Personal Hygiene

There are articles in the paper lately which address concerns by some of my fellow Microbiologists that the wide-spread use of soaps which contain antibacterial agents may lose their effectiveness over time. For decades now I have warned in lectures and various publications about the overuse of antibiotics and these warnings have been shown to be valid in that resistance to nearly all antibiotics is showing up in various infections. My concern with soaps is not great. For one reason, most people get most of the handwashing benefit from the physical action of the soap itself and don't wash long enough to get much added benefit from whatever is included in the soap which mainly enhances its sales. Resistance is not a big factor when we don't rely on the agent to any great extent in the first place.

A more interesting article you see now and then is one in which someone posts themselves in a public restroom and keeps tabs on how many of each sex washes after using the facilities. I have a brother-in-law who not only washes, but uses a paper towel to open the door to minimize touching an inanimate object which might have fecal contamination left by others who did not wash. That is all fairly harmless, I guess. What I would like to see is a documentation of what the hands contact after using the bathroom facilities and before one reaches the hand washing facilities. If more people like my brother-in-law thought about that, it would be fun to watch them make it to the wash basin with their pants around their ankles.