Who's Behind the Shower Curtain? 526
Roland Piquepaille writes "No, it's not Norman Bates. Instead, hundreds of millions of yellow, pink and white bacteria are hiding on your shower curtain. According to a study by San Diego and Colorado researchers, it should be enough to push you to turn the water off and to make you grab a towel. After analyzing the vinyl shower curtains from their own bathrooms, the scientists found '...about 80 percent of the organisms they found in the flaky scum were in the same genetic families as those known to infect wounds'. Sorry to leave you here, but I also have to go and buy another shower curtain, preferably a disposable one."
I call BS! (Score:5, Interesting)
What an absolute load of crap. That's like saying "about 80 percent of Germans come from the same country as Adolph Hitler."
What's sorely missing from this article is any sense of journalism. I know that's a passe' concept. But when a "study" like this comes out, stating the obvious in "OMFG the sky is falling!" terms, you should follow the money.
Who pays for "studies" like this? I predict if you follow the money, you'll find that this fine product is from the makers of Lysol [lysol.com] and other fine household products.
These would be the same people that supply "educational, informative" news bits to small-market stations that get run alongside the real news. I remember one in the mid-90s that described the horrors facing your family during the Thanksgiving holiday, and how you'd save their lives by using an antibiotic cleanser. Our old friend Lysol was prominently featured -- over and over -- but the company's likely sponsorship of the ad-in-news'-clothing was conveniently left out.
Or maybe I'm just another paranoid Green [gpus.org].
Re:I call BS! (Score:2)
So similar... (Score:3, Funny)
While showering one morning, our hero thinks, "This guy got published for looking at dirty workstations? Huh, I wonder if what's on this shower curtain in my hot steamy shower will get press, too?"
Re:I call BS! (Score:4, Insightful)
Godwin's Law, no more replies. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Godwin's Law, no more replies. (Score:5, Funny)
Any time Godwin's Law is invoked, the discussion will shift focus to Godwin's Law itself.
Godwin's Law Can't Be "Invoked". (Score:3, Funny)
Virg
Re:Godwin's Law, no more replies. (Score:5, Interesting)
From How to post about Nazis and get away with it [faqs.org]:
It's a real thing.
Re:Godwin's Law, no more replies. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Godwin's Law, no more replies. (Score:3, Informative)
The law simply states that the longer a thread goes on for, the more likely it is that somebody will mention Hitler. It's all probabilities -- in this case, Hitle
Re:Godwin's Law, no more replies. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I call BS! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I call BS! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I call BS! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I call BS! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I call BS! (Score:3, Funny)
And Mozart don't go shoppin' no more,
You'll never meet Liszt or Brahms again,
And Elgar doesn't answer the door.
Schübert and Chopin used to chuckle and laugh,
Whilst composing a long symphony,
But one hundred and fifty years later,
There's very little of them left to see.
They're decomposing composers,
There's nothing much anyone can do,
You can still hear Beethoven,
But Beethoven cannot hear you.
Händel and Haydn and Rachmaninov,
Enjoyed a nice drink wit
Re:I call BS! (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, Mozart [rz-berlin.mpg.de] is Austrian while Beethoven [rz-berlin.mpg.de] is German. Still many believe Beethoven is as Austrian as Hitler is German.
Look how devious the Austrian's are, they even tricked you when you tried to make a joke about them ;-).
Re:I call BS! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I call BS! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I call BS! (Score:4, Funny)
As is the current governor of California.
*DUM DUM DUMDUM!!!!!1*
Re:I call BS! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I call BS! Not if you are on Chemotherapy!! (Score:5, Informative)
By the way, we have found that the best disenfectant is bleach, sodium hypochlorite. Better than alcohol or Lysol. Don't apply to cloth shower curtains though. 'Also found that anti-bacterial hand soap is basically worthless.
Re:I call BS! Not if you are on Chemotherapy!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I call BS! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure Herpes "type 1" and Herpes "type 2" are almost genetically identical.
Journalism has nothing to do with it (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I call BS! (Score:5, Informative)
Did you read the next paragraph?
So while Lysol may have helped out some, at least some of the money came from a respectable source. Although, I hope this study didn't cost all that much to do.
Re:I call BS! (Score:4, Interesting)
Much less pourus than vinyl, and, since you have to wipe it down with a squeegee to keep the glass visibly clean, it probably stays much clearer than the vinyl.
Re:Or cloth. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I call BS! (Score:3, Informative)
But do make sure the washing machine is on a cool wash. Our neighbor used a high heat setting, and the vinyl turned into sticky gooey mass that has to be peeled from the washing machine.
