Disinfect Your Fears

An advertisement has been running on TV and websites lately that has got my blood boiling. It goes like this: you (the female viewer embodied in the mother and wife of the commercial) and your family go through your daily, messy activities: putting raw chicken in a baking dish, shoving dirty trash into the trash can, and touching frogs. Then what do you all do? You use the hand soap to wash away all of those scary germs, good job! But wait--you touched the soap pump with your germy hands! That means your soap pump is now a germ-infested cesspool! "FACT: Your soap pump can harbor hundreds of bacteria," the commercial warns you. So, what can you do to save your family from their disease-riddled fate? Why, buy a big, plastic, four AA battery-operated, automatic, motion-sensor, antibacterial, Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap System, of course, and "never touch a germy soap pump again!"

But wait, if you're washing your hands with soap after touching a germy soap pump, what difference does it make? If the commercial had instead said "FACT: the germs from your nasty soap pump can spread down the soap bottle, across the counter, and into your food. Watch out!" then I might be more concerned, but I'm not sure Lysol can prove that this scenario "could" be a fact. Lysol seems to be participating in the common trend of household product advertising in the past few years: scare parents with the amount of germs that could be living in their homes.

There's good hygiene, and then there's irrational germophobia. Companies have been trying harder and harder to sell the fear of germs to already overprotective parents and other frightened adults. We're told to combat this fear with gels, sprays, and soaps that can "kill 99.9% of germs," when we should be more concerned about what kind of harmful effects these new chemicals could have once introduced into our homes.

The FDA recently expressed concern over triclosan, an antibacterial agent found in numerous products that claim to be "antibacterial." The FDA has found no evidence that triclosan has any beneficial health properties, and worry that the agent can disrupt the body's natrual endocrine system and promote stronger, more resilient strains of bacteria.

As a whole, our society is very quick to introduce new products and chemicals into our environments without knowing the long-term effects of those products on our bodies. From cigarettes, to asbestos, to BPA plastics, we've seen exciting and innovative products be quickly adopted into our lifestyles, only to find out about harmful side-effects later on. Simple soap and water has been proven to be just as effective as antibacterial products, and also maintains the body's natural, helpful bacteria. When there are no risks involved in using simple, safe products, why risk the still-unknown side-effects of these new chemicals? Fight the fear with knowledge and common sense: keep touching those germy soap pumps, don't bother with the anti-bacterial, and if you really want to protect your family from harm, stop and think for a moment before you decide to bring a new, under-tested product or chemical into your home.