What's the best way to kill germs: handwashing or Purell?

I’ve always used Purell or whatever at hospitals and dr offices, but I’ve heard that overuse of it can actually be bad for you as you need to build natural antibodies, using normal every-day germs. I’ve not been sick for over 3 years now, so I’m going with that method- lol

I would and I have told hospital workers to wash their hands and to put on clean gloves. Being in a hospital means my defenses are down because I’m ill and I’m being exposed to many others who are also ill.

I don’t like using the antibacterial products. I don’t think they are any better than soap and hot water. I am of the camp that overuse helps create bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. A little dirt never hurt anybody.

I prefer a normal soap-and-water wash, but where it’s not practical (say, at my desk at work, when I can’t stand up and walk away every time I sneeze, or at the Renaissance Festival, where water is scarce and I’m touching perfect strangers all day) hand sanitizer is nice to have around.

Just as I finished reading this question, I spotted this piece entitled Thanks for Nothing, Purell another site.

The CDC says:
If soap and water are unavailable, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol to clean hands.

But then this 2005 publication says:
Alcohol-based hand sanitizers, which do not require water, are a boon for harried parents and busy caregivers in hospitals and other institutions. They rapidly kill most bacteria and viruses, and products that contain emollients tend to be gentler on the hands than soap and water. An increasing body of literature suggests that regular use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers can reduce transmission of infections in hospitals and other health care settings…

Wikipedia cites various studies of efficacy, including:
Mackintosh (1984) found that application of 0.3 milliliters alcohol rub to the hands was no more effective than plain soap-and-water hand washing, but that increasing the volume to 0.5 milliliters increased the effectiveness of alcohols substantially.[32] In environments with high lipids or protein waste (such as food processing), the use of alcohol hand rubs alone may not be sufficient to ensure proper hand hygiene).[31]

They also list some infectious agents that are resistant to alcohol. The same article also compares alcohol to antiseptic soap:
Alcohol based hand rubs provide a better skin tolerance as compared to antiseptic soap.[11] Hand rubs also prove to have more effective microbiological properties as compared to antiseptic soaps.

I work in a hospital environment where hand sanitizers are mounted on practically every wall. I use it maybe 50 times a day but still wash my hands at a sink several times a day.

I wash my hands with soap and hot water, but use Purell on accession when washing is not a choice. Especially if I am holding or shaking hands with children.

At my facility we hold to handwashing most frequently with lukewarm water preferably with disinfectant soap to prevent hands from drying excessively. Purell is just a filler.

It doesn’t remove the dirt and other debris and chemicals are harsher on your skin.

Handwashing. No question about it.

Actually, @Rarebear, it looks like @gasman may be right. The evidence is piling up for the hand sanitizers. Read this article in the New Yorker for more information. Of course, sanitizer can’t get grime and blood off. You have to wash your hands for that. But for killing bacteria, sanitizer, in its latest formulations wipes out hand washing. There are a number of tests mentioned in that article, but one that impressed me was using this stuff in basic training. The teams that used sanitizer had something like half the rates of respiratory infections and gastrointestinal problems compared to the teams that were merely washing hands.

Soap doesn’t kill microbes nearly as effectively as alcohol. And the new formulations actually leave your hands softer and in better shape than soap and water. So it’s a win-win all around. I believe the CDC is going to be making this a recommendation in all health facilities, if they haven’t done so already.

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room Your link isn’t taking me to the article.

I can’t use alcohol based hand sanitizer or even anti-bacterial soap…they eat my skin. So, better or not, I wash with regular old soap and water. I have read that using the anti-bacterial stuff encourages the development of resistant strains of bacteria, but I can’t vouch for that.

I think our obsessions with hand sanitizer is going to be one of the downfalls of our immune system and wide spread disease.

Relevant

Alcohol based hand rubs do not remove c. dificile which is a highly infectious agent.

Hand rubs are better than nothing. But you need to use both effectively.
http://www.who.int/gpsc/tools/GPSC-HandRub-Wash.pdf

With more dirt.

I love hand sanitizer when eating on the run. Often bathrooms are hard to find in food courts, so Purell is a nice alternative. Also, in airplanes where you have to manhandle the door to get out, I always follow up with Purell.

I keep an alcohol-based hand-sanitizer in the car for use after I pump gas or hang out at the library…usually filled with hacking and sneezing teen-agers.

Otherwise, I wash with soap and hot water often during the day.