@indigozeal: I was aware of some of this stuff but this makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the health update! Another positive development is the FDA finally concluding in 2017 that most anti-bacterial agents in sanitizers and soaps (such as Triclosan in Purell) weren't shown to be generally effective enough for inclusion in sanitizers and anti-septic products and again recommend hand-washing.
Beyond efficacy, the (kinda minor) issue with anti-bacterial ingredients used in the past and present is that they're common skin irritants when used frequently (but in a pinch they're fine).
Interestingly, after the 24 that got phased out, there are 6 ingredients that were requested for deferral by producers so currently they are still included in anti-septic solutions for medical and consumer use. Basically it's alcohols, iodine solutions, benzalkonium chloride, and chloroxylenol. I imagine this is why the focus has shifted to alcohol sanitizers (and soaps that include some of the other deferred ingredients). The FDA's evaluations will continue so my guess is that the latter ingredients might well be eliminated eventually like the others.
Seems like in general anti-bacterial additives in soaps aren't doing much more and except maybe irritating your skin a little more easily so phasing that out of common use is probably a good thing.
Abby was more than reasonable in her discussion, especially if you are familiar with the issues she's talking about. I'm actually surprised Vinny went in like he did initially but overall I heard a good back and forth from everyone on God of War.
I wish a lot more people would see the forest for the trees when they single out Abby to criticize. It was exhausting to see it in the comments last year and I'm not sure it got much better this year. I wonder about this community sometimes.
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