Here’s an excellent short essay in the New York Times (registration required) about why our current obsession with anti-bacterial products is pointless.
Where there is an irrational fear, there is a product-development team to fan it and feed it and exploit it. . . 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.