A recent study into the affects of hand-washing has found that people who use popular antibacterial soaps are at greater risk from infections than people who use traditional soap. Scientists have found that scrubbing your hands with bacteria-destroying soap may increase the risk of infections, alter the gut microbiome and encourage bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics. Arstechnica.com reports: There are specific circumstances in which those antimicrobials can be useful, civil engineer Patrick McNamara of Marquette University in Milwaukee told Ars. Triclosan, for instance, may be useful to doctors scrubbing for minutes at a time before a surgery or for hospital patients who can’t necessarily scrub with soap but could soak in a chemical bath. Triclosan and triclocarban do kill off bacteria during long washes. But most people only clean their hands for a few seconds. “There’s evidence that there is no improvement with using soaps that have these chemicals relative to washing your hands under warm water for 30 seconds with soaps without these chemicals,” he said. And the point hasn’t been lost on the US Food and Drug Administration. Though the agency ruled years ago that triclosan and other antimicrobials are safe, it’s now revisiting claims that the [...]