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Ban Hand Sanitizer? By: Kekolu DeRamos Problem Based on your understanding of evolutionary theory, should hand sanitizers be banned from public use? How to Fix Problem We don’t have to ban the use of hand snitizer just yet. If we did need to though, I could send a letter to the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health stating why we should ban the use of hand sanitizer in public. But also what we could do so that we could eventually bring the hand sanitizer back because it is a very useful thing to have, especially when you are in a rush. What is Evolution Evolution is the process of genetic change of a population over time. This could mean any population: plants, animals, humans, bacteria, etc. 5 mechanisms of evolution: Migration, Genetic Drift, Mutation, Artificial Selection, and Natural Selection. Why we shouldn’t have to ban hand sanitizer? Right now, as stated in this article called Hand Sanitizer & Antibiotic Resistance, bacteria is changing to reduce its susceptibility to the alcohol in the hand sanitizer. Alcohol is 6085% of hand sanitizer and by itslef deactivates bacteria and viruses. But as the bacteria dies some still survive and the ones that survive create more bacteria that is not susceptible to the alcohol. This is called Natural Selection. But there is still the antibiotic that comes into hand. So as the hand sanitizer’s alcohol component is becoming not so useful, the antibiotic still is handy. So we don’t have to ban it from the public, not until the bacteria is not susceptible to the antibiotic as well as the alcohol, then we need to worry. Then we need to ban it and get new antibiotic or alcohol that the bacteria isn’t immune to. Why Evolution plays a role? Over time and as we apply hand sanitizer to get rid of the bacteria on our hands, the bacteria is constantly trying to become nonsusceptible to this. Over time the genetic change of bacteria has caused it to slowly be immune to hand sanitizer. This is basically the definition of evolution. The process of genetic change of a population over time, in this case bacteria being the population. In order for this to happen, one of the five mechanisms plays a role in order for the bacteria to become immune. As hand sanitizer is applied it kills the bacteria that do not have the traits to survive, and the ones that do live on. As those immune bacteria cells live on they begin to reproduce more bacteria that is non-susceptible to the hand sanitizer, this is called survival of the fittest, or natural selection. If We did Ban Hand Sanitizer We shouldn’t have to ban hand sanitizer for a while because the bacteria are just becoming non-susceptible to the alcohol in hand sanitizer, now they have to do the same with the antibiotics, which should take a while. But when it does finally happen we need to stop putting hand sanitizer out for the public until we fix the problem. The way we can do this is to find new alcohol or antibiotics that the bacteria is not susceptible to, and to get help we can send a letter to the HSDH (Hawai’i State Department of Health) asking them to get scientists to find these things out so that we can put hand sanitizer back into the public. Letter to the HSDH Dear Hawai’i State Department of Health, This letter that I am writing concerns the future health of Hawai’i. In my current biology class we were given the question “Based on your understanding of evolutionary theory, should hand sanitizers be banned from public use?” After further research that I did I have discovered that banning hand sanitizer may be highly necessary for the health of Hawai’i. Through this research I found that the bacteria that we are trying to kill with the hand sanitizer are evolving with an evolutionary mechanism called natural selection. A theory that Charles Darwin came up with saying that traits that promote survivorship and biological fitness will be the ones to survive. You see this is happening within the bacteria and the ones that don’t die from the hand sanitizer are reproducing and soon enough the hand sanitizer we are using will not kill the bacteria on our hands making us more at risk to becoming infected or undergoing infections. These infections could include very dangerous and deadly infections ass well. So we are asking that you push for scientists to research new antibiotics within the hand sanitizer or new alcohol so that they might kill the bacteria that was resistant to the previous alcohol and antibiotics. Dear HSDH, I really hope that you will take this matter into consideration. Kekolu DeRamos