Re:I call BS! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the story itself is pretty level-headed, it's the summary posted on Slashdot that is sensationalistic (I believe that's what you meant when you said "sensationalized" but I just want to make it very clear). The article says:
But the submitter cut the sentence when quoting, removing the qualification and making it look like the organisms found affect everybody and not just a specific group of people.
Another quote to show the article is quite reasonable:
The good thing is, now when someone is diagnosed with a deficiency in their immune system, they can be advised to use glass shower doors.
Re:I call BS! (Score:4, Funny)
You think 80% is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I call BS! (Score:4, Informative)
To the average person, it probably doesn't mean much - our immune systems are generally strong enough to fight off the majority of bacteria we're exposed to. To an immunocompromised person, it could quite literally save their life.
If it weren't for the somewhat mysterious nature of OIs, I'd agree with you - but anything that might help to pinpoint specific sources of OIs can save a lot of lives.
Re:I call BS! (Score:4, Insightful)
Once a week? Hell, I'm happy to clean it every other month!
Re:I call BS! (Score:3, Funny)
Was I supposed to clean my shower?
Oh well, at least I know it's got 1/7 less dirt than most showers, since I only shower once a week or so...
Re:I call BS! (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong. I don't leave chicken sitting out on the counter overnight and then eat it raw. There's a fairly obvious line between "not overcautious" and "stupid". By cleaning up the messes that culture bacteria, I avoid a potential point of exposure to dangerous levels of them. But, by not making an effort to utterly sterilize my living environment, I allow myself to be exposed to normal levels of all sorts of buggies, keeping my immune system on its toes.
I recently had my wisdom teeth out and took my antibiotics like the doctor ordered. Guess what? I didn't get a nasty bacterial infection, even when I switched back to solid foods too soon and got some particles of food down in the empty (and not quite fully healed) tooth sockets and didn't notice for a few hours.
Biological Alarmism (Score:3, Insightful)
>>About 80 percent of the organisms they found in the flaky scum were in the same genetic families as those known to infect wounds or cause problems for people with AIDS, cancer or other immune system disorders.
Let's not forget that potatoes and tomatoes are in the same genetic family (Solanaceae) as [gasp] Deadly Nightshade. And carrots are in the same genetic family (Umbeliferae) as [horrors] Poison Hemlock. And little Fluffy the Cockapoo over there is in the same genetic family (Canidae) as th
Not BS at all! (Score:3, Insightful)
What's sorely missing from this article is any sense of journalism.
This was a scientific study, NOT journalism. The study, albeit reported in a popular article, reports the facts. YOU are the one who sees a
Re:I call BS! (Score:3, Funny)
Ewww (Score:3, Funny)
Hm... (Score:5, Funny)
Article didn't have the information I needed... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Article didn't have the information I needed... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hm... (Score:5, Funny)
This propaganda is just what the powerful shower curtain lobby wants us all to think! We must stand up and fight this evil empire by making our own shower curtains from garbage bags.
Kill them. (Score:5, Informative)
chemicals (Score:3, Interesting)
Bleach doesn't bioaccumulate (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Kill them. (Score:5, Interesting)
Using glass shower doors instead of curtains is probably a good idea, though, and certainly a better idea than disposable curtains. (?!?) At a minimum, they're easier to keep esthetically clean than vinyl curtains.
Re:Kill them. (Score:5, Funny)
I do the same thing in my dorm... only replace shower curtain with toliet and bleach with alcohol.
Re:Kill them. (Score:4, Informative)
Unsurprisingly, this also works great for smelly sports gear that's washing machine safe. And no, I *don't* mean your PS2 controller. 8-)
Re:Kill them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Our bacterial friends are just insuring that the weak members of our species are being culled out. If you can't handle a little bathroom scum then, hey, better to not reproduce. Right?
(For the humor impaired, I'm joking...
Re:Kill them. (Score:3, Insightful)
Only 10% of you is you. The rest is not your cells!
For starters, when you go to the toilet to do the #2, well, 50% of shit by mass is bacteria! The rest, is the stuff you ate.
People should realize that without bacteria, you are DEAD. A horrid death at that.
Most of the stuff that kills bacteria is a bunch of bull, you just pushes them around, and you end up with feces bacteria on your dinner table (really!) after you clean your house.
