Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and it's just us. Almost said Jerry's here too,
Speaker 2: but she's not. Instead, it's just us. I already said
Speaker 2: that too, And this is stuff you should that's right.
Speaker 3: And this was a listener's suggestion. So we wanted to
Speaker 3: thank Holland le Mere who wrote in and said, guys,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you had anything know anything about
Speaker 3: the history of Lysol, the disinfectant, but it has a
Speaker 3: pretty fascinating, weird history, and I think it would make
Speaker 3: a good episode. And I think Holland was right on
Speaker 3: the money.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also thanks to our buddy Kyle Hookstra, our British
Speaker 2: writer holding it down in the UK for us, who
Speaker 2: helps us out with this one too.
Speaker 3: That's right. I love Kyle's articles because they are all
Speaker 3: metric and there's even some to British spellings. He's like,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to americanize it for you Trumps, just yeah,
Speaker 3: figure it out.
Speaker 2: Oh you like your z's ts for you, here's an s.
Speaker 3: Aluminum.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, so we're talking today about Lysol. Who
Speaker 2: was that Holland great name. Yeah, hall ind suggested this.
Speaker 2: And for those of you who don't know, Lysol is
Speaker 2: a leading disinfectant brand in the West. I think it's
Speaker 2: like the third best selling disinfectant in the United States.
Speaker 2: It's Lysol. You know what I'm talking about, right, I do, sure,
Speaker 2: I think most people do. And Lysol had a recent
Speaker 2: I guess, a big jolt in its history, as most
Speaker 2: disinfectants did, thanks to the pandemic, the COVID pandemic of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, where its sales just
Speaker 2: went through the roof. Apparently it increased its sales by
Speaker 2: twelve percent and just one year and they were producing
Speaker 2: thirty five million cans, just the cans of Lyesol in
Speaker 2: North America alone every month. That's how crazy people were
Speaker 2: for Lysol. And yet when pandemic went away, people kind
Speaker 2: of put their Lysol away as well. In their sales
Speaker 2: storry to go down. And as we'll see, that's actually
Speaker 2: kind of a good thing.
Speaker 3: Probably. Yeah, And this is not a takedown or anything.
Speaker 3: This is just we're gonna talk about some interesting history.
Speaker 3: We talk a little bit about how all disinfectants work,
Speaker 3: and we might even suggest some alternatives but you're sweet pippy.
Speaker 3: So the question of why do you want to disinfect
Speaker 3: something in your house in the first place is valid? Well,
Speaker 3: it is because if you subscribe to the germ theory,
Speaker 3: then you might think that disinfecting surfaces might kill a
Speaker 3: virus that might be in your house. So that's a
Speaker 3: reason right there, for sure.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the point of disinfectants, right and the way,
Speaker 2: let's talk real quick about how they actually work, because
Speaker 2: I find this fascinating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's on a cellular level, right, sure.
Speaker 2: So there's a bunch of different ingredients in disinfectants, like lysol,
Speaker 2: but some of them are more active than others. But
Speaker 2: you can't overlook one in favor of another because when
Speaker 2: you turn around and look, you're like, oh, that does this,
Speaker 2: that does this, that kills this, that kills this. But
Speaker 2: if you put all of it together, you have a
Speaker 2: disinfectant that can kill microbes, that can kill viruses. A
Speaker 2: lot of them are anti fungal. They're just they just kill,
Speaker 2: like you said, on a cellular level. And one of
Speaker 2: the ways that they do that, one of the main
Speaker 2: ways they do it is by disrupting whatever outer layer
Speaker 2: that microbe or that virus has that protects its inerds,
Speaker 2: and by doing that, it's inerds spill out, go through
Speaker 2: all sorts of horrible transformations, and the bacteria viruses like
Speaker 2: uh A two lysol.
Speaker 3: That's right, and lysol works like you know, all disinfectants
Speaker 3: by doing that. But Lysol specifically developed one of the
Speaker 3: first quats qu at s. We've talked about quats before
Speaker 3: in terms of like pesticides, I think probably, yeah, I
Speaker 3: feel like we've talked about that, okay, I believe you,
Speaker 3: I just know you, okay. But they introduce a quat
Speaker 3: in its formula in the eighteen eighties, a long long
Speaker 3: time ago. Quats are it's short for is actually technically
Speaker 3: qac YEA. It's spelled out quat because it's a quaternary
Speaker 3: ammonium compound. And what they introduced in the eighteen eighties
Speaker 3: was one called benzolconium chloride. Pretty active ingredient these days
Speaker 3: and disinfectants very potent to all. Quats are rarey potent
Speaker 3: against germs at pretty low concentrations I think is about
Speaker 3: two point four percent is a sweet spot. But like
Speaker 3: you said, you combine these with other stuff and you're
Speaker 3: in business. In this case, if you combine it with alcohol,
Speaker 3: there's a change that happens that makes it kill things faster,
Speaker 3: kill more things. And lysol doesn't use that one anymore.
Speaker 3: They use a different one now though, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's evolved into benzalconium saccharinate. I think that's right.
Speaker 2: And it's essentially just almost a proprietary version of benzolconium
Speaker 2: benzelconium chloride, right, But it's just different enough, as we'll
Speaker 2: see that it makes lysol kind of its own thing.
