Killing bacteria is easy. The trick is killing bacteria without harming ourselves. Soaps can be massively more "brutal" in terms of the mechanisms that destroy bacteria than what antibiotics can, and so the evolutionary steps that would have to occur for resistance are vastly larger, and would mean changing them in many different directions.
E.g. it does not help if a bacteria can survive a soap if it is still physically flushed away.
We also have a massive escalation ladder for external detergents beyond basic soaps that include a near infinite number of substances of increasing brutality than our arsenal of antibiotics. Essentially anything that will not harm us much with relatively limited exposure, yet will physically disrupt small organism. We can wash our hands in bleach. Or various acids. Or any of numerous agents that are massively disruptive on biological organisms through basic chemistry or even by being physically abrasive.
We don't even particularly need to care if we kill off a fairly substantial number of our own skin cells in the process.
If we had the same arsenal available for fighting bacteria internally as what we can safely apply externally, we'd be in a fantastic position.
I agree with you, but we need to be cautious with washing hands. The CDC have a nice document about "when is clean too clean?" which mentions the problems with people who have to clean their hand frequently. Damaged skin can harbour bacteria, and can make it harder to remove those bacteria.
> Skin hygiene, particularly of the hands, is a primary mechanism for reducing contact and fecal-oral transmission of infectious agents. Widespread use of antimicrobial products has prompted concern about emergence of resistance to antiseptics and damage to the skin barrier associated with frequent washing. This article reviews evidence for the relationship between skin hygiene and infection, the effects of washing on skin integrity, and recommendations for skin care practices.
Thanks for linking that article. The most interesting takeaway from that personally was that an alcohol-based rinse (hand sanitizer) is effective against nearly all kinds of infectious agents except for Gram-positive bacteria (which have a lipid cell envelope), without the threat of the emergence of resistance.
Handwashing with soap doesn't actually kill bacteria, it mechanically dislodges the oils and debris that bacteria are embedded in on your skin and rinses them down the drain. So bacteria have no defense.
The ability to burrow in between cells and to have more adhesive surfaces seem like two possible defenses bacteria already vary in and could evolve better. (Surely handwashing doesn't remove 100% of bacteria.) One reason this doesn't pose problems similar to antibiotic resistance is that this defense doesn't become a useful strategy inside the body, where infections are problematic for humans.
You don't directly address the resistance question, but I think that issue comes down to the "escalation ladder", which you do bring up. You can increase the effective of handwashing (or ultraviolet or whatever) in a way that just isn't possible with antibiotics.
E.g. it does not help if a bacteria can survive a soap if it is still physically flushed away.
We also have a massive escalation ladder for external detergents beyond basic soaps that include a near infinite number of substances of increasing brutality than our arsenal of antibiotics. Essentially anything that will not harm us much with relatively limited exposure, yet will physically disrupt small organism. We can wash our hands in bleach. Or various acids. Or any of numerous agents that are massively disruptive on biological organisms through basic chemistry or even by being physically abrasive.
We don't even particularly need to care if we kill off a fairly substantial number of our own skin cells in the process.
If we had the same arsenal available for fighting bacteria internally as what we can safely apply externally, we'd be in a fantastic position.