Think hand sanitizers protect you against germs? Think again

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: hand sanitizers, germs, health news

(NaturalNews) Worried about catching a cold or the flu? Just slather on some hand sanitizer and you will be fine, say experts. But a new report has some different things to say. According to "germ experts", alcohol-based hand sanitizers only kill certain germs for up to two minutes before drying up and becoming useless. And a recent study out of the University of Virginia (UV) revealed that alcohol-based hand sanitizers do not reduce the overall number of cold and flu cases, either, suggesting they are ineffective.

NaturalNews covered the UV study back in September (https://www.naturalnews.com/029786_hand_sanit...), but a new survey conducted by Healthpoint found that most Americans still believe hand sanitizers are effective anyway, and that they work for long periods of time than they actually do.

"Alcohol sanitizers last only a minute or two and must be reapplied when recontamination occurs," explained Dr. Philip Tierno Jr., Ph.D., director of clinical microbiology and immunology at NYU Langone Medical Center. But more than 50 percent of Americans think hand sanitizers last about 30 times longer than this in a single application.

Even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) admits that that hand sanitizers "will not kill all germs", but the agency still recommends that people use them. But in the UV study, there was little difference in the number of rhinovirus and influenza infections between people who use hand sanitizers and people that do not.

Many hand sanitizers are also loaded with toxic chemicals that get absorbed in the skin and cause other health problems. And they ultimately will not protect you from getting sick. So a more preferable way to stay healthy and avoid viral and bacterial infections is to take plenty of natural vitamin C and vitamin D, eat powerful superfoods like garlic and astragalus, and drink plenty of clean water.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/...

http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?...