HEALTH EXPERTS have called for the banning of common brands of anti-bacterial hand washes sold in Australia amid concerns they could be contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already moved to outlaw the use of a range of chemicals in the products, warning there was no evidence that antibacterial soaps were any better at killing germs than soap and water.
Australian health regulators are being urged to follow the US’s lead.
“A lot of these agents don’t remove all the bacteria on our skin,” Cheryl Jones, a professor of paediatrics at the University of Sydney and president of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, said.
“Hand hygiene is important and we shouldn’t think that it isn’t, but what we’re saying is we can achieve hand hygiene by washing our hands simply with plain soap and water.”
In the United States, the FDA’s ban applies to soap products containing any one or more of different active ingredients — including triclosan, used in liquid soaps, and triclocarban, used in soap bars.
Professor Lindsay Grayson, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at Austin Health, said the ban applied to a range of new products that were now available.