FDA asks for more data on over-the-counter hand sanitizers

It is also concerned that bacteria could become resistant to those ingredients.

However, FDA officials stressed that the move doesn’t mean the agency believes these products are either ineffective or unsafe. They are left on and not rinsed off with water.

Richard Sedlak, executive vice president for technical and global affairs at the American Cleaning Institute, said, “Hand sanitizers are a critical part of healthy hand hygiene routines for millions of consumers every single day”.

The FDA’s concerns are based on those of the agency’s independent advisory committee, which reviewed scientific data on these ingredients.

The CDC says that washing hands with plain soap and running water is one of the most important ways consumers can avoid getting sick.

“Being an infection prevention nurse one of our main focus to prevent healthcare associated infections is hand hygiene”.

Whether you are using soap and water or hand sanitizer now to keep yourself germ-free, it is recommended that hand scrubbing should last for at least 20 seconds for greatest effectiveness of germ removal.

“We believe that the FDA has a wealth of data on hand sanitizers in their possession to judge them as generally recognized as safe and effective”, the group’s Richard Sedlak said in a statement.

Specifically, the agency wants to know more about three ingredients in these products: ethanol (or ethyl alcohol), isopropyl alcohol and benzalkonium chloride.

A doctor at Rush University Medical Center was interviewed about hand sanitizers.

FDA announced that it would start to verify the quality of hand sanitizers and their efficiency against bacteria. Bottles of Purell hand sanitizer, for example, say: “Kills 99.99 percent of illness-causing germs”. Also, new technologies can detect low levels of antiseptics in the body, and the FDA knows more about how that might affect a person’s health.

The FDA puts under scrutiny the safety of hand sanitizer use. Since then, many things have changed, including how frequently people use them.

The FDA said it was particularly interested in accumulating evidence concerning the safety of long-term, repeated exposure, especially in pregnant women and children. The majority of antiseptic rubs use alcohol as their active ingredient.

“On behalf of our members who produce hand sanitizers and their ingredients, the American Cleaning Institute looks forward to providing in-depth comments to FDA on their proposed rules”.