US Government Study Concludes: You're Probably Washing Your Hands Wrong (cnn.com) 179
97% of us don't wash our hands properly, a new government study concludes. An anonymous reader quotes CNN:
The study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows most consumers failed to wash their hands and rub with soap for 20 seconds. That's the amount of time recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says that washing for shorter periods means fewer germs are removed. "Numerous" study participants also didn't dry their hands with a clean towel.
The study involved 383 people in six test kitchen facilities in the metro Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina and in rural Smithfield, North Carolina, the USDA said... About half the time, participants spread bacteria to spice containers while preparing burgers, and 11% of the time, they spread bacteria to refrigerator handles... The results from the USDA's study indicate our hand-washing habits may be getting worse. A study done in 2013 by Michigan State University found only 5% of people washed their hands correctly....
A separate study released this month found 49 of 100 towels tested showed growth of bacteria normally found in or on the human body.
CNN helpfully provides the proper method for handwashing. (Wet hands, lather them with soap -- between fingers and under fingernails -- and then scrub for at least 20 seconds.) They recommend singing the alphabet song once or "Happy Birthday" twice.
Just in America, foodborne illnesses sicken 48 million people each year, sending 128,000 to hospitals and resulting in 3,000 deaths.
The study involved 383 people in six test kitchen facilities in the metro Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina and in rural Smithfield, North Carolina, the USDA said... About half the time, participants spread bacteria to spice containers while preparing burgers, and 11% of the time, they spread bacteria to refrigerator handles... The results from the USDA's study indicate our hand-washing habits may be getting worse. A study done in 2013 by Michigan State University found only 5% of people washed their hands correctly....
A separate study released this month found 49 of 100 towels tested showed growth of bacteria normally found in or on the human body.
CNN helpfully provides the proper method for handwashing. (Wet hands, lather them with soap -- between fingers and under fingernails -- and then scrub for at least 20 seconds.) They recommend singing the alphabet song once or "Happy Birthday" twice.
Just in America, foodborne illnesses sicken 48 million people each year, sending 128,000 to hospitals and resulting in 3,000 deaths.
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Congratulations! You win "Idiotic Dick of the Day" for Jun 30th, 2018 Tune back in tomorrow to see if you win "Idiotic Dick of the Month".
Good luck, I am pulling for you!
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Americans are dirty disgusting creatures. The amount of times I've seen them come out of the washroom and not wash their hands is terrible. ...Terrible disgusting animals, and overweight too.
What sort of backwards place do you live in where washing facilities are placed outside of the room designated for washing?! Oh, right, I remember this one from the Sochi Olympics! You've got cameras inside the "washroom," you must be Russian!
Of course we're "over"-weight, we can afford food other than beets and potatoes.
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I would remind you that like me, CNN and Pelosi are Americans and are thus disgusting animal landwhales.
Re: Huh (Score:2)
It's because of the environment they are both stored in.
Honey is sealed in wax in a hive, and this has no access to air. It does have a natural anti-bacterial agent in it too. No oxygen and no bacteria means it can't spoil.
Jam, when made, is stored in air-tight sterile (boiled, typically) jars, typically while the jam is still very hot (so it can be poured into the jar before it sets). Again, no oxygen, and no bacteria, so it won't spoil.
Leave a jar of jam open out of the fridge and it'll spoil in a few
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You really don't need to refrigerate a lot of things. Mayonnaise (really), mustard, ketchup, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, fish sauce, salsas... most condiments and toppings are perfectly safe if you don't contaminate them with bits of bread, chips, pasta, etc. Refrigeration slows oxidatio
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This is idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
Our environments should be clean, not sterile. We have defenses, evolved over millions of years, in place specifically for handling these things. Unless you're immuno-compromised, going into surgery, or work in a restaurant, there's no reason to not allow your immune system to do its job.
Re: This is idiotic (Score:2, Insightful)
You are wrong.
Washing hands does not make the world sterile. It makes sure that the tools you were born with are clean enough to rub your eyes, scratch your skin or put food in your mouth.
Generally, your hands may be clean enough. But, when you go to the bathroom, wash your hands. Touch raw meat, wash your hands. Shake hands with someone whose hygiene practices you do not know, wash your hands.
