antibacterial

Points 3 and 4 are reasons why I should stop using antibacterial soap. But the others are reasons why all the rest of you should stop using it.

It would have been pretty silly to use antibacterial agents in response to H1N1.

I never buy "antibacterial" soap. All soap is antibacterial in the sense that it removes bacteria from your skin.

By the way, propylene glycol is highly antibacterial and it was considered to pump it into the air of hospitals during the 50's. It is also a common diluent in things like asthma inhalers.

I don't know if there is an advantage of antibacterial soap, but humanity hasn't "survived just fine" with regular hand soap. Washing hands to prevent infection wasn't even common until the past century or so.

There is some evidence that triclosan, and ingredient in antibacterial liquid soaps, might be an endocrine disrupter. But a regular bars of soap don't contain triclosan, so you can soap up if you want.

Soap, by virtue of being soap, has antibacterial properties because it disrupts fat layers by making them dissolvable in water, iirc.

The honey coats your throat and soothes it, which will help to prevent irritation and further inflammation, and is apparently antibacterial too.

I never used antibacterial hand soap precisely because I assumed it would somehow contribute to bacterial resistance, and because humanity survived just fine with regular hand soap in the bathroom for centuries. Having said that I've recently been given a bottle of it.

Fear of mundane things giving you cancer; existential fear about the economy, which many of us don't even understand and as individuals, have no control over; fear of walking the streets alone at night; fear of getting sick if we don't use antibacterial soap after each bathroom trip. Fear of someone spiking your Tylenol.

I don't know anything about the other points, but point #2 is conflating antibacterial and antibiotic. Soaps that contain antibiotics definitely contribute to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and thus should not be used. But soap that is merely antibacterial without using antibiotics will not cause bacteria to become antibiotic-resistant.

But soap that is merely antibacterial without using antibiotics will not cause bacteria to become antibiotic-resistant. Yes it will." Antibiotic" is just a name for a particular kind of antibacterial compound that's put in a pill and given to sick people so it can work inside their bloodstream. The general point about bacteria evolving resistance applies to any antibacterial chemical, not just the ones in pills. [Edit: It's possible that by "soap that is merely antibacterial without using antibiotics" you mean just ordinary soap, with no chemicals added; but that's not what the article is talking about, it's specifically talking about triclosan, an antibacterial chemical.