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the so called urban legend is true the scientist did develop 408 formulas before succeeding on his 409th it didnt get its name because of his wife's birthday that's just a coincidence — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.247.195.86 (talk) 23:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. On their web site [[1]] they even say so. --Digitalgadget 00:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone knows which ICU is meant by the link in the article can they fix it? It's going to a disambiguation page. Number774 (talk) 21:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from the (somewhat) colorful stories about the origin of the name for the product, this article says NOTHING about it... (Well at least it says it is packed into spray cans, but nothing useful about the product, its base and its known uses). As it is, the article is sort of useless.

A good Wikipedia article on a famous and practical product should include some meaningful information about the generic type of compounds and/or its best uses. Otherwise, the reader only gets bits of pointless information. A good article would say something about how the product works, like "known to be useful in removing grease and oils, because it contains oil dissolving solvents of the chlorinated type... etc etc" (for example, as I don´t know anything about this particular product, ie: the mere reason for looking for it in Wikipedia!. Amclaussen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.100.180.20 (talk) 20:37, 11 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Still True in 2019 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 01:16, 23 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the ingredients on my big jug of 409, I see .3% of Akyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride and 99.7% inert ingredients.

This compound is commonplace in disinfecting cleaners and at .3%, 409 is much less concentrated than some of the competitors, which contain about 10% of the same or very similar compounds - in other words, they are 3 times more concentrated.

This is valuable information coming from a reliable source.

All the stuff about how the name came about is interesting but really not useful as best I can see. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1702:1CD0:1710:2599:264E:4937:3B48 (talk) 17:23, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Doing some quick research, I see that quaternary ammonium compounds were used commonly in disinfecting surgery rooms, "fields" according to a review article from 1950 - and they had been introduced, or gone into common use, not clear which, by 1935.

The claim that 409 was named because it was the 409th formula they tested seems almost certainly untrue, I mean, they tested 408 compounds to come up with one already known since 1935, and in common used in 1950?

They put Benzalkonium Chloride in a consumer package and applied some marketing to it, is what it looks like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1702:1CD0:1710:2599:264E:4937:3B48 (talk) 17:43, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, 409 is back. Found it at Target this week in plentiful supply. Theoldsparkle (talk) 16:09, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]