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2-1/2" x 3-1/2" Antimicrobial Card Sleeves
Made with the avid collector in mind, the Ultra PRO Antimicrobial Card Sleeves are made with our proprietary anti-septic plastic which has been proven to provide a 99.9% reduction in germs within 4 hours. Designed for Standard Size 2-1/2" x 3-1/2" cards, our clear plastic sleeves are ideal for your favorite collectible card. 100 Sleeves per pack.
For standard sports cards, trading cards and card games measuring 2-1/2" x 3-1/2"
Equipped with an anti-microbial shield that protects your items from 99.9% of all germs
No PCV / Acid Free
Made in the U.S.A with non-PVC, acid-free, ultra-clear polypropylene film
100 Sleeves per pack
99.9% is hardly effectual. Keep in mind too, it probably does little to nothing to protect from fungus or viruses. Your plan to spread ebola through trading cards is not a lost cause @milhouse
@pkmnflyingmaster, I’m not sure if you know this and are just ignoring it for the joke, but whenever you see a company that sells a cleaning product say 99.9% of germs it’s really 100% but their lawyers make them put down 99.9% to avoid lawsuits in the case their product fails/an untested resistant germ exists. @milhouse eradication efforts are in a serious downfall thanks to this.
I’m aware of the fact that products are marketed conservatively. But there’s a lot more nuance involved in understanding this particular number “99.9%” than taking it at face value or assuming it’s actually 100%. I was curious after reading your post and did some research. As context, I have a little background in microbiology but I wouldn’t consider myself an expert.
So in laboratory tests where they measure the effectiveness of antimicrobial substances, they use “log reduction”. A log reduction of 1 means 90% of the tested pathogen is destroyed after application. 2 means 99%, 3 is 99.9%, etc. So they are advertising the product to have a potential log reduction of 3, which as shown in my original post is actually a very weak claim. But almost certainly as you mentioned, any real lab tests they have done probably show numbers higher than 3 but they were rounded down in the marketing room. In theory there is nothing that can be shown to kill 100% of something (log reduction = infinity) but in practice there are thresholds that can be more or less considered 100% effective. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4671544/ for example, this simple paper claims that soaking tuberculosis in 0.1% bleach for 10 minutes will give a log reduction of 4.4 and increasing time or concentration will push the effectiveness past the accepted levels of >5 (99.999% - practically 100% when it comes to reducing the risk of infection).
One issue with this 99.9% number is that it is derived from lab tests against only a handful of pathogens. Funny enough, when closely reading this package it claims it has antiseptic function against *all* pathogens which is actually a pretty bold statement. I looked more into how this plastic works. It presumably uses antimicrobial polymers. These work by introducing short molecules that resemble antimicrobial peptides (short protein molecules produced by the immune system to destroy pathogens, pretty cool actually) along the long chain of plastic molecules (polymers). Despite my original assumption, these work against bacteria and fungi, and I have seen papers describing these polymers that work against viruses. The packaging makes it unclear which limitations exist that @milhouse can exploit. I’d still say ebola is promising.
These plastics work by penetrating the pathogen cells and leaking out their insides. The downside to antiseptic polymers is that this process involves having relatively large molecules random move (diffuse) into the pathogen. This is a slow process which is why the label on this product has the time frame of “within 4 hours”. Given the amount of contact between the card and the plastic and the expected amount of exposure time (days to years) it’s actually an ideal use case for this type of antimicrobial plastic. Despite everything I’ve said so far I think the biggest problem with this product is that I’ve never had an issue with microbes growing on my cards to the point where they are visible. I just don’t see the point of this product really. At best it’s just psychological comfort for germophobic collectors.
ANYWAY, sorry for the long post. Curiosity got the best if me and I wanted to share what I learned in case anyone else was really interested.
This part made me laugh harder than it should have. I just image you doing all this research then thinking of milhouse’s quote and asking yourself what can still be used, as if you were in cahoots with milhouse’s plans.
All in all, good work nerd. I found it interesting.
