You can use the sanitary wash for canning jars and baby bottles. Or you can boil them. My mother (a nurse) liked it for when there was some really communicable disease in the house. Or you can boil.

No, you don't need it. But if you liked having it, and used it, it's probably worth the price. Look at it long term, instead of how much more you're paying for a DW than you've already just paid. Call it a 5 year bare minimum term of service. Say you use the sani-wash cycle on average once a month. That's 60 uses, minimum. Or $2-3 per use, if it costs another couple hundred dollars, plus energy and water. Is that worth it to you not to boil? Or would you use it twice a year? 10 times in five years. $20-30 plus energy and water? Maybe not.

While a lot of older dishwashers didn't hit the temperatures needed for sanitizing the contents, I would hope that most of the current, high-end models do, special cycle or not.

170 is probably OK if your machine hits and holds it for a minute or two, from my reading. My decade-old Maytag does that without any special cycle.

From one summary I just found
Typical regulatory requirements (Food Code 1995) for use of hot water in dishwashing and utensil sanitizing applications specify: immersion for at least 30 sec. at 77°C (170°F) for manual operations; a final rinse temperature of 74°C (165°F) in single tank, single temperature machines and 82°C (180°F) for other machines. Many state regulations require a utensil surface temperature of 71°C (160°F) as measured by an irreversibly registering temperature indicator in ware washing machines. Recommendations and requirements for hot-water sanitizing in food processing may vary. The Grade A Pasteurized Milk Ordinance specifies a minimum of 77°C (170°F) for 5 min. Other recommendations for processing operations are: 85°C (185°F) for 15 min., or 80°C (176°F) for 20 min.

Here is a link that might be useful: One reference on sanitizing

The second you open the dishwasher and stick your hands on a dish, it's no longer sanitary.

Plus, if you understand how infectious organisms work. . .It's rarely necessary to sterilize. Just rinsing something with warm water washes away most of the germs. Germs don't colonize unless there is a critical mass of them. So, for example, it's just as good to rinse a wound with warm water and use "clean" bandaging techniques as it is to use strong anti-microbials and sterile bandaging.

If you really want to worry about germs, scrub out your sink.

"Sterilize" and "sanitize" are very different things. This is about "sanitize" -- cutting microbial levels to a point where colonization is unlikely. In contrast, home canning requires sterilization which is a much more stringent level of microbe removal.

"Just rinsing something with warm water" doesn't do very much. In fact, warmth (up to the point where most people consider the water "hot") will increase microbial growth rate. You need really need soap and physical scrubbing (modest, not the kind that makes your arm tired) to cut the levels to something generally small enough to be safe -- this works because you've removed the "food" for the microbes as much as the microbes themselves.

The comparison to healing isn't a fair one, as living things generally have their own, active anti-microbial systems. Last I checked, cutting boards didn't have white blood cells.

Remember things in your dishwasher are things you ate off of. You've probably already exposed yourself to whatever is on them. (Cutting boards and other food prep things are the obvious exceptions.)

I don't know if my dishwasher has a sanitize cycle. I guess I don't care. It's not like I'm picking stuff up in the hospital and putting it in my dishwasher. It's MY germs. I already have it. Hot water and dish detergent have been good enough for me.