Anti-bacterial or Anti-shmacterial?

My third week of TreeHugger training is related to the home... "Greening Up Your Act: Cleaning and Interior Décor." Probably the scariest part to me is the section on "Antibacterial Products," which starts with the sentence:

"With our society's increasing tendency toward hyper-cleanliness, we are weakening our bodies and creating virulent strains of resistant germ and bacteria."

You know what's scary about this? (Aside from the fact that we are ending up with germs we can't kill.) We already know this and we keep using the anti-bacterial stuff! I am guilty along with everybody else. My kitchen soap is anti-bacterial. We have anti-bacterial wipes for wiping down sinks and counters. Because it seems safe.

However, recent research (this decade) seems to indicate that anti-bacterial cleaners and soaps are the opposite of safe. Regular soap and water is just fine unless you have someone who is seriously ill or has low immune system in your household. Those marketers got us again, making us believe that we need the spray that will kill 99.9% of those pesky bacteria. (I guess the 0.1% are the virulent strains we've created...?)

And it's not just cleaning. I mean, you can actually buy anti-bacterial clothing for your newborn baby. If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself: Baby Pink or Blue. Or how about anti-bacterial placemats? Now that's a good start to your kid's life - weaken that immune system while you can!

Needless to say, one of my goals will be to rid the house of anti-bacterial everything.

One bottle at a time...