Speaker 2: And like you said, they add alcohol, and alcohol itself
Speaker 2: is a germ killing machine, especially with viruses, because it
Speaker 2: just it cuts right through the viral envelope and lets
Speaker 2: all the DNA spill out or RNA, and viruses don't
Speaker 2: like that kind of thing. One of the other things
Speaker 2: that happens too. When the quad and ethanol combine, they
Speaker 2: undergo a synergistic change essentially, and they do all sorts
Speaker 2: of nasty stuff. Specifically, they d nature cells, which means
Speaker 2: that they break the chemical bonds that hold the molecules together,
Speaker 2: and again that's not good if you're a bacteria.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so like it, the cell wall kind of dissolves,
Speaker 3: and then like you said, everything spills out and then
Speaker 3: those proteins are just busted up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they coagulate. Different proteins coagulate, which renders them totally useless.
Speaker 2: It's not like they can go back to how they were. Like,
Speaker 2: the poor bacterium is probably trying to keep its guts
Speaker 2: in and yet they're useless even if it could patch
Speaker 2: itself up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And a couple of things if you're talking about
Speaker 3: the effectiveness of a disinfectant is concentration and the contact time.
Speaker 3: So there has to be what's called an MIIC or
Speaker 3: a minimum inhibitory concentration. I think we said two point
Speaker 3: four percent is like, is the low concentration end where
Speaker 3: it's still potent in the case of lyesol, And then
Speaker 3: the contact time. If you read the I'm not even
Speaker 3: saying just lyesol, but if you read any disinfectant, you
Speaker 3: may see in five fine prints something like, you know,
Speaker 3: spray and leave it on there for four to ten minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I saw wipes. Depending on which one you have,
Speaker 2: it's four minutes or ten minutes. Is crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And a lot of people don't know this, and
Speaker 3: so if they use something like this in their house,
Speaker 3: we don't. But if you do, you might just spray
Speaker 3: it and wipe it off right afterward, thinking you're accomplishing
Speaker 3: something you're not.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I read an interview with the microbiologist who is saying,
Speaker 2: like when I clean my house like this, like say
Speaker 2: I'll spray a door knob, I just let it sit
Speaker 2: for a minute before I wipe it off. And usually
Speaker 2: with the spray a minute'll do it. But the point is,
Speaker 2: it's not like it's just immediate disrupts all germs or
Speaker 2: microbial life that it encounters on contact. It takes a
Speaker 2: couple of minutes for it to really do its job essentially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, Well you want to.
Speaker 2: Take an early breaker, Yeah, let's do it. Okay, we're
Speaker 2: gonna take an early break and then we'll come back
Speaker 2: and talk about the history of lysol.
Speaker 1: Softy jobh so so Chuck.
Speaker 2: I believe Holland said that lysol has a very interesting history.
Speaker 2: And Holland was right. And it's a pretty old history too.
Speaker 2: I think it was invented in eighteen eighty nine by
Speaker 2: Gustav Roppenstrouk.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did I get it?
Speaker 3: Pretty dang good, buddy, Ziagut, Well, oh.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, And he was a German chemist, yes,
Speaker 2: and he was like, you know, we've got all sorts
Speaker 2: of infectious diseases. Most people call them diseases, and but
Speaker 2: he just spoke really strangely, and he said, I'm going
Speaker 2: to come up with something to help, specifically in the
Speaker 2: medical setting, a disinfectant that's going to save lives.
Speaker 3: That's right Lyesol back in those days was fifty percent
Speaker 3: creasole in soap, basically so pontified vegetable oil. I kind
Speaker 3: of figured that was like lie from soap and sold
Speaker 3: from the creasol is where you got lysol. But that's
Speaker 3: not right either, is it. No?
Speaker 2: And as a matter of fact, I have not seen
Speaker 2: a definitive answer.
Speaker 3: Oh, I thought you sent me something.
Speaker 2: I did, and then I saw other stuff elsewhere that
Speaker 2: undermined Oh, I guess it. The one that I'm on
Speaker 2: is that the lie is short for lysis, which is
Speaker 2: basically like destroying a cell, and then the saw is
Speaker 2: short for solvent. That's what I'm on. But again there's
Speaker 2: different interpretations. What's the one I sent you? You remember
Speaker 2: and know what you sent me?
Speaker 3: Or no? Maybe, okay, maybe there's not.
Speaker 2: Other interpretations. I've just totally lost my mind, and that's it.
Speaker 3: It may be it. It was toxic back then with
Speaker 3: that mixture. Cresol was a germ killer and it was
Speaker 3: less poisonous what they had been using to disinfect things
Speaker 3: like hospitals at the time, which was carbolic acid. So
Speaker 3: it was a little bit better version of that, but
Speaker 3: it was it was like a brown, a very brown color,
Speaker 3: and it kind of kind of became the go to
Speaker 3: antiseptic in the late eighteen hundreds for the medical community.
