Read a great article at the NY Times on the absurdity of antibacterial products. A choice excerpt:

The makers of antibacterial products are fond of the word "germs." It is purposefully vague. Do they mean bacteria? Viruses? Both? Neither? Because the idea is simply to connote contamination. These products are as much about cooties as they are about viruses or bacteria.

Contamination is in many ways a psychological construct. It is the notion that our belongings or our loved ones can become unclean by the mere touch of a stranger. Nothing is actually transferred by the touch. The contamination is symbolic, magical, irrational. It makes sense that the extravagantly rich - Howard Hughes or Donald Trump, for instance - are our most notorious germphobics, people made uncomfortable by the thought of shaking a stranger's hand.

The higher you rise and the better sequestered you are from the "unwashed masses," the smaller and dirtier the average Joe must begin to seem. Other human beings become our germs.

A plea, then, for a little calm, a little rationality. Try to look upon bacteria as did their discoverer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, "For me, this was among all the marvels that I discovered in nature the most marvelous of all, and I must say, that for my part, no more pleasant sight has met my eye than this of so many thousand living creatures in one small drop of water."