Hand Sanitizer, I Do Not Like Thee

I can't remember exactly when hand sanitizers became all the rage.  Was it before or after the bird flu hysteria began?  I just can't recall.  Remember the good ol' days when the doctor actually washed his hands when entering the exam room.  Boy, those were the days.

If  I've said it once I've said it a thousand times.  Poop is poop no matter how much hand sanitizer you put on it.  Right?  And the CDC pretty much agrees with me.  See that photo?  See the bold line that reads "not as effective when hands are visibly dirty".  Yep, something to think about.

How many of you can honestly say that after leaving the playground your kids hands are not "visibly dirty".  And I don't want to think about their hands when leaving the bathroom.  I've heard enough horror stories about what kids leave in the bathroom to make me loose a months worth of sleep.  Seriously, talk to your school janitor, you will be scarred for life.

Now, take a closer look at the label on your hand sanitizer.  I was quite surprised to see a Drug Facts label just like you find on a bottle of medication.  Did you ever think of hand sanitizer as a drug?  Neither did I.  Now, take a closer look at the label on your hand soap.  No Drug Facts label?  Yea, my soap didn't have one either. 

I did a little online snooping and the CDC and Mayo clinic agree that hand sanitizer should be used when soap and water are not available.  I'd guess that 99.99% of places frequented in America have both running water and soap.  So why is hand sanitizer the go-to option in most situations these days? 

I began writing about this topic months ago, around the beginning of the school year, so imagine my surprise when a google search for the best iron-fortified cereal led me to a really great parent resource from a pediatric doctor's office with a page devoted to none other than hand sanitizer vs. hand washing!  Sue me, I was tickled pink.  There's actually a lot of really great information on their website, I'm very impressed and wish they were local for us.  But, back to the hand sanitizer debate. 

Hand sanitizer is equivalent to 124 proof alcohol.  Wow, just wow.  And how many bottles were you asked to send to your child's school this year?  Parents, shouldn't we be worried about this stuff?  It's passed around like crack, I mean candy, in the classroom, readily available to every child in a school, and is absorbed right into your child's delicate skin.  Wonder if you can get a contact buzz that way?  Could we be turning our children into alcoholics because thinking about the long term effect of hand sanitizer use? 

And did I mention that it probably won't kill that pesky virus that's always going around your child's school?  Antibiotics aren't the only thing germs are immune to, obviously they aren't afraid of hand sanitizers either.  Think about all of your children's sick doctor visits lately.  Do you hear more and more often that your child has a virus and antibiotics just aren't going to help?  But, do you know what might help?  HAND WASHING with real SOAP and WATER!!!

I do realize that hand sanitizer is leaps and bounds faster than good ol' fashioned hand washing.  Keep in mind that faster isn't always better.  And I concede that the illnesses which have kept my kids home from school, thus far, this school year would not have been prevented by good ol' fashioned hand washing.  But, this is the last week of November, right at the beginning of cold and flu season, and I believe the spread of communicable illnesses would be lessened by good ol' fashioned hand washing.  Don't you?