It's Bacteria-mania!  I don’t know who started it, the media or the soap manufacturers (it doesn’t really matter they both have a lot to gain by scaring the pants off us) but at some point, some time ago we started to see reports on the news about 'Dangers crawling in our homes' and every household cleaner manufacturer started putting anti-bacterial agents (triclosan is the most commonly used) in their products and making commercials where there are cartoon bacteria crawling all over some poor woman’s kitchen counter! 

I’m afraid we’ve become misinformed about bacteria and how to coexist with them.  If we were to use their cartoons to illustrate the real number of bacteria all around us, we wouldn’t see the forest for the trees (covered in little cartoon bugs).  The fact is, on your body alone, there are hundreds of thousands of bacteria living on every square inch at any one time having a great old time munching on dead skin and the like.   Now don’t run to the shower, not all bacteria are trying to make you sick.  In fact most types of bacteria known to man help us in some way or another by digesting our food (indeed, you have bacteria living in your stomach) and biodegrading all of our waste to name a few.  But all this good bacteria doesn’t change the fact that some forms of bacteria are hell-bent on doing us harm but is our current plan of action, that is blasting everything in site with triclosan, really a good idea?

Research is showing that using all these antibacterial products is reducing our bodies' natural resistance to germs.  If our immune system never needs to fight off even the easy bugs, how can they be expected to be in full form to fight off the big nasty ones?  But what's more is that the use of ingredients like triclosan might be speeding up some bacteria’s evolution and creating antibiotic-resistant bug strains. Researchers at Tufts University found that E-coli that survived after being treated with triclosan, developed a resistance to 7 out of 12 antibiotics.  Not good!

Let’s take a closer look at bacteria and their history.  Bacteria were among the first living things to inhabit our planet more than 3.5 billion years ago.  In fact, if you believe in the science of evolution, we are all descendants of those very old, very tiny life-forms.  The fact that they’re still around today suggest that they are very adaptable and will probably be around for a lot longer than any of us will.  So why are we putting so much effort, money and dumping nasty chems like triclosan into our environment in a wasted effort to annihilate every bacteria around us?  Who knows for sure but I’ll bet it’s because fighting the never ending fight is guaranteeing some companies never ending profits.  We can never kill all the bacteria around us, they’re too adaptable and far too numerous and besides we don't want to kill them.  Without bacteria performing their priceless services for us, our very existence would be impossible. And unfortunately, anti-bacterial agents like triclosan aren’t selectively killing only the bad bacteria; they kill anything they come in contact with and their doing harm to wild-life other than bacteria further down the drain. 

Triclosan doesn’t break down quickly, in fact it’s been found in waters after passing through sewage-treatment plants.  Researchers at the university of Minnesota have found that antibacterial ingredients, when exposed to sunlight in water, create a mild dioxin (carcinogenic hormone disruptor) that accumulates throughout the marine food chain and may cause some behavioural and reproductive abnormalities. 

So let’s call off the chemical ware-fare.  Stop buying anything that says ‘anti-bacterial’ on the label or that contains Triclosan or triclocarbon.  We should still take precautions to avoid unnecessary illness but research has shown that even the nastier bacteria, if caught early (like when they’re on your hands), are easily taken care of. The FDA and the American Doctors' Association have both independently found that using anti-bacterial soaps and sprays is no more effective against house-hold infections than washing with regular soap and water and other regular household cleaners. 

All that hype for nothin'!