No more Anti-Bacterial Soaps!!!!!

The FDA is enforcing a new ban on all manufacturers of anti-bacterial products to remove 19 specific antibacterial ingredients!!! That means no more anti-bacterial soaps or body washes!

Recent evidenced based trials, that were required by the FDA for manufactures and companies, to prove the superiority of their anti-bacterial products vs. plain soap and water have failed. The research results have not proven that those products are safer and more effective than plain old soap and water.

In fact, there was concern that the use of these antimicrobial products actually added to the increasing problem of antimicrobial resistance in our communities.

So, what is anti-microbial resistance and why is this important to us?

1. What is "anti-microbial resistance?"

For those of you unfamiliar with the term "anti-microbial resistance," its just a fancy way of saying the antibiotics wont work anymore. Plain and simple right??!!!! Well, yes and no!!!! This is a huuuuugeeeee problem for us medical providers! Why? It is because the antibiotics we need to prescribe you when you are sick or have an infection that could threaten your life, will not work any more to protect and heal you!!

2. Why does "anti-microbial resistance" happen?

Well, without getting into the pharmacodynamics and pathophisiology of it all (bet that was hard to read out loud ten times fast :)) just realize that it happens because of overuse! The more and more "we" as humans use antibiotics, the bugs that we are aiming to kill with these medications get smart. In fact, they start to realize, " hey I've seen this before!" and they adapt, evolve and change themselves to become resistant to death from these medications. Now, I know this seems a bit extreme and maybe to simple of an explanation, but in a nutshell this is exactly what is happening.

Thus, the bacteria we are trying to treat with a certain overused antibiotic will become resistant to a certain drug and as medical providers we have to prescribe a different or "stronger" antibiotic. You may say well no problem right? WRONG! There is a limited number of antibiotics for each type of infection and generally only a handful that we can routinely use in a outpatient setting. So, not good right and if you allergic to certain types of medications you having even less that we can prescribe to save your life!

Hope this was helpful for you all, please feel free once again to share, like and post any comments!!

Mahalo