Some things can make you very sick. Fecal bacteria is one of those things.
I agree that we don't need a sterile worl
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But, when you go to the bathroom, wash your hands. Touch raw meat, wash your hands. Shake hands with someone whose hygiene practices you do not know, wash your hands.
How about opening a door ? Moving a chair ? Turning off the light in the bathroom after you wash your hands ? Buying a snack from a vending machine ?
Some things can make you very sick. Fecal bacteria is one of those things.
Yes, they *can*. Most of the time, they don't.
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Washing your hands is good. The practice they are recommending is what is recommended for medical professionals on the job...and not usually followed by them.
There are good reasons to NOT wash your hands that thoroughly. Doing so is likely to damage the skin, leading to rough and cracked skin that literally cannot be washed thoroughly. Most medical practices now recognize this, and I believe that the use of thin plastic gloves rather than depending on excessive hand washing is now uniformly the practice.
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I wouldn't do that. [newnownext.com]
You can only get a parasite from someone who has parasites
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Then those restrooms end up migrating to air drying machines and removing paper towels and its an inward opening door.
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The point isn't that you should worry about regular bacteria, it is that if they had something contagious on their hands it would spread by the same amount as the regular harmless stuff. They're not going to infect volunteers with salmonella to do the test!
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there's no reason to not allow your immune system to do its job.
You know the way the immune system does it's job right? You're at home in bed coughing running a fever. Just because you're not immunocompromised doesn't mean you should tongue kiss every diseased person out there.
Wash your hands you dirty grub.
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Washing you hands in dirty water is pretty pointless and the US has some of the shitiest water in the entire developed world, really, really bad. Lead, fracking chemicals, pesticides, all sorts of infectious agents, reality want to clean you hands properly. First get in a car, drive across the Canadian border and wash you hands in a much cleaner water supply, the Canadian water supply and then return. No matter how fucking hard you try, you are not washing you hands clean in the typically contaminated US wa
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Washing you hands in dirty water is pretty pointless.
Wow, found someone who doesn't know what soap is.
the US has some of the shitiest water in the entire developed world, really, really bad. Lead, fracking chemicals, pesticides, all sorts of infectious agents
The US has quite average water and is borderline poison in some places, but infectious agents? Get a grip man. Even in 3rd world shitholes (actual shitholes, not Trump shitholes) you're better off washing your hands than not.
Let me guess, you don't shower either?
allergies (Score:5, Informative)
Studies have shown that excessive cleanliness increases chances of developing allergies.
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Studies have shown that excessive cleanliness increases chances of developing allergies.
Only in the first few months of life. After that, it doesn't matter.
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and the first few years.
Nope. There is no evidence for that. In fact, the first few days seem to be the most important. C-section babies have more autoimmune disorders later in life, likely because they are not exposed to bacteria and fungi in the birth canal. Breastfeeders have less problems, likely because they ingest beneficial skin flora from their mothers.
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Proof that asbestos causes cancer does nothing to prove that cigarettes don't. Please check your logic.
Let me help you apply that: Proof that a lack of exposure to the environment in early development causes allergies does nothing to suggest that excessive cleanliness later in life is harmless. In fact, I daresay it's a very strong indicator of the opposite.
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Studies have shown that excessive cleanliness increases chances of developing allergies.
There's a big difference between excessive cleanliness and washing your hands properly.
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There's a big difference between excessive cleanliness and washing your hands properly.
One can easily lead to another. Suppose you wash your hands for 20 seconds, as described. And then you pick your phone out of your pocket and start playing with it. How long would it take before your hands have the bacteria level of a 5 second wash ?
Really, if you think 5 seconds isn't good enough, then you should be washing your hands again at that point. Plus you should wipe your phone. And the inside of your pockets, and your belt buckle, and your wallet....
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How long would it take before your hands have the bacteria level of a 5 second wash ?
Imagine having a 5 second was combined with your phone. Speaking of bacteria level where did you get your phone from? Your soft tissue pocket that was rubbing against your screen?
The odds of you picking up something from a device only you use and that spends it's time against fabric (bacteria survive best on solid warm surfaces with moisture) are quite low compared to something like shaking someone's hand.
Plus you should wipe your phone.
