Free Republic

In the early 2000s, hospitals across Australia began installing more hand-sanitizer dispensers in their rooms and hallways for staff, visitors and patients to use. Research showed these alcohol-based disinfectants helped battle staph infections in patients and certain kinds of drug-resistant bacteria. And rates of these infections went down. But other infections didn't drop when people started using the sanitizer stations. In fact, certain infections went up. In particular, enterococcal infections — caused by bacteria that affect the digestive tract, bladder, heart and other parts of the body — started increasing. This wasn't only happening in Australia. Countries around the world...

The Food and Drug Administration warned consumers Monday not to use skin products made by Clarcon because of high levels of disease-causing bacteria found during a recent inspection. Clarcon Biological Chemistry Laboratory Inc. of Roy, Utah, issued a voluntary recall of some skin sanitizers and skin protectants marketed under several different brand names, the FDA said in a statement. Consumers should not use any Clarcon products and should throw them away, the FDA said.

Doctors and nurses aren't surprised anymore when they walk into isolation rooms at Inova Fairfax Hospital and sick patients ask them whether their hands are clean. Years ago, such patients might be regarded as troublemakers, but now Inova's chief infection fighter, hospital epidemiologist Allan J. Morrison Jr., uses brochures to encourage patients to protect themselves by challenging caregivers' hand hygiene. "Anything that gets you talking about hand washing, anytime or anywhere, is music to the ears of an infectious disease professional," Morrison said. Medical experts at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enthusiastically agree with Morrison, and they...