Speaker 2: Yeah, an eighteen ninety three report said, let's defend ourselves
Speaker 2: in our homes against the Hama sidle microbe exclamation point
Speaker 2: even and the British Medical Journal was on board that
Speaker 2: went's still around, that's how legit this is. They were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: use it on your skin, it'll treat lupus, but beware
Speaker 2: because if you use it too much, it's kind of
Speaker 2: caustic and it can crack your skin. And for the
Speaker 2: longest time, essentially from invention until the nineteen teens, the
Speaker 2: people who bought this stuff were medical professionals, and they
Speaker 2: bought it in the ultra concentrated form. I think you like,
Speaker 2: the smallest bottle would turn into two gallons when you
Speaker 2: mixed it together with each other like you were supposed
Speaker 2: to then so on and so forth, and it was
Speaker 2: just a It was what they used for cleaning wounds
Speaker 2: and all sorts of stuff like it was like the
Speaker 2: original back Team, but way more caustic.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Things change in nineteen twelve, or started to
Speaker 3: change in nineteen twelve when the AMA Council on Pharmacy
Speaker 3: and Chemistry said, you know a lot of these patients
Speaker 3: are screaming when we put it on their skin. It's
Speaker 3: burning them, clearly because we have eyes and ears, and
Speaker 3: this might be too dangerous for human use, so maybe
Speaker 3: we shouldn't use it in hospitals. Lynn and Fink, who
Speaker 3: were making Lysol at the time, were like, oh crap,
Speaker 3: this is our big market. Here is marketing to these hospitals, right,
Speaker 3: And so here's what we'll do. We'll reposition it in
Speaker 3: the marketplace and through advertising as something for home use
Speaker 3: and for use on women's reproductive organs.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, let's talk about that, because there was essentially
Speaker 2: no point in the history of Lyesol that it should
Speaker 2: ever have been used on women's reproductive organs. And yet
Speaker 2: when they lost that market of selling directly to hospitals
Speaker 2: who knew that the field of medicine had its own
Speaker 2: journals and that they would start talking amongst themselves. They
Speaker 2: essentially created, they re debuted their product as a contraceptive.
Speaker 2: And at the time this was not completely off the wall.
Speaker 2: Using a vaginal douche as a contraceptive. There's no way
Speaker 2: for me to say that and not feel like I'm
Speaker 2: talking about a guy, a guy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's really taken over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has that. This was like the main way
Speaker 2: that people prevented birth, and it didn't even work very well,
Speaker 2: but this was like all they had at the time.
Speaker 3: Essentially, yeah, it was contraception. Well, this is sort of
Speaker 3: one of the early ironies is you could sell lysol
Speaker 3: as a cleaner, you know, those influenza in the early
Speaker 3: nineteen hundreds and nineteen teen, so like it was doing
Speaker 3: great there, but you could not market it legally as
Speaker 3: a contraceptive, not because it was dangerous and didn't work,
Speaker 3: but because contraceptives were illegal in the US and Canada
Speaker 3: from the late nineteenth century eighteen seventy three with a
Speaker 3: Comstock Act here. In the US, birth control eventually was
Speaker 3: legalized in nineteen sixty five if you were married, if
Speaker 3: you wanted to have sex out of marriage and not
Speaker 3: get pregnant, you had to wait until nineteen seventy two
Speaker 3: to get that approval, one year after I was born,
Speaker 3: which is shocking. So from nineteen nineteen all the way
Speaker 3: through the nineteen sixties, they promoted lysol as an illegal
Speaker 3: contraceptive under the banner of the mythological term of feminine hygiene.
Speaker 2: Right, and so just because they used that term and
Speaker 2: never said this is a contraceptive, they instead said it
Speaker 2: with like a wink and a nuts like we all
Speaker 2: know what we're talking about, right, And consumers did know.
Speaker 2: They were well aware that what Lysol was saying is like,
Speaker 2: if you use this after sex, it's going to kill
Speaker 2: anything inside. Right, So don't even worry about all this stuff.
Speaker 2: It's your contraceptive and lysol. Lysol became the number one
Speaker 2: contraceptive in the United States from the nineteen thirties through
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties. Chuck lysol. Douching with lysol was what
Speaker 2: most people in the United States used as a contraceptive
Speaker 2: for thirty years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and by the way, I want to clear up
Speaker 3: real quick, when I said the mythological concept of feminine hygiene.
Speaker 3: I don't mean people shouldn't wash their body parts, of course, sure,
Speaker 3: I'm talking about this idea of feminine hygiene products and
Speaker 3: douching and douching as a contraceptive and all that stuff was,
Speaker 3: as far as I can tell, a creation, like a
Speaker 3: marketing creation.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What's ironic about it is that because you're using
Speaker 2: lysol again as a douche, you're killing off all of
Speaker 2: the beneficial bacteria in the vagina to begin with. So
Speaker 2: you actually are creating the problems that feminine hygiene products
Speaker 2: were supposed to cure. Help. So the market actually created
Speaker 2: itself by this, just the introduction of this. It's nuts.
