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Chapter 1: What are the dangers of overusing antibacterial products?
Prepare to have your mind blown as we delve into the complexities of relationships, explore the cutting edge of science, and celebrate the bizarre and beautiful absurdity of the world around us. This is The Last Show with David Cooper. Germs in your house, kill them on sight. 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.
David, thank you so much. I'm so pleased to be speaking with you.
Chapter 2: How does antimicrobial resistance develop from household products?
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?
Those are biocides or antimicrobials used in consumer products. But let me just start a little bit ahead and say, you know, like we really should be concerned about the rise of antimicrobial resistance. Like for me, it is super scary. So right now, about worldwide over 1 million deaths a year, but that's poised to increase.
Chapter 3: What evidence exists regarding the effectiveness of antibacterial soap?
Antimicrobial resistance could be the leading cause of death by 2050. So this is something that we should really be paying attention to.
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.
That's right. Well, I don't know if a simple cold could put us in a grave, but it is scary because, especially in certain settings, there's this rise in these superbugs that are resistant to first-line antibiotics, second-line, then you have to go to third and fourth-line, which those are reserved for really serious cases. So...
Chapter 4: Are there safer alternatives to antibacterial cleaning products?
We want to make sure that antibiotics work to save lives. And actually, it's not just our lives, but antibiotics are used overall in agriculture. We rely heavily on antibiotics for raising animals, for fish farms. So antibiotics are used a lot. We should only be using them where they're really effective and when we really need them.
And that does not include your hand soap, it does not include spray disinfectants for surfaces, and it doesn't include laundry sanitizers.
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.
Chapter 5: How do antimicrobial chemicals affect wastewater treatment?
Do we need that stuff in our everyday life? Or is regular old soap fine?
There is no evidence to show that antibacterial soaps and those types of products are effective, or are needed. There is no evidence to show that we should be using them, that they provide any benefit, which is kind of crazy.
So as a consumer, like you're paying a premium to get these soaps for which there's no benefit, but there could really be a problem because these products help promote antimicrobial resistance. So no evidence of a benefit, you're paying more for it, And ultimately, it's bad for not just you, but for your kids and your grandchildren.
So what happens with these compounds? I'm looking at one here and the chemical name is hard for me to read.
Chapter 6: What role does the COVID-19 pandemic play in our cleaning habits?
Benzaclonium chloride. Imagine I spray my kitchen sink with that. Fine, the bacteria in it sort of die. But then the ones that don't, do they somehow get stronger over time?
Well, actually they don't die because that product needs to stay on the surface for about 10 minutes. Most of those sprays are not used so they stay on for 10 minutes. For example, like if you go to a gym and you see these these antimicrobial sprays, and you just, you spray it on and then quickly wipe it off. No benefit. but where does that wipe go?
Chapter 7: What should consumers know about using disinfectants at home?
And where does that spray go for the kitchen sink? So it's not killing bacteria, but it is going down the drain and it gets into the wastewater treatment plant that are fantastic incubators for gene jumping. So these antimicrobials promote antimicrobial resistance and they can jump to different organisms, which happens in wastewater treatment plants, goes out into the environment.
So no benefit, and we're ultimately causing harm.
Here's the scary part for me. This concept of cross-resistance, that some bacteria that could be harmful gets exposed to a disinfectant, even though it's not an antibiotic, and then somehow becomes resistant to antibiotics. How is that possible?
I have to admit, sorry, I don't have to admit, but I'm not a microbiologist. I'm an environmental chemist. I understand the process of gene jumping. I understand the process of evolutionary pressure. So here's the evolutionary pressure. An organism is exposed to a biocide, something that's intended to kill. A few of the organisms don't die.
They become super strong, and those organisms proliferate and grow. Those genes are able to jump to other genes, to other organisms, and promoting the spread of antimicrobial resistance.
Got it. So you might hear something online like an influencer promoting some super antibacterial soap or something. People get their information from wild sources today. What's the bottom line with introducing these chemicals into your house and society using these chemicals a lot?
Yeah, the bottom line is no demonstrated benefit, but great potential to cause harm. Don't use them. You only use biocides when it's really necessary in hospitals, in institutional settings. We don't need them for everyday purposes in the home. And if you do need to disinfect something, like your hands, for example, and you use a hand sanitizer that's alcohol-based.
So the alcohol-based sanitizers don't promote antimicrobial resistance, they just kill the bugs right away. If you've got to clean a kitchen counter, for example, you've been working with raw meat, then you use a bleach, such as a chloride-based bleach. For other purposes, you can use other bleaches like hydrogen peroxide. You don't need these antimicrobial products.
Do you think the pandemic and COVID has left us a little wackadoodle when it comes to using these chemicals in an attempt to sanitize surfaces where they don't need to be sanitized?
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