From the Salta Gym Club blog:
… installing new hand sanitation stations. All people are required to sanitise their hands prior to entering the building (front door station) and athletes are required to use the stations when they enter and exit the gym.
I also encourage all athletes to wash their hands WITH soap before entering the gym, at break, and after gymnastics. After all, you just put your hands on a beam where EVERYONE has placed their feet….
details – Beat the Bugs
My gym added some last season. Could not hurt. And it just might make the kids more aware of hygiene.
Leave a comment if you have an opinion.
14 comments ↓
Hand washing seems like a great idea when you have so many kids in one place, and all of them using the same equipment. I’ve worked in small enclosed spaces with lots of people before, and it seemed like we passed around viruses we picked up from clients like crazy. But I worry about over-sanitizing with those alcohol based hand gels, because that builds resistant bacteria. Proper handwashing should be plenty.
What type of hand sanitizer has been installed? The alcohol content must be at 60% or higher for it to be effective. Anything less than 60%, the gel or foam acts as a mobility system and actually spreads the bacteria or viruses around the hand and makes it easier for the bacteria to spread to other objects.
Also hand sanitizer does not break through dirt, blood, or other body fluids. And the bacteria it does kill, 2% survive and become immune. They reproduce and now you have a ton more bacteria that are immune.
Hearing that hand sanitizer stations are being installed in gyms are worrisome to me with the number of small children we are dealing with. Even a small dose can be dangerous if ingested, leading to dizziness, slurred speech, headaches, and even brain damage or fatalities in extreme cases.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Is anything safe anymore?
We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t…
Alchohol based sanitizer and magnesium carbonate (chalk) – great combination for beautiful hands!
Even though hand sanitizers are heavily used in hospitals, I’ve heard enough doctors and nurses say you’re just spreading the germs around with it. I’ll stick with soap and water.
The resistant bacteria is a myth.
Alcohol rub sanitizers kill bacteria, multi-drug resistant bacteria (MRSA and VRE) tuberculosis, virus, including HIV, herpes, RSV, rhinovirus, vaccinia, influenza, hepatitis, and fungus.
Alcohol rub sanitizers kill 3.5 log(10) (99.9%) of the bacteria on hands 30 seconds after application and 4 to 5 log(10) (99.99 to 99.999%) of the bacteria on hands 1 minute after application.
Notice that time span. The reason the bottle says “99.9%” of germs isn’t because some bacteria are immune, it’s more likely because some bacteria weren’t reached. Did you get the alcohol ALL the way under your fingernails, or in-between every sliver of crevice of finger-webbing? If not, you left out some bacteria.
Bacteria can’t become “immune” or “resistant” to alcohol. Alcohol isn’t an antibiotic (well, it literally is in the etymological sense in being “against-life,” but not in the medical sense). Alcohol doesn’t kill germs the same way antibiotics do. Alcohol weakens cell membranes to the point they give out, which will kill everything eventually(this is also why alcohol makes a great cleaning agent, so no Katrina, it definitely breaks through dirt and blood, etc. Enough alcohol will break through anything. But don’t put hand sanitizer on a kid’s scabby knee unless you want them wailing to the moon). Thankfully, you’re bigger and stronger than the bacteria, so you survive the small dosage. Antibiotics work entirely differently. Analogy: line up 100 people, and fire 1 bullet at each of them. Assume 99 die, and one survives. That one who survives doesn’t live on and procreate bullet-resistant children, does he? No, of course not. He just didn’t happen to die. Likely, he’ll die the next time you shoot him. Now, if you try to poison those same 100 people, and one survives, that may be because he had some innate tolerance for the poison. Alcohol, like bullets, weakens the physical ability of the organism to hold together. Antibiotics, like poison, makes the organism send dangerous commands throughout the rest of itself. That’s a crude analogy, but the best I could come up with at the moment. Take-home point: if you soaked your hands in alcohol for 12 hours, 100% of the bacteria on your hands would be dead, unquestionably. You’d also do some other damage to your hands as a consequence, but they’d be externally sterile.