Speaker 2: It's terrible. It's essentially taking advantage of insecure mid century
Speaker 2: American women through a really harsh marketing campaign that lasted
Speaker 2: for decades.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, let's talk about some of that. There's a
Speaker 3: historian name Kristen Hall who looked at you, just dozens
Speaker 3: and dozens of these lysol advertisements from the day, and
Speaker 3: here are just a few examples. And the married woman,
Speaker 3: the cleansing antiseptic douche should follow married relations. Lysol is
Speaker 3: the right antiseptic for this delicate purpose. The word germ
Speaker 3: was sort of a stand in for semen in many
Speaker 3: cases they had They had ads that are just so
Speaker 3: clearly trying to exploit, like you said, like the idea
Speaker 3: that marital life is the only way to go, and
Speaker 3: a clean woman in the kitchen is one that will
Speaker 3: appeal to her husband for intercourse. Like this one. It
Speaker 3: showed a woman literally trapped in an ad, trapped in
Speaker 3: a cobweb that said was spun by my husband's indifference
Speaker 3: and until she's freed by using Lysol to address careless risks,
Speaker 3: then you know, dot dot, she won't get sex from
Speaker 3: her husband. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what the ad was essentially saying is their husband's like,
Speaker 2: I'm not having another kid. I'd rather just go without
Speaker 2: sex than have another kid. And the wife is like,
Speaker 2: but I want sex, And Liesol's like, let us step in.
Speaker 2: You start using Lysol. You tell your husband you're going
Speaker 2: to use Lysol, he'll be all over you like white
Speaker 2: on rice.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Basically, if you're if if you don't use lysow,
Speaker 3: you're not going to have sex anymore and be happy
Speaker 3: in your marriage exactly.
Speaker 2: So this was like the marketing campaign that Lysol came
Speaker 2: up with to get women to use Lysol as a contraceptive,
Speaker 2: and it should be noted that at the same time
Speaker 2: they were marketing it as a disinfectant for your house, right,
Speaker 2: So it would be exactly like buying a jug of
Speaker 2: lysol and using it to clean your kitchen and then
Speaker 2: using it as a contraceptive the same jug. That was
Speaker 2: essentially what was going on for these decades.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and like you mentioned earlier, not only was dangerous,
Speaker 3: as we'll see, but it didn't work. They had these
Speaker 3: a study from nineteen thirty three, so this is even
Speaker 3: back then they knew, right, and they found basically half
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty of the five hundred and seven
Speaker 3: women who used lysol as a contraceptive douche became pregnant.
Speaker 3: And in the nineteen thirties there were these two doctors,
Speaker 3: Sarah Greenberg and Rachel Lynn Palmer that said Lysol's claims
Speaker 3: would be laughable were it not for the tragedy of
Speaker 3: the many women who have become pregnant.
Speaker 2: But not just get pregnant. They were also like scarring
Speaker 2: their vaginas internally, at the very least inflaming them. Some
Speaker 2: women died because if you absorbed some of these things
Speaker 2: like qacs and some of the other chemicals I'm sure
Speaker 2: probably ethanol as well into your body through the very
Speaker 2: porous vaginal tissue. You can die from poisoning from lysol poisoning,
Speaker 2: and women were dying at the very least hundreds were
Speaker 2: ending up in the hospital from it as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if that's not bad enough, because of kresol,
Speaker 3: the creasol in the lysol, it was used for illegal
Speaker 3: abortions well into the twentieth century.
Speaker 2: Right, And so, like you said, from the thirties, they
Speaker 2: were it was being criticized by the medical community, yet
Speaker 2: it just wasn't reaching out to the public at large yet.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't until the sixties that people stopped using
Speaker 2: lysol as a contraceptive almost overnight. And what happened the
Speaker 2: next day when they stopped using lysol was that the
Speaker 2: pill had just been introduced, and as it became legal
Speaker 2: and widespread and people started to be like, this actually works,
Speaker 2: they stopped using lysol immediately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So lysol didn't stop being used as a contravaginal
Speaker 3: contraceptive because it was the word spread that it was dangerous,
Speaker 3: it didn't work. It stopped because the pill came along exactly,
Speaker 3: which is really hard to believe.
Speaker 2: Really, I'll tell you something that's not hard to believe,
Speaker 2: Chuck is let's take our second break.
Speaker 3: Oh another early one. I love it.
Speaker 4: Stop jaw.
Speaker 3: All right, so we're back, Lysol. If you remember from
Speaker 3: Act two, I guess the fact that it was not
Speaker 3: viable as a means of birth control after the pill
Speaker 3: came along, or really before actually, in truth, meant that
Speaker 3: it had to change their tune yet again. It gained
Speaker 3: some ubiquity, being referenced in a Sylvia Plath poem The
Speaker 3: Colossus in the nineteen fifties. It was it was just
Speaker 3: a something that seems like it's always been around. There
Speaker 3: have been different forms of it over the years. You
Speaker 3: know that disinfectant spray has been around since the sixties sixties.
Speaker 3: I think they started cleaning toilets with it in the sixties.
Speaker 3: Eventually they started having the hand soaps and disinfecting wipes
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. But they were like, how do
Speaker 3: we sell this stuff in an age where the FTC
Speaker 3: basically is endorsing or says that you know your claims
Speaker 3: have to be true. You can't be misled, The harm
Speaker 3: can't outweigh the benefit and stuff like that, like where
Speaker 3: what's the new path forward?
