What's wrong with people?!?!?!

Bacteria are EVERYWHERE! It's a good thing. There's millions on your skin right now. Billions in your digestive tract.

Stories like this are ridiculous scare tactics that are unfortunately working. I can't even buy non "antibacterial" soap anymore.

Here's the problem. You don't kill all the bacteria with your "antibacterial" soaps and cleaners. Maybe (at best) 90% of them. The weakest 90%. The strong 10% that do live now have lots of food to multiply. This "Next" generation carries the resistance to antibacterial agents, just like their parents. And so on. We're making stronger bacteria. And we're not keeping up our end by making stronger antibiotics.

That reminds me. The antibiotics you take. The biggest problem facing infectious disease right now is basic human laziness. A huge number of people simply stop taking their antibiotics when they start to "feel better". This is an issue because the scenario above is now happening in your body, and the stronger 10% of bacteria "left over" are now resistant to the very antibiotic you were taking. We're running out of antibiotics. Even our "big guns", Vancomycin and Levaquin are beginning to weaken. There's a bacteria out there, Enterococcus, that normally and naturally lives in everybodies' digestive tracts. Well, there is a variant that is resistant to Vancomycin. VRE. Normally not a problem, but if you develop a bacterial infection, and it happens to be VRE, it can be very bad. Death is bad, right?

Another scary fact is the research showing that bacteria can "share" resistance with each other, meaning superbugs we can't kill with current drugs are on the way.

So, take ALL your pills. Don't run to the doctor just because you have the sniffles, demanding drugs. Let your immune system handle it. Don't fanatically clean everything. Good bacteria live up to their name. let them live. Try to find plain old soap. Triclosan, the most common antibiotic in your average soaps, in addition to creating tougher strains of bacteria as described above, is a great environmental polluter.

Over 95% of triclosan uses are in consumer products that are eventually disposed of down sink drains. Wastewater treatment plants cannot remove triclosan from water, so large quantities of triclosan are continuously discharged into local waterways. Numerous studies have detected triclosan in streams and rivers. In a US Geological Survey study of 95 organic wastewater contaminants in US streams, triclosan was one of the most frequently detected compounds, and at some of the highest concentrations observed.

Triclosan is highly toxic to algae. Because algae are the first-step producers in aquatic ecosystems, researchers believe that high levels of triclosan discharged into the environment may destroy the balance of aquatic ecosystems. The risks are especially high immediately downstream from wastewater treatment plants.

Sorry for the rant, but the ABC story in the link above kind of got me going. Move along now, nothing to see here...