Originally Posted By: duckear
Originally Posted By: MDinana
A bit off topic here, but everyone that's carrying around betadine realizes that it needs to DRY before it's actually sterilized anything, right?






Uh oh. I have been scrubbing my hands with betadine before surgery for years and never let it dry. I rinse my hands with water (tap water at that!), dry them, and then don gloves and gown. wink

Letting it dry is good because it leaves a bacteria resistant area, for lack of a better description, for hours, but iodine, wet or dry, will kill bugs.



No... you've been using the Betadine surgical scrub. Real/normal betadine you need to let dry (read the fine print in the instructions)

http://www.betadine.com/for_hospitals.aspx

Click the links for the package info - you'll see that the 10% solution they tell you to let dry; the scrub solution they say to keep wet. In fact, the last line in the scrub solution is essentially "if you add betadine, let it dry."