You should understand the exposure and transmission of disease. I didn't just come up, wipe my snotty n
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And I still get sick with all the pollens, dusts, etc. even when not cleaned. :(
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Studies have show that /. isn't the place to promote good hygiene.
Go back to eating your cheetos and wiping them off on your week old underwear.
Ewwww.
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and the "solution" is to put lots of lotion on, which gets grease and grime all over everything, creating germ risk elsewhere.
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I'm a fastidious almost OCD hand-washer, my hands don't dry out and crack.
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That wouldn't do it. I suspect the gp uses a "soap" that's got a lot of oil in it. A *lot*. I'm dubious about how clean such soaps get you. But if he's a compulsive hand washer that may be the best choice he has, and just by itself warm water helps a lot.
Well (Score:5, Insightful)
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Expecting people to do this perfect hand washing doesn't seem to be working, from a systems perspective.
The systems work against us, especially in America. One easy way to reduce the spread of disease, give people sickleave completely independent from their holiday leave, and tell them to stay the heck away from others. The problem with relying on washing from hands is that only works if you live and work in a bathroom. Normal people will do things while suffering from a viral infection like sneeze, cough, use their computer, touch doorknobs, god forbid rub their nose, and then they will walk up and shake you
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We already have a system in place. It's used by medical professionals. It's called alcohol gel.
Very handy for being many places in the world that expect you to wash with cold water or don't have an acceptable means to dry yourself.
Even places that are over hyped in the kind of America bashing videos that George Takei shares have places that don't cut the mustard.
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Are you a medical professional? Do you know how then sanitize their hands? Apparently not.
First you wash your hands using water and soap THEN apply alcohol based desinfectant (not gel). Alcohol gel is the household product companies sell to ordinary customers. Nothing wrong with that but not what they use in hospitals etc.
Also, if your hands are dirty, adding alcohol gel and smearing the dirt around will not make them clean, that is why you should wash your hands first. But sure, if you have no way of clean
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Maybe invent a box that people can just stick their hands in for thirty seconds, emerging perfectly washed.
Done. [youtube.com]
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Ooh, let me think this through for a moment. Should I believe CDC or are they in fact entirely wrong and I need to listen to someone anonymous on the internet.
On reflection I think I may need something a little more evidence oriented.
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Let's wait until the CDC actually produces evidence that everybody's average standard of life will improve, rather than just doing a bacteria count.
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Not sure it's the kind of thing you want to be doing every 5 minutes daily.
Sterile environments are not good for you (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't wipe your ass and eat the finger food without washing your hands, but if you always wash like you're preparing for doing surgery, you're going to do more damage than good.
RIAA immediately sues everyone (Score:1, Funny)
For uncompensated public performances of copyrighted music.
Alphabet singing (Score:1)
Just remember next time an immaculately dressed gentlemen sings the alphabet next to you in a Branson gas station restroom while knowingly eyeing your back as you empty your bladder, he's definitely not aiming to cut out your liver out and cook it in front of you, watching you die a horrible death.
He's just practicing the USDA approved method for washing one's hands.
Is it worth it? (Score:5, Interesting)
How much time per year do I lose to foodborn illnesses?
How much time would I lose due to washing my hands for 20+ seconds at a time after every use of the toilet?
Off topic, but my grandmother said that when she installed a dishwasher, her family stopped catching diseases from each other. Presumably the dishwasher used hotter water than hand washing, and also washed more thoroughly. Now that's a cleanliness method which actually SAVES time and effort!
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Fortunately by ignoring people like you things like cholera are causing problems to a dozen people a year in the US instead of killing several tens of thousands.
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Re:Is it worth it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm curious to know what percentage of foodborne illnesses are caused by "didn't wash hands" and what percentage are caused by "saved money someplace in the food supply chain."
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I see examples of both in the news every year, and they only report it when there are lots of sick people.
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I will wager that the former is far higher than the latter, but then also completely dwarved by negligence, ignorance and the occasional stupid mistake completely unrelated to money.
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I'm curious to know what percentage of foodborne illnesses are caused by "didn't wash hands" and what percentage are caused by "saved money someplace in the food supply chain."
"didn't wash hands" = "saved money someplace in the food supply chain"
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My mother said the same thing when our family got its dishwasher. It might have been the chlorine bleach that's present in dishwashing detergent.
