to think how your armpits smell isn't as important as whether your children will survive operations in the future?

[IceBeing]

Just seen a sidebar advert for antibacterial deodorant. Seriously, is antibiotic resistance happening in a parallel universe to the cosmetics industry?

I am sure it will all be wonderful fun to use their new product instead of just washing etc. but killing 90% of the bacteria is just focussing the minds of the 10% on how to evade destruction. When our children and grandchildren are in fear of their lives from superbugs every time they require routine surgery, we are not going to look back kindly on this kind of 'innovation'.

Antibacterial and antibiotic are two different things, fuck sake, have you never heard of a dictionary.

I challenge you to spend the day avoiding all possible antibacterials, both intended and accidental. I guarantee that you will struggle.

I agree that antibiotics shouldn't be used unnecessarily and that we all benefit from ongoing baseline exposure to microbes in general. However, you'd be very foolish not to wash your hands after using a public toilet (e.g).

Moderation in all things, that's the ticket.

I blame the chemtrails.

Breast milk is antibacterial.

How very dare I make the stuff... AND FEED IT TO MY BABY.

Antibiotic resistance is currently rated the most threatening global health issue

By whom?

You lost me at 'people like you'. Knowing the difference between antibiotic and antibacterial doesn't make you some kind of higher being, y'know.

Advances and innovations in various fields are happening all the time. An antibacterial deodorant is hardly taking time and funding away from research into superbugs.

I would use it as I have to use antibacterial soap under my arms so it would be an addition
If my condition had been spotted earlier instead of taking 8 years, I wouldn't have needed 2/3 courses of antibiotics every time I got ill. Perhaps then I wouldn't be resistant to penicillin

Sammysquiz The WHO are taking it seriously.....

www.who.int/drugresistance/en/

Actually WHO rates the threat as serious, of high concern and needs urgent action Sammys (quick google of WHO) Maybe not rated as 'most threatening global health issue' but scary enough.

The threat of antibiotic resistance is very real, article in the New Scientist today about super gonorrhea that has made an appearance in England. Reason probably being that people have been buying the tablet antibiotics off the internet ( but can't buy the additional syringe antibiotic online) to treat it rather than going to a clinic and having it treated with the tablets and injection that are both needed.

This is the sort of thing I worry about - deodorant not so much.

Anti bacterial deodorant is why we are getting anti biotic resistance

My my.... We are doomed then aren't we

Contessa beat me to it :)

Can we put this forward as an early contender for Most Ridiculous Thread Of The Year - scaremongering category.

Stratters- my response to your last two posts is:

YES
and
YES

OP- there is a note of hysteria in your tone. It's not winning people over to the view you wish them to consider..

maybe I am naturally hysterical in the same way silver is naturally antibacterial...I do generally feel more sane after lunch.

I work in the field of drug development and I guess I therefore spend more time worrying about this sort of thing than the average person. It seems ridiculous for the government to spent millions on research into beating drug resistance while doing nothing to reduce the casual use of unnecessary antibac products.

Whether or not a particular treatment can cause the development of resistance depends on the treatment.

Sunlight is unlikely to worsen resistance as it has been around for a while...bacteria have already made their peace with it.

Extreme heat (100 + degrees) is also not a problem. Moderate heat easily could be though. The bacteria can increase their heat tolerance by exposure to moderate heat.

Bleach and other chemicals that directly oxidize the crap out of things can't promote resistance as the bug would have to move to something other than DNA in order to cope. On the minus side, it might just be a bad idea to bleach your skin. Many chemicals fall into this category - bad for bacteria, bad for us. So bleaching your floor is fine...probably the anti-bac furniture sprays are also fine (but I wouldn't inhale them...).

So then there is the category of things you can put on yourself, meaning they don't attack your cells in ways they can't defeat. These chemicals don't attack the fundamental structure of the cells (because we share that with the bugs) so instead they compromise them in other ways. These ARE ways that the bugs can combat through developing resistance.

So Antibac deodorant either falls into the 'fundamental attack' class in which case don't spray it on your skin....or it falls into the 'non-fundamental attack' in which case it is promoting resistance - and so don't spray it on your skin.

sirona I think I got the impression it was enemy number 1 from the today programme...a less reliable source. It was probably just some politician blowing smoke because they endorsed extra research funding that week.

They have found totally resistant bacteria living on people all around the world now. People reading this thread may well already be carrying them. They only become a problem if they develop into an infection of course.

I hate the idea that we will sink back into a pre-antibiotic state where any cut or graze could be life threatening.

Sure there are bigger fish to fry than anti-bac cosmetics - but anti-bac cosmetics are just so totally freaking unnecessary. So why not stop them?

And yet you are still wrong, you might work in the field of drug development, but you're not grasping that there are antibacterial substances, such as silver, which inhibit the growth of bacteria - they're not going to promote drug resistance in bacteria because it's a different form of 'attack', to use your wording.

And deodorants aren't 'cosmetic'. Cosmetic means the appearance rather than the substance. Deodorants don't affect your appearance unless your pits are dripping and causing massive wet patches, they act on odour causing bacteria, to prevent nasty whiffs.

For someone who works in drug development, you're making some whopping fundamental mistakes than an A level Biology student could ride a yak through.

Place marking to see how this discussion goes. I'd be idly wondering whether or not some of the more general bacteria-busting products (as well as medicinal antibiotics) affect development of antibiotic resistance (so thanks for starting the thread, OP).

Weird.

My family aren't high deodorant users as the only time you'd need it is if you sweat like during exercise.
The last thing you want to do is put deodorant on top of sweat.
makes me wonder how we all managed before we were told/ conned into believing it was necessary.
A bit like doing so much washing each week, it's mind boggling to see how many loads some people do

Ah well, horses for courses, NewLife. I find deodorant use enables me to wash my clothes less often, as I'm only bothered about bacteria when they smell or make me ill.

As for drug development, I read somewhere that those involved in drug development are part of the problem, as they are chasing profit from other drugs rather than prioritising trying to find new antibiotics... Resistance to antibiotics is a 100% certainty. All one can do is try to slow the process down and try to find alternatives before the old lot stop working - which isn't very profitable, in fact potentially loss making, hence the lack of new antibiotics coming on stream.

Stratters I'm pretty sure silver resistant bacteria have been found, and it's only a matter of time before this becomes more widespread. Ok you might not take silver as a pill if you got a bug, but it can be used in burns/skin infection treatments as I understand so would be a problem if the bacteria are resistant.

FWIW op I agree with you it's concerning.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/12829274/