Speaker 2: Right? So essentially because of this stuff like disinfectants like
Speaker 2: lysol and other brands started just tinkering with their formulas
Speaker 2: and looking for things that were as effective or more
Speaker 2: effective but less toxic. Like for example, in nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 2: they dropped creasol for ortho hydroxy phenol, which is a
Speaker 2: quarter as toxic as creol. But I mean, you start
Speaker 2: doing that, it's like these little adjustments here or there,
Speaker 2: you start making significant gains and lowering toxicity. The thing is,
Speaker 2: it still is hazardous to your health, depending on how
Speaker 2: you're dis to it and what concentration you're exposed to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And obviously a time when you heard
Speaker 3: a lot more about this kind of thing was during,
Speaker 3: like you mentioned earlier, the onset of the pandemic from
Speaker 3: COVID nineteen. People were buying a lot more disinfectant I
Speaker 3: now you said there was a twelve point three increase
Speaker 3: in sales that just dollars wise equates to about four
Speaker 3: billion bucks American bucks. Yeah, so it's a lot of money.
Speaker 3: So you know, obviously with this stuff being used, like
Speaker 3: people were disinfecting everything. The CDC was getting a lot
Speaker 3: more calls about people going to the hospital from poisoning
Speaker 3: just because it's around more. There were plenty of stories
Speaker 3: where people would use disinfectants on like on their food itself,
Speaker 3: putting it on their skin. At one point, former President
Speaker 3: Trump on Live on the Air pondered whether injecting disinfectants
Speaker 3: could cure coronavirus. So there's just a lot out of
Speaker 3: overuse of this kind of stuff at the time because
Speaker 3: of COVID.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he didn't name check Lysol, he said disinfectants,
Speaker 2: But Lysol and other companies that make disinfectants issue press
Speaker 2: releases basically immediately saying like, don't ingest disinfectants in any way,
Speaker 2: shape or form. They're still toxic. And these companies didn't
Speaker 2: say they're still very toxic. But depending on who you ask,
Speaker 2: they can be pretty toxic. One of the things that
Speaker 2: Lysol did get a boost from though, was remember I
Speaker 2: said that their QAC is almost proprietary, the benzolconium securate, Well,
Speaker 2: it's just different enough from the other versions of that
Speaker 2: that Lysol was able to submit itself its formula to
Speaker 2: the CDC for testing on killing COVID, and the CDC
Speaker 2: was like, all good, So now COVID could be like recommended.
Speaker 2: Lysol is specifically recommended by the CDC for you know,
Speaker 2: the pandemic, and that was one of the things that
Speaker 2: led to Lysol specifically in this huge boom in sales.
Speaker 2: Was a pretty smart little marketing maneuver.
Speaker 3: No, absolutely so a big boon for sales obviously. But
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, the CDC came out and we're like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, this obsessive disinfecting is maybe getting out of
Speaker 3: hand and may have long lasting consequences. And this is
Speaker 3: where we, you know, we get to talk about something
Speaker 3: that we've talked about on the show before, which I always,
Speaker 3: you know, I think is kind of super interesting, which
Speaker 3: is the fact that when you disinfect something like that,
Speaker 3: you're killing good germs and bad germs. And there is
Speaker 3: the hypothesis of the fact that you know, like friendly
Speaker 3: microorganisms are good for the body, especially in childhood, to
Speaker 3: help you build up a more robust immune system, so
Speaker 3: you're not just walking around in a completely sanitized situation
Speaker 3: at all times, and then when you encounter something in
Speaker 3: the real world, all of a sudden, you're getting sick
Speaker 3: more often and maybe even worse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you said, even worse. And that hygiene hypothesis
Speaker 2: is supported by this idea that because these kids are
Speaker 2: growing up in overly sanitary conditions in like the industrialized world,
Speaker 2: they are more prone by far to autoimmune diseases, which
Speaker 2: are diseases that the body is attacking the wrong stuff, proteins, tissues,
Speaker 2: things that shouldn't be attacking. So you've got things like
Speaker 2: food allergies, type one diabetes, multiple sclerosis, all of them
Speaker 2: are much higher prevalents in the West than they are
Speaker 2: in less developed countries. I think Kyle found a study
Speaker 2: that found that in the West, preschool children can have
Speaker 2: up to ten percent of a class can have food allergies,
Speaker 2: but in mainland China you're going to find something like
Speaker 2: two percent. And that type one diabetes, which is your body,
Speaker 2: your immune is attacking your insulin producing pancreas. Sixty two
Speaker 2: out of every one hundred thousand kids in Finland, an
Speaker 2: industrialized country, has type one diabetes, but six point two,
Speaker 2: like a tenth out of every one hundred thousand children
Speaker 2: in Mexico have it, and zero point five of every
Speaker 2: hundred thousand havebit in Pakistan. So all that goes to
Speaker 2: show all these and tons of other studies suggest that
Speaker 2: because we're cleaning too much, our kids are developing autoimmune
Speaker 2: diseases and we need to expose them to more germs.
Speaker 3: Yeah. That is a version of what's called the old
Speaker 3: friends hypothesis, which is, if you're a young kid in
Speaker 3: your early years and your formative years, if you have
Speaker 3: regular exposure to harmless microbes, then you're going to be
Speaker 3: better off in the long run. And if that's really
Speaker 3: limited because you're disinfecting your entire house constantly, you're going
Speaker 3: to suffer for it. Because you know, there are arguments.
Speaker 3: This guy named Graham Rook is one of the proponents.
