Posted By Eddie1 Hi all, A query about barrier creams for Weils Disease. Firstly is there such a thing. Background, employees work on underground telecommunication (cable)networks. At the moment the company have in place a safe working procedure, involving gloves and good hygiene practices and awareness re Weils disease, however the subject of a barrier cream was brought up. Can anyone shed some light on the matter. Thank you

Posted By Paul Leadbetter Eddie I hope Chris Packham of Enviroderm will respond to your posting but my take on your query is that any graze or cut will breach the barrier (even if there was a cream which presented a microbiological barrier) and could allow the micro-organisms to pass through the broken skin. The efficacy of barrier creams in your application is, therefore, limited. Paul

Posted By Chris Packham Firstly, there is no such thing as a "barrier cream". The concept that you can put a cream on your skin that will act to prevent ingress of chemicals, micr-organisms etc. is simply not borne out by the many scientific studies. The HSE take the view that: "Pre-work creams cannot be relied upon for primary protection of the skin as there is no information on the rate of penetration through creams." (see "Asessing and managing risks at work from skin exposure to chemicals" ISBN 0-7176-1826-9) Indeed, many of the scientific studies show an increased rate of penetration with the cream compared with bare skin. This is not surprising when you know how the skin works. Furthermore, how do you know that the worker will have applied the cream correctly, in the correct amount and covering the skin completely? A study by Prof. Elsner and his colleagues at Zurich University showed clearly that very few will achieve this. This is akin to providing gloves with holes! I would also not recommend that creams be worn under gloves as the preservative in such creams, in the occluded situation under gloves, represents an increased risk of allergic reactions. Finally, cotton gloves can be worn underneath occlusive gloves without losing dexterity, due to a high tech. device call a pair of scissors! Just cut about 1 cm off the end of each finger. The put the protective gloves over the top. You will still have the dexterity but also the protection. (Complicated,isn't it!) Selection and use of gloves is a complex topic. If anyone is interested, the we have a Technical Bulletin that deals with this topic.

Posted By Chris Packham One further point. Alcohol based skin sanitisers have been shown to be excellent, but I would not rely upon them exclusively. They are now widely used in hospitals and health care in general instead of anti-microbial soaps. I have reservations about the non-alcohol based sanitisers. The actives in these may be sensitisers (e.g. Triclosan) and, left on the skin, could result in an allergic reaction, particularly if gloves are then donned within a short time after application. As far as anti-microbial soaps are concerned, in a recent publication the BMA stated they could find no compelling evidence that they were any more effective than normal soaps.

Posted By Eric PD did i dream it or did i hear somewhere that people who suspect they have come into contact with potentially contaminated ( with weils disease) water ( mainly through ingestion) should drink a can of full strength coca cola (- it must be coca cola and it must be full strength) which weil ( excuse the typo/pun) zap any traces of the virus before it takes hold in the body/target organ. Did i indeed dream that?????

Posted By Eddie1 Thanks to everybody for the response it has been of great help.