Anyway, when humans will actually be able to a
harumph (Score:3, Funny)
Microscopic germs (Score:5, Funny)
i sure am glad (Score:2, Funny)
Good thing that I don't use a shower curtain (Score:5, Funny)
news for nerds? (Score:3, Funny)
I've been to the coding department.... and trust me, none of them are in danger of going near a shower.
but seriously, this didnt effect me before, its not going to effect me know. I might hit the curtain with some cleaner next time I scrub the walls, but thats about it.
Enough is enough (Score:2)
Simple solution - No shower curtains (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Simple solution - No shower curtains (Score:5, Funny)
that way, you're doing double duty.
Read aloud. I'll just let that one sink in.
Re:Simple solution - No shower curtains (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't that far off base. Standing water is a great breeding ground for mosquitos, and as we all know mosquitos tend to carry such wonderful things as malaria with them. So, it may be a cultural thing that simply developed as a self-defense mechanism.
Standing Water attracts mosquitos. Mosquitos carry malaria. Malaria kills people, or makes the very sick. Ergo, don't create pools of standing water.
On the other hand it could just be one of those cultural flukes that have no valid base in reality, kinda like Americans and tits on TV.
bacteria bacteria everywhere (Score:4, Insightful)
Naturally the rational solution to this is to start throwing away your shower curtain after each use. (!!) But wait, there are bacteria on the trash can... better start throwing the trash out after each use. And that icky dumpster! AAAIEEEEE!
Give it a rest. Unless you have a compromised immune system or are caring for someone who does, this is NOTHING to worry about.
Re:bacteria bacteria everywhere (Score:5, Funny)
Keep your shower Curtain clean (Score:5, Informative)
Cleaning Instructions: How to clean a shower curtain to shine like new [essortment.com]
hahaha (Score:2)
that's why (Score:2)
1. insert head in toilet bowl.
2. flush.
3. repeat as necessary.
for better results add shampoo/soap to flush tank.
and remember...you heard it first on slashdot.
They suggest glass doors over plastic.... (Score:5, Informative)
Time for some hardcore antibiotics (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this a surprise? (Score:2)
Of course we have all been exposed to so much of it the immunities are quite active and most of us won't ever notice.
Newsflash! (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously, this is about as non-newsy as you can get. Next we're going to find out that there's bacteria of the wound-infecting type just hanging around on people's skin. And telephones! Don't get me started on telephones. We might have to create an army of Telephone Sanitizers to save us from being wiped out by some manner of virulent disease contracted through the receiver of a telephone.
=Brian
Tolerance (Score:5, Funny)
hehe ick.
Exposure to germs (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't panic, this is called life (Score:5, Insightful)
Life is not about walking from one hermetically sealed clean room to another, there's all sorts of things out there that we interact with on a daily basis. Every time you breath, you inhale pollen, dust mites, various chemical vapors, and all sorts of organic detritus.
Every time you drink water, there's a certain quantity of dead organic material, traces of various excrements, and so on, even if your water is bottled.
We do not live life as individual colonies of humanity, sailing through deserts of sterility, instead we walk through a cloud of sloughed off bacteria, viruses, and other debris, and it's O-K.
Humankind has lived for millenia with these things, and for the most part, we've been O-K.
People lived before pasteurization, people lived before water filtration, people even lived before MOUTHWASH! And they were all... O-K.
The world we live in is much cleaner in terms of organic residue then ever before, and the legions of bacteria on your shower curtain have not spontaneously appeared out of the ether, so calm down, take a deep breath, and stop panicing.
It's just a matter of time before someone figures out that there's a correlation between good health and some non-obvious combination of bacteria and organic waste. In the meantime, let Howard Hughes-style cleanliness craziness pass you by and just live your lives peacefully.
Y'all are O-K.
OK is relative (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sick as a dog right now because I'm on day four of a seven day course of some disgusting antibiotic [rxlist.com] that leaves me nauseous and physically in pain, but it's all that's available to me now because, thanks to abuse of these medicines by our own medical system, this infection in my sinus (that had to be surgically removed) is immune to everything else.
Yeah, "humankind" may adapt, but in the process legions will become sick and die. FYI the infection in my sinus is a staph, and staph can live a very long time on things like shower curtains. So dismiss it if you care, just hope it's not your leg that has to be cut off when you contract a treatment resistant staph from simply brushing against your shower curtain after having scratched that mosquito bite you got last night...
Re:OK is relative (Score:3, Interesting)
The old Soviet Union used bacteriophages (virus which kill bacteria) to treat common bacterial infections like Cholera. There may be available that can kill your infection and most doctors don't think to proscribe them.