Speaker 3: Argues that your immune system needs dis exposure to diverse
Speaker 3: microbes so your body knows how to recognize the threat
Speaker 3: when it sees it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was saying this, Graham Rook in particularly
Speaker 2: is a bacteriologists from University College of London. He's saying
Speaker 2: there's specific microbes that the human immune system has co
Speaker 2: evolved with and that we're killing them through disinfectant and
Speaker 2: that those are the ones that train our immune systems
Speaker 2: how to be and that without them that's why we're
Speaker 2: getting the autoimmune diseases. And yet again it's like a
Speaker 2: riff on the hygiene hypothsis. It almost takes it and
Speaker 2: like makes it more specific.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, they've done some more research. Speaking of Finland,
Speaker 3: they took stool samples. They took little poopy pellets from
Speaker 3: kids in Finland, Estonia, and Russia and found that in
Speaker 3: the in Finland, which is you know, super industrialized at
Speaker 3: this point. In Estonia, they did not have Escherishia.
Speaker 2: I don't know e coli. I know that's what most
Speaker 2: people call it.
Speaker 3: I'll just call it ecoliles trying to be fancy that
Speaker 3: activates a response from the immune system, but had a
Speaker 3: bacteria bacteriotis species that inhibits the immune system. So not
Speaker 3: only did it not have what you needed to activate
Speaker 3: the immune response, you had something that inhibits it.
Speaker 2: Right, So again there's a lot of research to support
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff that we are overcleaning, and in
Speaker 2: particular in the United States, we have a particular obsession
Speaker 2: with cleanliness and we overdo it essentially. And again, just
Speaker 2: like with Lysol's advertising blitz in the twenties and thirties
Speaker 2: that got women to use lysol as a contraceptive based
Speaker 2: on their insecurities. We're marketed to like, there's germs everywhere,
Speaker 2: your kid's going to get sick, your kid is sneezing
Speaker 2: on things. They've got to clean the entire house, and
Speaker 2: not just clean, but disinfect And it seems to be
Speaker 2: if the hygiene hypothesis and old Friend's hypothesis are correct.
Speaker 2: It's the disinfecting part that's the problem. That if we
Speaker 2: just cleaned, you know, and kept things tidy, we would
Speaker 2: those good microbes would be around, and we are exposed
Speaker 2: to them. We don't have to worry as much about
Speaker 2: the other microbes that are harmful because our immune systems
Speaker 2: are primed to take care of those things a little more.
Speaker 3: That's right, And I know I mentioned it before. It
Speaker 3: is one percent anecdotal. I'm not disputing that. But we
Speaker 3: have never been big overly disinfectant as a household. We
Speaker 3: have let my daughter be dirty and stay dirty, and
Speaker 3: she's one of the healthiest kids I've ever known in
Speaker 3: my life. Again, purely anecdotal, but who knows. I think
Speaker 3: maybe we're just lazy, but it feels like it feels
Speaker 3: like we've done right by her. Because she just not
Speaker 3: get sick much.
Speaker 2: That's awesome, man. Yeah, yeah, that hygiene hypothesis. I just
Speaker 2: love it. It's so intuitive, it's so like folksy and homey.
Speaker 2: I just love it. So I hope it's correct. I
Speaker 2: hope it doesn't ever get overturned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, what do we do When we were kids,
Speaker 3: We rolled around in the dirt. Our parents weren't bothered
Speaker 3: to care or you know, maybe we've got to wash
Speaker 3: your hands before dinner kind of thing, but maybe not even.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure. And I mean the generation after us,
Speaker 2: where we started cleaning more and more with disinfectants, that's
Speaker 2: when autoimmune diseases really starting to pick up. It's just
Speaker 2: the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming, essentially. Yeah, there's some other
Speaker 2: stuff too. Like I said, some people are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this stuff is still toxic, so be careful with it.
Speaker 2: Some people are saying, like, Okay, it depends on the
Speaker 2: concentration that you're exposed to. Lifsol that's super concentrated that
Speaker 2: you're supposed to dilute. That is very dangerous stuff. There's
Speaker 2: endocrine disruptors in there, there's anti freeze in there. You
Speaker 2: can breathe it in you can absorb it through your skin.
Speaker 2: Just undiluted lysol or concentrated lysol is dangerous. But what's
Speaker 2: called ready to use, the stuff you buy in the
Speaker 2: bottle that you just start spraying that is so diluted
Speaker 2: that it's more toxic effects are well, they're diluted essentially.
Speaker 2: So some people say it's not really a problem to
Speaker 2: use lysol. Other people are like, it depends on the context.
Speaker 2: If you spray lysol air spray in a closed room,
Speaker 2: you don't want to be in there to breathe it
Speaker 2: in because it's going to mess your lungs up pretty good.
Speaker 2: Other people are like, like, we know that these this
Speaker 2: exposure to lysol right then is not harmful, but there's
Speaker 2: not enough studies on what's called chronic low level exposure.
