It depends whether you are talking about 'gross contamination' that is visible feces, or microscopic contamination, when something appears to be clean, but may have minute contamination.
Only the mechanical action of soap, (i.e. moving your hands together under running water) will remove gross contamination on your hands.
Antimicrobials work by disrupting the integrity of the cells walls of microbes, thus killing the cell. Alcohol has a similar effect, because of its osmolality relative to living cells. Feces contain millions of infectious microbes, like Hepatitis B (virus), E. coli (a bacteria) and various fungi and yeast spores.
Germicidal soaps help to remove the gross contamination, and kill off the residual critters you can't see. You are only as clean as the last time you washed your hands.
The hand sanitizers like Purell only kill most surface microbes, but do nothing for gross contamination.
2006-10-06 10:53:19
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answer #1
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answered by phantomlimb7 6
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