References: Jones R.D. Bacterial resistance and topical antimicrobial wash products. Am. J. Infect. 1999 Aug: 27(4):351-63. Barry A.L., Fuchs, P.C., Brown, S.D. Lack of Effect of Antibiotic Resistance on Susceptibility of Microorganisms to Chlorhexidine gluconate and Povidone iodine. Eur. J. Clin. Microbiol. Inf. Dis. 1999, 18: 920-921.
…Who does have the least tendency to develop allergies? Kids growing up on farms. Lots of dirt, lots of animals. All that sanitation just works towards more immune bacteria. Wash your hands, use some saop and warm water, that’s enough.
I LOVED the explination given by “Just another opinion”. So well put!
just soap and water works a hell of a lot better than those stupid sanitizers. Also teach kids to cough, sneeze, whatever into their elbow not their hand. That’ll help even more!
JAO…
If rubbing alcohol “kills bacteria, multi-drug resistant bacteria (MRSA and VRE) tuberculosis, virus, including HIV, herpes, RSV, rhinovirus, vaccinia, influenza, hepatitis, and fungus” as you say then it looks like you’ve just discovered the CURE for those diseases!!
Regardless… I wouldn’t want my kids using hand sanitizer. We never had it when we were kids and we turned out perfectly fine.
The anti-biotics often put in hand sanitizer is definitely not good for you.
I’d also rather have a chance at trying to resist the bacteria if it is indeed bad for me – the more I am exposed to, the stronger I get. Mwahahaha!!
Katrina-
Finding a cure for diseases isn’t difficult at all. Finding something that only kills the disease and doesn’t kill the person carrying it is exceptionally difficult. As I already wrote, alcohol will kill everything on the surface of your skin, and in great enough amounts, do significant damage to the rest of you. As for killing the stuff internally, that’s an entirely separate issue. Alcohol would certainly kill it, but at a great consequence. Drink a couple gallons of pure rubbing alcohol and the HIV in your blood will likely die. It’ll just take you with it. Most doctors understand this, so they don’t recommend it to their patients.
And TP, I think you’re confusing “antibacterial” with “antibiotic”. If someone is putting antibiotics in a hand sanitizer, it would be classified as a drug, and you’d probably need a prescription to get it. Seeing as how, you know, you can’t just buy antibiotics over the counter…
I agree with just another opinion. Absolutely hand washing is the ideal, but get real in a gym with over 400 kids is there enough wash basins for that every time they cough sneeze or rub their nose, or prior to entering the gym? Injesting alcohol is not advisable and thus the spray is to be applied topically on the hands. The alcohol content is 70% so will kill the bacteria and is the same exact liquid used in hospitals. There is no absorption of the alcholol and thus this exact liquid is used in countries where alcholol is forbidden based on religious basis.
Why do airports hospitals and even the corner grocery store have access for means of cleansing hands?
This is a means to try and keep the children healthy so that they can compete at their best.
Hey Katrina,
I’d have to go with “Just Another Opinion” on this one. Alcohol denatures proteins inside cells (by interfering with the hydrogen bonds on the protein’s side chains). And, because the function of a protein is inextricably tied up with its form, the newly reconfigured proteins are no longer biologically useful. As a result, the cell dies.
But, you are correct- hand sanitizer needs to have an alcohol concentration greater than 60% and less than 95%, and, by all means, stay away from antibacterial agents such as triclosan and benzalkonium chloride.
Also, as you said, it is important that no one imbibe the hand sanitizer.
This is what I meant:
In fact, some antibacterial chemicals, like triclosan and benzalkonium chloride, used in personal cleaning products have been linked to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and should be avoided. To be safe, read the ingredients on antibacterial-containing products (even those sold in bath and body stores) and avoid those with triclosan and benzalkonium chloride.
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