Prescription soap?

Date: July 27, 1999
Time: 11:12 am

At its annual general meeting in Winnipeg last month, the CPHA passed a resolution to push Health Canada to "implement the appropriate legal instrument to restrict the availability of personal and home cleaning products that contain nonconventional antimicrobial agents to health care settings in general and to make them available elsewhere only by nonpublic access through pharmacists."

Brad Colpitts, president of the Northwest Territories' branch of CPHA, moved the resolution. He told told eCMAJ Today that the use of antimicrobial agents in household hand soaps and other cleaners is rising as manufacturers tout these new agents as "magic bullets" for killing bacteria.

"Some companies are creating the perception that things can be cleaner if only consumers use these magic bacteria-killing bullets," said Colpitts. "It is the same kind of abuse as a patient who comes in to see a doctor and absolutely has to have a pill."

Many members of the health community predict increasing resistance to antimicrobial agents will be a major problem in the future as virulent strains of bacteria emerge that are unaffected by antimicrobial agents. Efforts to date have concentrated on encouraging physicians to eliminate inappropriate prescribing of antibiotic medications as the way to combat the rise of resistant strains of bacteria.

Health Canada, through the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control, convened a consensus conference in Montreal 2 years ago in an attempt to come up with ways to develop an action plan to limit the development and transmission of antimicrobial-resistant organisms in Canada and to recommend ways to assess the effectiveness of the action plan.

The conference came up with several recommendations, including establishment of a national committee to promote the cause of antimicrobial resistance, a national surveillance system to detect and monitor both antimicrobial resistance and the use of antimicrobial products; and a 25% reduction in the number of antibiotic prescriptions.

The World Health Organization is adding an international perspective to the battle, particularly since the enormous increase in international travel means individuals exposed to resistant microbes in one country can easily spread them to other countries. For example, resistant strains of gonorrhea that originated in Asia and Africa have now spread throughout the world.

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