David Cooper

We've spent decades trying to sanitize our lives.

I mean, with chemicals, things like antibacterial soaps, disinfectant sprays, antimicrobial everything.

But what if our obsession with sterilizing the world is training bacteria to become unstoppable?

Let's talk about it with Professor Miriam Diamond, an environmental chemist at the University of Toronto.

Miriam, welcome to the show.

So we hear the phrase antimicrobial resistance, and we think antibiotics.

We think antibiotics are getting weaker and getting resistant.

Sorry, the germs are getting resistant to the drugs.

We don't think of other things.

Your research points the finger at perhaps something more ordinary.

What might that be?

It certainly is.

And I know I want to talk about household sprays and stuff contributing to it, but I heard the phrase antibiotic of last resort the other day.

And that kind of scared me, this idea that we have certain antibiotics that work and then they don't.

And then once they stop working, we're kind of screwed.

A simple cold could put us in the grave.

Now, how important is it to use antibacterial soap?

If I don't use one, am I putting myself at risk?

Or are people using these products because of advertising, because of information they're hearing not from the scientific community, because of big corporations putting them on the shelves?

And we think, great, it kills all the bacteria.