[Macworld]

Post your comments for EPA fines Iogear parent for antimicrobial mice here

[hayesk]

Good. IOGear was taking advantage of the antibacterial product fad. Antibacterial products are a scam itself; they do nothing for the health and well being of people using them and can serve to breed more powerful bacteria. I'm glad they stopped selling this product.

[hexor]

Plus its a lot easier for them to go after a "small" company that isn't in the chemical business. If this was Monsanto then they would be less likely to care.

[Peter Cohen]

One can argue that a larger company might have substantiated its claim or at least registered its pesticide before it put it on the market...

[hexor]

Or that they have larger coffers to lobby with.

[ironpunk]

Great example of how wildly out-of-touch EPA in general and the laws surrounding the agency in specific are. Obviously a pointing device is not a pesticide. Perhaps FDA should be involved, but EPA because a mouse or keyboard is a pesticide- that's absurd- obviously somebody with a personal agenda was involved.
As for the claim that killing bacteria on repetitively used surfaces likely to be touched by one person would leads to stronger bacteria- the proof of that is about as substantial as IOGear's proof the anti-microbial mice actually killed bacteria. It's not always bad to kill germs, bacteria, or viruses. What are people with weak immune systems supposed to do ? Get sick and die ? Research shows that keyboards and mice are breeding grounds for germs. Killing germs is not bad...

[gianfri]

They may be breeding ground for germs, but that does not mean that these germs will or can cause disease. Germs are all over around us. Some of them may be bad, others are not. You are right - killing germs is not always bad, but the reverse also applies - killing germs in not always good either.

And, there is a ton of published scientific evidence linking the over-use of bactericidal products to the development of resistant strains.

[JDNYC]

If You asked yourself "How could an antimicrobial mouse be a pesticide"? For most people (who aren't Microbiologists),on cursory inspection it might appear like a capricious exercise by government bureaucracy. However, the intervention by the E.P.A. was wholly appropriate. We should be far more concerned that the EPA hasn't taken action on the thousands of products currently being sold to consumers - on things like cutting boards to the nipples on baby bottles - that use 'nano-silver' components. The effects In Vivo, are as yet unknown. There is reason to be concerned. Research in the lab:
"silver nanoparticles are also toxic to mammalian cells... Hussain et al found that silver nanoparticles were highly toxic to BRL 3A rat liver cells. Mitochondrial function, an indicator of energy available to the cells decreased and LDH or lactic hydrogenase function increased significantly in cells exposed to silver nanoparticles at 5a??50 I?g/ml. The LDH function is commonly used to indicate cell death and the release of cytoplasm parts. In a further study, silver nanoparticles were toxic to a cultured neuroendocrine cell line (phenotype PC-12), used as an in vitro model for brain cells. Cellular morphology, mitochondrial function and dopamine depletion rates (an indicator of Parkinsona??s disease) were assessed after 24 hours exposure. Additionally silver nanoparticles depleted dopamine at high and cytotoxic rates (50 lg/ml). Mitochondrial activity was reduced at doses ranging from 10 to 50 lg/ml compared to control, untreated cells. Cells treated with silver nanoparticles decreased in size and became irregular in shape
Until we have a regulatory system that fully does its job to protect the citizens - Buyer Beware
CAVEAT EMPTOR -