The biggest downside to phages is that you have to know EXACTLY what strain of what bacteria you're dealing with, but in your case it sounds like it'd be worthwhile to go through the process.
It's really a pity they don't have this s
Surgery is easy (Score:3, Insightful)
The post-op anitbiotic is worse than the operation, but it only lasts seven days. Ther
Re:Don't panic, this is called life (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, go back 150 years and you'd be surprised at the level of filth. A lot of starnge beliefs, like "getting your feet wet causes a cold" came from a time when any minor occurence that lowered your resistence to infection was highly likely to result in illness. I was recently reading the autobiography of Mark Twain and, at one point, he expressed guilt for having allowed his infant son's blanket to slip partly off on a carriage ride, resulting in the child coming down with something and dying. His daughter died at age 24 from meningitis, as I recall, and he himself nearly died from measels when he was a boy.
Personally, I'll take the shower curtain over anything the past had to offer. We got it easy.
Mumbo-Jumbo (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of silliness has lead companies to create all manner of anti-bacterial wipes and soaps, and while they may ward off the occasional infection, more likely it is just watering down our immune systems so that when an infection does strike, our bodies are unprepared. To me, this is just another blip on the mass-media Paranoia-meter.
I guess I'm pessimistic, but IMHO we are hell bent as a species on painting ourselves into a biological and ecological corner.
Re:Mumbo-Jumbo (Score:5, Informative)
You left out the most important part: the results. They found fecal coliform growing on ALL the brushes, including the two brushes kept covered in another room. It's also important to note what the bacteriologist said after he told them it was on ALL the brushes: fecal coliform is everywhere, so don't worry about it. If you're healthy, you can handle it.
What about the body wash puffs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What about the body wash puffs? (Score:4, Funny)
Umm... duh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh boo-hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans are designed to survive much dirtier conditions then we live in now, that's what we have an immune system for.
Infact one of the reasons why there's a lot more people suffering allergies these days could be that because we live in such clean conditions our immune system's got nothing better to do then go nuts over minor environmental contaminates.
my cat licks my shower (Score:4, Interesting)
I've noticed that my cat often enters the shower (after i'm done) and licks the water droplets. Recently he came down with a pretty sevire urinary tract infection (UTI) which ended up costing me a couple hundered dollars for an emergency vet clinic stay. Now i'm wondering if the shower curtan was to blame.
I'm sorry, but this article is absolute bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm sorry, but this article is absolute bullshi (Score:5, Interesting)
Bravo!
While we're at it, I've always wanted to see a field guide to identifying common household microorganisms. For instance, what (sets of) critters are responsible for the "pink ones", "yellow ones", or "white ones"?
Granted, there's no practical health value to knowing that, I've always been curious as to who's living with me. My curiosity was piqued by moving from one apartment to another, and noticing that where my "old" dish rack and shower used to tell me I was overdue for a full-blown bleaching by accumulating visible yellow stuff in the corner, my "new" dish rack tells me by displaying colonies of whatever the pink bugs were. "Hi! We've got a thick enough protective biofilm here that rinsing with water won't work! Nyaah nyaa-OMFG, IT'S THE SODIUM HYPOCHLAAAaauggh...."
Another bug story - the single-pane windows in my first apartment used to (probably still do) harbor colonies of some green-black mold that would slowly drop spores onto the windows' venetian blinds during winter. Ugh. I hated cleaning those blinds (bleach, paper towels, up-close-and-personal) myself, but there was no way to convince the landlord to do proper remediation of the cracks in the paint around the windowsill, because the landlord didn't want a "mold" claim on the building's record. If it'd been a house, I'd have fixed it out of my own pocket and never breathed a word to the insurance company, but the work required was too extensive for me to DIY and the landlord didn't want to hear of it. Fucker.
Anyways, whatever that mold was, it was badass. I first discovered it because some had dropped off the blinds and set up shop on the metal windowsill behind a pile of boxes that blocked my view of the windowsill for a whole winter. When I found it a few months later, the mold had etched marks into stainless steel. Not only was it badass mold, but weird mold. It ate metal (and presumably dust/skin flakes and other spores) all winter long, but it left the huge pile of yummy cellulose cardboard (the boxes) untouched.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
I for one... (Score:4, Funny)
That is to say, I'll remember not to dress any wounds with strips of my shower curtain.
What a dumb story.
Wonder... (Score:3, Funny)
Additional findings... (Score:3, Insightful)
(2) it took two (2) PhDs to figure this out.