Speaker 2: But just using it over and over and over again
Speaker 2: for years, what does that do to the body, And
Speaker 2: so we need to study that kind of stuff more. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: there are people in the government who are working against
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff and introducing bills that are like,
Speaker 2: not only do we not want to combat this, we
Speaker 2: want to make disinfectant manufacturers, we want to make it
Speaker 2: easier for them to just cover up what they're using
Speaker 2: as ingredients so people can't study them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what was that? I saw it sort of. I
Speaker 3: mean it seemed like it was directly influenced from the
Speaker 3: lobby from these companies. But who was it that introduced
Speaker 3: that bill that basically said, like, hey, you know what,
Speaker 3: you shouldn't have to say what ingredients are in your product.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Indiana Representative congress Person Larry Bouchon introduced a bill
Speaker 2: in October twenty twenty three. Still doesn't have a name. Weirdly,
Speaker 2: it doesn't even have a number, so I guess it's
Speaker 2: not gotten very far so far. But what it represents
Speaker 2: is a real disruption in the disinfected industry because California
Speaker 2: passed a law that was really hardcore about telling everybody
Speaker 2: what's in your products as disinfectants, And there was a
Speaker 2: big kind of stakeholder back and forth between dis infectant
Speaker 2: manufacturers and the government of California to kind of come
Speaker 2: to this consensus like, Okay, we'll abide by California's law
Speaker 2: essentially everywhere in the United States, but the rest of
Speaker 2: the states have to promise that they're not going to
Speaker 2: make any laws. There are even tougher than California. We're
Speaker 2: all going to agree that this California law is a compromise,
Speaker 2: and so this federal bill preempts the California law, so
Speaker 2: it undoes all that negotiation. So some companies, including the
Speaker 2: makers of Lifesol, are like, yes, let's support that bill.
Speaker 2: But other companies like Clorox have come forward and they're like,
Speaker 2: we're opposed to this bill. We already went through this
Speaker 2: whole process, we came to a compromise, and this conceivably
Speaker 2: open up the case for states later on to come
Speaker 2: up with even worse bills or stricter bills than the
Speaker 2: California one. So it's a big deal actually in the
Speaker 2: disinfected industry right now, and it's kind of up in
Speaker 2: the air which way it'll go.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sure. Another thing that's a potential future well
Speaker 3: in the future is kind of now because already being used.
Speaker 3: But germicidal ultraviolet light GUV is something a lot of
Speaker 3: people are fairly hot on UV rays and things like
Speaker 3: that we know can be or UV light can be dangerous.
Speaker 3: That's why we use sunblock and stuff like that. But
Speaker 3: this is a different kind of UV. This is called
Speaker 3: far UV. They are applied in very specifically short wavelengths,
Speaker 3: so it's not penetrating like regular UV. And I even
Speaker 3: bought one of those little UV cases that you put
Speaker 3: your cell phone in during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I used it twice, oh really, and
Speaker 3: recently donated it. It just never caught on in my house.
Speaker 3: But you know, you gotta be careful with these things
Speaker 3: because they you could buy like a UV wand to
Speaker 3: just wave over your doorknob at home, but it may
Speaker 3: not be far UV. And a lot of the FDA
Speaker 3: is like, hey, be careful with these things that you're
Speaker 3: buying because UV light can be super dangerous as.
Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, to your skin, to your eyes essentially, you know,
Speaker 2: over long term exposure. Who knows, cancer probably, But this
Speaker 2: this far UV, because the wave links are so small,
Speaker 2: They're like, this can't penetrate skin or the cornea essentially,
Speaker 2: So it's it will kill all the germs, all the
Speaker 2: bacteria in the air. That's the other benefit of it too, Chuck.
Speaker 2: It's like if you and I are talking and one
Speaker 2: of us has COVID and I cough in a room
Speaker 2: that has a correct setup for far UV, GUV, germicidal
Speaker 2: UV like you said, it'll kill that stuff before you
Speaker 2: can breathe it in.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it has a really great benefit and application, but
Speaker 2: it can also still be dangerous because what they figured
Speaker 2: out is that even far UV creates ozone, and ozone
Speaker 2: can interact with other particles in the air, creating air
Speaker 2: pollution essentially inside your house. Yeah, and that's not good.
Speaker 3: That's not good at all.
Speaker 2: So they're grappling with it.
Speaker 3: Emily, when she had her business use and we still
Speaker 3: use this at home. Sometimes she would just make her
Speaker 3: own She called the alcohol and orange. It was just
Speaker 3: alcohol with orange essential oil to help it smell good, right,
Speaker 3: And would just use that on the tables and stuff
Speaker 3: when she had stainless steel tables when she was manufacturing stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm sure she added water too, but I
Speaker 2: did not realize this until researching this. Alcohol by itself
Speaker 2: is not as effective in killing viruses or destroying viruses
Speaker 2: as alcohol and water is. It does something to enhance
Speaker 2: the action of the alcohol. Isn't that fascinating?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And remember during COVID, we did some episodes sort
Speaker 3: of around that that where we were like, you know,
Speaker 3: washing our hands with soap is more effective than using
Speaker 3: the alcohol based hand sanitizer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it binds to it and washes it off. Right,
Speaker 2: that's right, that is something I need to get over.
Speaker 2: It's very clear to me I developed a real severe
Speaker 2: case of germophobia during COVID. Really it's gotten much better,
Speaker 2: much better, but it's still present. Like I'll grab a
Speaker 2: paper towel and use that to pump gas with and
Speaker 2: then use alcohol on my hands afterward, and like there's
Speaker 2: just stuff I should not be doing. And researching this
Speaker 2: made me realize, like I need to mellow out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well that's good. But I don't use hand
Speaker 3: sanitizer and never really have, but I do. We'll use
Speaker 3: the paper towel if they have them at the gas station,
Speaker 3: because I don't want grubby gas smell on me why.
