Alcohol is not as effective as bleach. It does not kill the most pathogenic bacteria - the ones that will make you sick. A 10% bleach solution is much better and less expensive. The solution should be fresh. In medical/dental practices, the protocol is to clean the surface of obvious debris, moisten the surface with a 10% bleach solution, and let it sit for 10 minutes. The down-side of bleach is that it can discolor and weaken fabrics and the solution should be made fresh daily. A better approach is often to use a barrier, such as plastic or several layers of paper over surfaces where you will be preparing meat (or doing surgery.) There is an entire industry that makes barriers to cover medical/dental equipment so as to minimize time, and the quantity of potentially hazardous chemicals used to disinfect surfaces.
Bleach and alcohol do nothing of the sort. "Better bugs" are the result of antibiotics (triclosan for instance in a cleaning product) being used to kill bacteria. Bleach and alcohol kill bacteria and viruses by causing physical damage. Germs have no chance to develop antibiotic resistance to physical damage and thus would not "breed better bugs". What a dumbass you are.
When I got the rabbit the breeder recommended some stuff called Vanodine for hutch sanitation. Its essentially an iodine solution and it claims to kill all sorts of creepy crawlies.
I use it on the plastic cutting boards a couple of times a week (spray to saturate, allow to dry), but whether it has any beneficial effect I can't say for sure. We haven't had any E.coli or salmonella outbreaks attributed to our kitchen...
I've also used it to clean minor dings on the dog, including a rather nasty gash he got in his mouth when he chewed something he shouldn't have. I wouldn't hesitate to use it for human first aid if push came to shove.
As far as "sanitizing" the kitchen - what's the point? If you practice good hygiene (of both the cook and hte equipment) you ought to be fine.
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Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET. This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%. Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...
Nope, the dumbass with no understanding of evolution (eg: survival of the fittest) would be you.
*Any* sanitizer kills only a portion of germs. Let's say 1% of the germs are left. These are going to be the strongest, most able-to-survive germs of the bunch. Then these, the strongest germs, are the ones left to breed the next generation of germs. Along comes you with a spray bottle, and again you knock out all but the 1% strongest. Surely you know enough by now to figure out the trend, that the remaining germ population is getting stronger and stronger.
You seem to think that somehow individual germs develop a resistance to antibiotics. This is not the case. It happens much the same as I described. The germs that survive are the ones with the best resistance, which breed a new generation, of which only the most resistant survive, etc etc
So remember people when you reach for that unnecessary hand sanitizer (even your doc will tell you plain soap is sufficient!!!), that you're helping to create the next world health crisis.
I agree that if a portion are killed and that the method of killing them selects for stronger germs (as opposed to just killing at random and leaving behind germs that happen to be stuck in crevice or something), then the germs will tend to get more resistant.
However, I was once listening to a girl describe how she used to have a job doing biology research with live HIV virus. Someone asked if she wasn't afraid of being infected, and she said, no, because they used double gloves and washed everything with bleach. Not being entirely convinced, someone asked if that was really enough, and she basically said she couldn't see how any of the HIV could possibly survive bleach, so she believed it was perfectly safe.
The point is, she seemed to believe not that a small percentage of the germs would survive but that exactly zero would. Nothing in the real world is every 100% for sure, but there are things which are so unlikely we are quite safe assuming they just won't happen.
If you give 1000 people identical cars with a full tank of gas and ask them to drive 250 miles on a dangerous off-road course with landslides, washed out bridges, strong winds, rocks that can damage the tires and underbody, etc., then perhaps you will create a situation where only
1% of them make it to the destination. Those 1% will tend to be the most capable ones. But if the course is 1000 miles long, then none of them will make it, because they will all run out of gas. (If you make it 10000 miles long, then they'll starve to death too.)
So, the question is, which scenario does bleach most closely resemble? If some of the germs survive, then it could have negative effects. But if there's a 99.999% chance that all the germs are killed without exceptions, then it won't create stronger germs.
Logan Shaw wrote: > However, I was once listening to a girl describe how she used to have a
so you're basing your whole argument on some girl who "seemed to believe" against all scientific data on the subject?
different also since HIV is a virus, not a bacteria. A virus needs a host to be able to reproduce itself, or it dies quickly. A bacteria needs no host, and will replicate itself wherever it happens to be.
1% HIV left on a kitchen counter would die unless it managed to infect a host while still viable.
1% bacteria is perfectly happy on the kitchen counter, and will soon be a colony of bacteria. Even things sanitized in hospitials are only considered sanitized for a specified period after the sanitization
Nope. Disinfectants don't care how strong a germ is. They kill by physical action. Let me repeat, PHYSICAL ACTION. That's akin to me stepping on them, crushing them, tearing them apart. You are now the one with no understanding.
"Quat-based disinfectants carry a positive charge. Bacteria, viruses and fungi carry a negative charge. When a bacteria-laden surface is sprayed or mopped with a disinfectant, the charge distribution of the bacteria cell changes from negative to positive. This results in the disruption of the bacteria cell wall and eventual death to the microbe."
Nothing you *think* is going to change how they work. Doesn't matter how *strong* the bacteria or virus is, physical action will still do it's job.
Roaches may become resistant to chemical sprays, but the shoe coming down on them will still continue to kill no matter how chemical-resistant they become. Getting it yet?
Resistance has nothing to do with "physical" action.
Besides, proper sanitizing is a non-trivial skill. Hospitals, physicians, lab personel - they all follow specifically designed protocols for specific areas.
Just taking "MurderDeathKillSuperBleachXXX" and using it genereously doesn't kill the germs and stuff normal products left over. Doesn't increase security at all.
Because it is THE most effective sanitizer there is and it's cheap as dirt to boot.
No.
There are other effective sanitizers - quaternary ammonia, phenol, carbolic acid, etc - but bleach is the proven gold standard that costs almost nothing.
The USDA standard, enforced by health department restaurant inspectors, is 100ppm available chlorine in the sanitizing solution. At that concentration, the chlorine smell is just barely detectable on the surface of the liquid. Contact with the solution does not leave any smell on the hands. Casual contact with this solution will not bleach colors or damage clothes. Pretty much the ideal sanitizer. Why fool with anything else?
"Stronger," when? "Most able to survive," where? Biology is about surviving and reproducing with the finite resources available. Developing a resistance to an oxidizer as powerful as bleach would require so much energy that those organisms would be at a real competitive disadvantage relative to the usual bugs, when the bleach is taken away (like in your body). At least that's my understanding.
Antibiotics typically work in a very specific manner by exploiting a particular recation, and marshalling a resistance to antibiotics requires much less energy than marshalling a resistance to a powerful oxidizer.
That is just plain false. There are lots of examples of germs that have developed resistance to antibiotics due to their use. There are no examples of germs that have developed resistance to hand sanitizers or bleach because we use them for disinfectants. Sanitize away.
Browsing web pages, I see everybody suggests bleach that contains sodium hypochlorite to sanitize sponge, utensils, to kill salmonella and other foodborne bacteria on a countertop, fridge handle, kitchen sink, especially after handling meat and poultry.
Why only bleach ? OK, it may be an excellent sanitizer, but aren't
99% propanol or ethanol just as effective disinfectants ? Remembering chemistry lessons from school I don't think any bacteria will ever survive alcohol.
There either must be some advantage of bleach over alcohol (price maybe), or once upon a time someone mentioned bleach and everybody is over and over again rewriting the same advice with bleach on their web pages, forgetting there are other effective sanitizers ?
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