Antibacterial Soap Does Not Kill More Germs

In 2007, a Clinical Infectious Diseases-published review of 27 past studies looking at the differences between the use of normal and anti-bacterial soap found no difference in effectiveness.

Jan 9, 2009 – A new test for detecting triclosan should expedite environmental monitoring of the antibacterial agent in rivers, wells and other water sources, …

The expectation is that antibacterial products will provide more protection from germs than plain soap, the researchers continued.

The bacterial strains were exposed to both soaps for 20 seconds at temperatures between 22 and 40 degrees celsius.

The triclosan-containing soap “performed significantly better after nine hours of exposure”, they found – a rather long period for washing one’s hands.

In December, 2013, the FDA created a rule that soap manufacturers had to prove antibacterial soaps are more effective at fighting germs than regular soap.

“Triclosan in soap does not always guarantee higher antimicrobial efficacy during hand washing”, lead researcher Min Suk Rhee told The Huffington Post.

Now a study in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy reports that when it comes to normal hand-washing there is “no significant difference” between plain soap and antibacterial soap in terms of killing bacteria. About the only silver lining was that there was eventually a significant effect seen among bacteria exposed to the antibacterial soap, but only after a whopping nine hours.

The study placed 20 risky bacteria strains in Petri dishes with antibacterial soap and regular soap to test the germ-killing abilities of triclosan.

Added in the 1960s to fight bacteria, triclosan is now being added to a variety of products including toothpaste, shampoo, and cleaning agents, with the goal of preventing bacterial growth.

Not satisfied there, the researchers then upped the ante by persuading 16 healthy volunteers to rub their hands with a sample of Serratia marcescens, a bacteria commonly implicated in hospital-acquired infections, in order to actively test out which type of soap worked better afterwards at scrubbing it out. Only 13 of 53 antibacterial soaps studied in Korea in 2014 still contained it.

The scientists recreated the conditions of human hand washing by exposing the bacteria for 20 seconds at 22°C (room temperature) and 40°C (warm temperature) to triclosan with a concentration of 0.3% – the maximum allowed by law. Participants were then instructed to wash their hands for 30 seconds using either antibacterial or regular soap.

Researchers believe triclosan contributes to antibiotic resistance, and some studies have suggested it may cause cancer.

The chemical often used in these products, triclosan, is not harmless.