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A member asked:
Will overuse of alcohol based hand sanitizers create superbugs? if not, then what's the difference between antibiotics and alcohol with respect to killing off germs? don't we have good flora on our skin that protects us as well?
A doctor has provided 1 answer
No...but: Over reliance on hand sanitizers does ignore the benefit of mechanically washing hands to remove contaminants. Alcohol often just neutralizes the germ & prevents them from growing. Yes we generally have a basic biome of non-invasive germs that start soon after we are born. Their presence takes up some of the space germs might locate but they don't kill off invasive germs that can do harm.
Answered 3/9/2020
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