(3) these are apparently rather filthy PhDs (RTA - the four shower curtains were all theirs).
You could have found this out for free at the next state science fair. Along with the usual assortment of cultured doorknobs, soap dishes, dishes from the sink, toothbrushes and hairbrushes, TV remotes and telephones.
Obligatory Dilbert Reference (Score:3, Funny)
"Maybe I could hug you every day so I don't need showers."
"Are towels supposed to bend?"
--Wally and Alice, this Dilbert [flubu.com] cartoon
Oh please (Score:3, Insightful)
So now I'm supposed to suddenly be afraid of doing something I've been doing my life without any ill effects so far? Sounds like a marketing ploy.
Damn scientists.... (Score:3, Insightful)
"There are more germs in your kitchen then there are on your toilet seat", seeming to imply that a toilet seat has fewer and less dangerous microbes than a kitchen sponge.
And now we have "There are lots of infectious, er, well at least they belong to infectious families, of bacteria on your shower curtain"
I'm sorry, but I can say that I've never gotten a wound infected while washing dishes or taking a shower. I can not say the same about cleaning a toilet. A word to the wise - if you have an open cut on your hand/arm, do not clean the toilet, even if you are wearing rubber gloves.
Anyway, do these guys really have nothing better to do than count bacteria on shower curtains and issue a press release about it? I'm sure whoever provided the grant money for this research is ecstatic.
This whole germ-phobia thing (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I think young people in America are going to be a lot more susceptible to disease as they grow older. As the germ phobes buy all these "anti-bacterial" products, it tends to make the developing immune systems in the children weaker because they do not have an opportunity to fight diseases at a young age. Sensationalist media like this doesn't help.
Re:This whole germ-phobia thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This whole germ-phobia thing (Score:3, Informative)
The reletively harmless bacteria gets killed off pretty easy by the bleach and chemicals used to clean the hospital (which is one reason why they're the reletively harmless ones) but the really tough bacteria doesn't die off completely and now has all this new empty space with no competition.
This is why some scientists wer
bacteria on shower curtain (Score:3, Insightful)
Things that matter more... (Score:3, Informative)
1) Those water filtering pitchers that live in your fridge (e.g., Brita filters). My family seemed to keep getting sick (colds, or sore throat) until we started taking real good care to clean the pitcher out regularly (dishwasher).
2) The pink stuff that can grow on your toothbrush (down at the bottom of the bristles). Yuck! I now *dry* my toothbrush off with a clean towel after use.
3) Razor blades! I used to get "shaving bubbles" under my chin and a rather irritated face until I dipped the double-edged razor in rubbing alcohol after every use.
I'm sure the shower scum isn't too healthy either, but heck, the easiest access microbes have to your body is through the mouth.
Don't kill em, just live with em! (Score:5, Insightful)
For millions of years our immune system has evolved to protect us from most of these microbes and until recently a satisfactory balance has developed that allow us to co-exist without too many problems.
Unfortunately (and probably driven by idiotic chemical companies) a new mindset developed in the mid 20th century which suggested we should "kill all germs" using whatever disinfectant or antibiotic was most profitable to sell.
There are a growing number of health professionals who now claim that our immune system is actually becoming weaker -- since it's seeing fewer threats. This would be fine and dandy except that bacteria and new pathogens (prions etc) are on the comeback path -- their ability to adapt/evolve extremely rapdily meaning that many of our chemicals and antibiotics are now largely ineffective.
In effect, they're doing a Borg act and already adapted to become immune to our weapons.
The ultimate example of this are the growing number of antibiotic resistant bacteria that now pose a real threat and can't be killed by even our last line of defence -- vancomycin. If you are infected by one of these, you and your immune system pretty much on your own and death is quite likely.
There is now also evidence to suggest that the dramatic rise in asthma is a result of our "cleaner living" and the reduction in bacterial and mould levels in our homes.
It's about time that we woke up to the fact that, with only a few exceptions, bacteria are our friends and pose little or no threat to us.
Even the deadly staph normally lives quite happily in our sinuses and other parts of the body. It only becomes a threat under unusual circumstances which allow it to grow at a rate beyond our immune system's ability to cope.
So, be friends with your shower curtain and learn to appreciate that by being exposed to its bacteria on a daily basis, you're actually doing yourself a favour by exercising your immune system to make it stronger and more capable for when it's really needed.
Re:Forget the shower Bleach your KB! (Score:3, Funny)
It's true. [techdirt.com] Or, at least, it was published as the truth.
Makes me wanna lay my shower curtain over my keyboard to type...