking. Let's talk about antibacterial soap
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  Speaker 1: if you want to? Sure? Why not? Chris? Should we
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  Speaker 1: or should we not outlaw antibacterial soap? I don't know
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  Speaker 1: that we need outlaw antibacterial soap, but you know we
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  Speaker 1: need to take a second second look at whether or
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  Speaker 1: not we should be using it in all of our
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  Speaker 1: daily applications. Why. Well, simply put, um, it's not that
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  Speaker 1: much more effective than regular soap, and it can breed
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  Speaker 1: stronger bacteria. Yeah. Basically from what I gather, uh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: from the research I did writing the article. Uh, it
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  Speaker 1: basically provides this uh, this environment or bacteria where the
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  Speaker 1: bacteria that happens to survive uh goes on to evolved
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  Speaker 1: to be resistant to the antibacterial agents. Right right, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so we've got this this basically we're providing a staging
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  Speaker 1: ground for rapid evolution and we're making our own worst enemy.
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  Speaker 1: That's true. That's true because, uh, you know, some of
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  Speaker 1: the some of the drug resistant strains um can actually
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  Speaker 1: you know, be very very harmful and can be fatal
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  Speaker 1: in some cases. You know, one that comes to mind
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  Speaker 1: is Mercia, the Mercy virus, which is a type of
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  Speaker 1: staff and as Rosie O'Donnell, no staff is no laugh, um.
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  Speaker 1: And basically Mercia is like a superstaff. It's it's extremely
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  Speaker 1: resistant to any kind of drugs. And a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people think that that Mercy has been allowed to develop
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  Speaker 1: because of antibacterial drugs anti I'm sorry, Well yeah, antibacterial drugs,
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  Speaker 1: antibacterial cleaning products, which all together make up a term
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  Speaker 1: that I coined in the article, the antibacterial lifestyle. What
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  Speaker 1: do you know about that? Well, um, you know, there
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  Speaker 1: are a lot of people, as as a parent of
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  Speaker 1: a young child, um, you know, I've seen a lot
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  Speaker 1: of other parents who are trying to keep their kids
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  Speaker 1: away from germs, which is you know, a reasonable concern.
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  Speaker 1: So they they buy a lot of antibacterial soaps, they
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  Speaker 1: buy antibacterial cleaning products, they go to the store and
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  Speaker 1: pick up an antibacterial basket to put their stuff in,
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  Speaker 1: or put their kids in the antibacterial card because everywhere
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  Speaker 1: sponges kinds of and they've figured out a way to
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  Speaker 1: put it into plastics and blankets and and all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of things countertops. I think there's a problem with that,
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  Speaker 1: and that is that if you if you raise your
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  Speaker 1: child then in in completely sanitized environment, then if you're
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  Speaker 1: gonna be exposed to any allergens, you can't go out
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  Speaker 1: and sanitize the entire world. So when your kid finally
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  Speaker 1: goes out to play, they're gonna end up as like
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  Speaker 1: a bubble boy or something because they haven't been supposed
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  Speaker 1: to any any allergies and haven't been able to form antibodies.
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  Speaker 1: I think there's a there's a certain level of dirt
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  Speaker 1: you need to have in your house to maintain health.
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  Speaker 1: Wouldn't you agree, Well, that's true. I mean if the
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  Speaker 1: if the germs are getting stronger by being exposed to
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  Speaker 1: the animal microbial antibacterial agents, um, you know, people are
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  Speaker 1: not getting stronger by allowing themselves to get over being
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  Speaker 1: exposed to these germs. So one side is getting stronger
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  Speaker 1: while the other is staying in place, if you will.
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  Speaker 1: Essentially we're shooting ourselves in our own feet, you know.
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  Speaker 1: And there are other ways to to deal with the
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  Speaker 1: problem too. I mean, there are other products that are
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily anti uh antibacterial. We were talking about bleach
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  Speaker 1: as one. Now it's you know, not something you want
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  Speaker 1: laying around on your countertops. It can leave a residue
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  Speaker 1: in in a lot of cases, but bleach can um
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  Speaker 1: well okay, maybe not all cases, but um, bleach can
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  Speaker 1: kill microbes just by uh licening them, by breaching their
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  Speaker 1: cell walls, and they really have no defense against that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And that's this is where the term for the brand
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  Speaker 1: name cleaner Lisol comes from. To lice is to basically
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  Speaker 1: completely obliterate a cell. So Lifsol's name means obliterate cells,
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  Speaker 1: which I just think is super cool. Yeah. And the
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  Speaker 1: reason that that I brought up countertops two is I
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  Speaker 1: read about this countertop material that they have in development
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  Speaker 1: where um, it's not anim bacterial because it's got a
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  Speaker 1: chemical in it, it's antibacterial because it has thousands and
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  Speaker 1: thousands of tiny little uh, you know, points on the
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  Speaker 1: surface of it that when bacteria hit it, they rupture,
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  Speaker 1: and so it kills bacteria, not through the use of
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  Speaker 1: some chemical but because this the surface has lots of
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  Speaker 1: little points that are that are that pierced the bacteria,
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  Speaker 1: but are harmless to your hand because you can't even
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  Speaker 1: feel them, which is a you know, scientific way around
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  Speaker 1: the around the problem. It's excellent, so you get the
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  Speaker 1: best of both worlds. And well, I'll tell you what,
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  Speaker 1: after researching this article, I've completely given up using antibacterial soap.
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  Speaker 1: All oh. I suspect that the soap they used in
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  Speaker 1: the dispensers in the bathroom maybe so, so I'll be
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  Speaker 1: lodging a formal complaint. Let's it for us. Be sure
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  Speaker 1: to read should antibacterial soap be Outlawed? On how stuff
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