Hand sanitizers, antiseptic products carry unproven claims that they prevent MRSA infections

Some hand sanitizers and antiseptic products come with claims that they can prevent MRSA infections.

Don’t believe them. These statements are unproven, says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is a bacterium that can cause severe — even life-threatening — infections that do not respond to standard treatment with the antibiotic methicillin.

“Staphylococcus aureus itself is a very aggressive organism,” says Edward Cox, MD, MPH, director of FDA’s Office of Antimicrobial Products. “It’s often associated with patients in hospitals who have weakened immune systems, but the bacterium can also cause significant skin infections and abscesses in a normal, healthy person. And it can get into the bloodstream and, less frequently, may involve the heart valve, which is very difficult to treat.”

But this antibiotic-resistant strain is even more difficult to treat. “With MRSA, a number of the antibiotic drugs we typically used often don’t work, so we lose treatment options we used to rely upon,” says Cox.

FDA is cracking down on companies that break federal law by promoting their products as preventing MRSA infections and other diseases without agency review and approval.

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