Liberal Talk Radio

Fascinating piece in the NYT about the growing (and apparently already widespread) use of hand sanitizer among politicians.

As you know, I’m a germ-o-phobe myself. Still, I hate hand sanitizer (and its evil cousin — the sanitizer spray they use at the gym). Why?

Purell and its ilk are anti-bacterial. That is, they only kill bacteria. Don’t believe me? How ’bout you check out the Purell product info page. Bacteria are only one type of li’l bugger that can cause illness. Colds and flu, for example, are caused by viruses, so Purell doesn’t keep you from contracting them. Other types of infections — athlete’s foot, e.g. — can be caused by fungi. Generally, virucides and fungicides are pretty nasty (check out a bottle of non-organic fungicide for use on plants sometime and read the warnings … eye opening). So, by dousing yourself in Purell, you’re maybe stopping strep and pnuemonia, and that’s about it — both of which can be largely avoided by frequent hand-washing and avoiding touching your own face.

Meanwhile, there’s a serious social cost to all this Purell use — the very good chance that we’re creating superbugs, bacteria that are resistant (or immune) to currently available anti-bacterial treatments — including antibiotics like pencillin (which, for the record, is also only useful against bacteria and not viruses).

In fact, the spread of anti-bacterial lotions and sprays is indicative of a classic problem described by public choice theory. While the potential social cost of widespread anti-bacterial use is huge (i.e., the creation of a mutant, drug resistant bacterium), the potential private cost (the chance of any individual user contracting the superbug) is low, so the products are overused. It’s market failure, and it’s something that’s classically, properly addressed by the government.

Of course, Dingbat in Chief displays his incredible powers of erudition on this as in so many things:

“Good stuff, keeps you from getting colds,” Mr. Bush raved about hand sanitizer …

I’m worried.