Comments on: Hand Sanitizers: The Hidden Dangers

By: Elaine

Elaine — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:59:44 +0000

Liz, thanks for your comments. I have read that triclosan is bad for the environment. We no longer purchase hand soaps containing triclosan, though it’s a bit hard to find liquid soaps without them now. I hear Trader Joe’s has a good line of natural, non-anti-bacterial liquid soaps.

I have explained to my children that hand sanitizers kill the germs, but still leave the dead germs on your hands. We always wash our hands as soon as we can get to a sink to get rid of any germs, dead or alive.

By: Liz

Liz — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:45:53 +0000

Singing the ABCs while washing hands is a good way to teach children how long to wash also.

I want to comment on antibacterial soaps. They contain triclosan which is extremely harmful to the environment and the kill the good germs as well, so plain old fashioned soap and water are preferred to antibacterials. I avoid hand sanitizers except when there is no soap and water available which is rare. I think schools should provide time for children to use soap and water before eating and avoid the use of sanitizers and baby wipes. There may be harmful synthetic chemicals on the wipes and those would then be ingested. There are cases of children ingesting sanitizers and they can be found on snopes.com. see Environmentalworkinggroup.org or safbaby.com for more info on synthetic chemicals which have not been proven to be safe.

By: Elaine

Elaine — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:14:06 +0000

Thanks, Talia, that’s a good tip. I heard about singing Happy Birthday before, but forgot to post it.

To representatives of the non-alcohol based products such as CleanWell and Hands2Go, how do you respond to the CDC and other recommendations to use an alcohol based hand sanitizer?

By: Talia

Talia — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:06:55 +0000

Yes, I prefer to wash my hands as well, however, if you’re not washing them diligently for a minimum of 20 seconds, you’re not washing properly. My son’s daycare taught him to sing Happy Birthday and then he knows he’s done while washing. Note that Wet Ones and other non-alcohol based antibacterial wipes/sprays are NOT strong enough to fight H1N1, so be sure to use Purell or wash hands properly to fight it off. Lysol, Clorox and other wipes are effective in cleaning surfaces as well.

By: Elaine M.

Elaine M. — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:00:27 +0000

Liz, I agree that soap and warm water is best, when available. We only use hand sanitizers as a last resort. Thanks for the safbaby link, too.

By: Liz

Liz — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 04:04:23 +0000

For information of safe products for babies, I suggest you look at safbaby.com.

By: Liz

Liz — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 04:02:43 +0000

My opinion is that we should not use antibacterial products. Triclosan is usually the main ingredient and it is very harmful to the environment. Regular soap and water do a very good job of killing germs and sanitizers should only be used when water is not available.

By: Jean Harvey

Jean Harvey — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 21:28:55 +0000

I teach at a low-income school whereas parents cannot afford to send hand santizers for the students. Does your company give free supplies of hand santizers to schools.

By: Elaine

Elaine — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:56:21 +0000

Scotty, as I understand it, if you use the hand sanitizer on your own hands and allow them to dry thoroughly before touching your baby, both of you should be fine. The harm comes when infants or small children ingest the alcohol based product.

Some good non-alcohol hand sanitizers are CleanWell and Hands2Go.

I would not advise putting any type of hand sanitizer product on an infant’s hand because babies love to put their hands in their mouths.

As always, washing with soap and warm water is the best.

By: scotty

scotty — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:52:11 +0000

I have a question i just had a newborn and i bought a bottle of germ x hand sanitizer so if people hold her they will have clean hands and she wont get sick. Now I heard that hand sanitizer is harmful to infants is this true?