Speaker 2: I'm doing it, And I will grab one on my.
Speaker 3: Way out of a like especially like an airport bathroom,
Speaker 3: I'll grab a paper towel or the paper towel that
Speaker 3: I've used to dry my hands. I might use that
Speaker 3: on the door handle, because that's I think that's why
Speaker 3: they keep that trash can right by the door as well, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, yes, if they're like that, not if there's
Speaker 2: not paper towels. And you ever open the bathroom door
Speaker 2: in a public restroom and I suddenly pop out around you,
Speaker 2: it's because I've been standing there waiting for somebody to
Speaker 2: open the door because I won't let myself touch the
Speaker 2: door handle. I just can't. I can't do it. Or
Speaker 2: if I'm the guy who like holds the door for
Speaker 2: you with this foot and it's like, oh sorry, runs off.
Speaker 3: That's okay. I think a lot of people do stuff
Speaker 3: like that. That's just you know, especially like in airport's
Speaker 3: you know, people are traveling all over their place. I
Speaker 3: don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Speaker 2: No, but yeah, I just need to be less delicate.
Speaker 2: I think. I think it would be better for me
Speaker 2: psychologically and health wise too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Maybe get to some of that worry out of
Speaker 3: the old brain.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly what's the worst is gonna happen? I could
Speaker 2: die of norovirus?
Speaker 3: Who writ Oh man, I'd have to find a new
Speaker 3: co host.
Speaker 2: Don't do that, Like I said, who cares, Chuck? You
Speaker 2: got anything else?
Speaker 3: M okay?
Speaker 2: Well that's it for Lisol everybody. Thanks again to holland
Speaker 2: thanks again for Kyle for helping us out with this
Speaker 2: and since I just named check Kyle again, it's time
Speaker 2: for listener mail.
Speaker 3: I'm going to call this just a very kind thank you. Hey, guys,
Speaker 3: want to say thanks for doing what you do. Your humor, intellect,
Speaker 3: and open mindedness have been an inspiration for me for
Speaker 3: many years. I started listening back in nine when I
Speaker 3: was traveling back and forth between Gainesville and Tallahassee, Florida
Speaker 3: to visit my college girlfriend. When I graduated, I continued
Speaker 3: listening through med school, when driving two rotations, visiting my
Speaker 3: mail school girlfriend, and anytime I could find a break
Speaker 3: during the monotony of studying. Still listen regularly during my
Speaker 3: residency and obstetrics and gynecology, especially when driving the satellite
Speaker 3: hospitals I worked at, and of course flying back to
Speaker 3: Florida to visit my residency girlfriend. Things are progressing, you
Speaker 3: notice this? Yeah? For both?
Speaker 2: Is it the same girlfriend? Do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean things are progressing romantically and professionally for
Speaker 3: this couple. Gotcha, it's a great story. I finished residency
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen. Still listen almost every day when I'm
Speaker 3: driving to the hospital or my office where I work
Speaker 3: as an obgyn. Married that residency girlfriend nice, and we
Speaker 3: have three beautiful kids who are in med school. No
Speaker 3: just kidding, twin boys and our seven month old baby girl.
Speaker 3: Listen to all the episodes at once. Listen to the
Speaker 3: End of the World with Josh Clark. Thanks, yeehaw. Many
Speaker 3: episodes of movie Crush, yeehaw. Lots of Don't Be Dumbs? Okay,
Speaker 3: what's wrong with Don't Be Dumbs? No, Don't Be Dumbs
Speaker 3: are great. I just anytime someone has dived into the videos,
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty like extra.
Speaker 2: They're hardcore for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wasn't saying it was something. In fact, Don't
Speaker 3: Be was the best of what happened in our video
Speaker 3: were your Don't be Dumbs?
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, what about our this day in
Speaker 2: history weirdness?
Speaker 3: I always felt like we were just hanging on by
Speaker 3: the skin of our teeth. We definitely were. Anyway, watch
Speaker 3: Don't Be Dumb. If you haven't, everyone, it's pretty great.
Speaker 3: I haven't dug up the TV show yet, but maybe
Speaker 3: one day I will. One day I will. I have
Speaker 3: your book, but sadly not your board game. Not to
Speaker 3: go parasocial on you, guys, but I really like you.
Speaker 2: We like you too.
Speaker 3: Your constant motivation to continue to be better in all
Speaker 3: aspects of your lives, and your openness therein has been
Speaker 3: an inspiration. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you,
Speaker 3: and that is from Adam.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Adam, that was a great email. Appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Congratulations on becoming a doctor. Bless you for that. Bless
Speaker 2: your wife too, Bless your kids as well for having
Speaker 2: doctor parents.
Speaker 3: Bless everybody med school.
Speaker 2: Girlfriend. I think is a great name for an indie
Speaker 2: pop band.
Speaker 3: Totally yeah, nailed it.
Speaker 2: So thanks for that too, Adam. If you want to
Speaker 2: be like Adam and send us a really nice email,
Speaker 2: we are always happy to receive those. You can wrap
Speaker 2: it up, spank it on the bottom like a obg
Speaker 2: y n, and send it off to Stuff podcast at
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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