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That said, I don't know that I've ever gotten a GI illness from a family member. Always
The US government apparantly... (Score:2)
... does not wash their hands on this subject: telling us how to maintain our hygiene.
Well, they should lead by good example; please wash your hands!
Oh, wait...
If you work in government... (Score:1)
They recommend singing the alphabet song once or "Happy Birthday" twice.
That explains all the fake happy people at work these days.
Of course (Score:2, Insightful)
Because if you weren't doing it wrong, you wouldn't need the government or their experts or their journalist friends to lecture you. And then what would those people do?
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Yes, why would the government study how germs move from your butt to my plate of food in a restaurant. How is that in the mission statement of the Center for Disease Control?
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North Carolina (Score:1)
Is it really front-page news that people in red states don't know how to wash their hands?
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Politics aside; this is still front-page news about people not knowing how to wash their hands. Front. Page. News. Let alone Slashdot.
???
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the holes you shit from
Wait, there's more than one? I must be doing it wrong.
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Yeah, Raleigh is a pretty nice city with some excellent, if inauthentic BBQ. But there are still enough Trump voters in the region to skew the averages way down.
Yes, that was my point, although California is not the only civilized part of the US. There's also New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, etc.
So the fellow from Yale (Score:3)
and the fellow from Harvard were in the lavatory and both used the urinal. The fellow from Yale zipped up and prepared to leave. The fellow from Harvard proceeded to wash his hands and said, "At Harvard they teach is to wash our hands after urinating." The fellow from Yale replied, "At Yale they teach us not to urinate on our hands."
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As funny as it might seem, the guy who did not wash his hands will leave his germs at the door knob.
The guy who did, will get them, regardless of having washed his hands before.
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I've seen handwashing protocols which recommend leaving the bathroom by using a paper towel in hand when opening the door, propping the door with a foot, throwing out the towel, and then leaving.
I think those showed up at work (an airport) when there was one of those international travel scares.
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Yup, that's me. I try to avoid touching anything at all with my bare hands in a public restroom -- not the door, not the faucets, not the paper towel dispenser, and for the love of Leeuwenhoek not any part of the toilet.
I start by pushing the door open with my foot, although since I'll be washing my hands afterwards (and presumably most people who pull on the outside of a bathroom door do so before their hands have become factories for fecal bacteria) I'll allow for pull-to-enter doors. Once inside, I use a
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My daughter was born three months early - so we spent a lot of time at the hospital early on. That’s where I first learned the whole “use a paper towel to turn off the water and open the door” shtick - I’d never heard any of that before.
(This was back in the 1990s.)
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and the fellow from Harvard were in the lavatory and both used the urinal. The fellow from Yale zipped up and prepared to leave. The fellow from Harvard proceeded to wash his hands and said, "At Harvard they teach is to wash our hands after urinating." The fellow from Yale replied, "At Yale they teach us not to urinate on our hands."
One can recognize the chemist by virtue of them washing hands before using the urinal.
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and the fellow from Harvard were in the lavatory and both used the urinal. The fellow from Yale zipped up and prepared to leave. The fellow from Harvard proceeded to wash his hands and said, "At Harvard they teach is to wash our hands after urinating." The fellow from Yale replied, "At Yale they teach us not to urinate on our hands."
Where do people go to learn that urine isn't the problem?
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Unless you have a urinary tract infection, pee is rather sterile. In fact, urine is the recommended first aid to jellyfish stings, given its ammonia content and relative sterility in places with no running water. The main reason to wash your hands is gut bacteria that spread themselves around the skin down there.
My pet pee-ve about public restrooms is the ordering of (1) do your thing, (2) zip up, (3) wash your hands. Specifically, stage 2 before 3. I'd rather not use my clothes as a germ wipe, but I fee
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Compliance should be improving now (Score:2)
They recommend singing the alphabet song once or "Happy Birthday" twice.
Luckily, due to recent court rulings, you no longer owe royalties for singing while you wash your hands. Because of these lower costs, from now on more people will have cleaner hands.
Blame Ron Perlman. (Score:2)
So people don't go pissing on your hands before greeting people.
Foodborne shmoodborne (Score:2)
I've had probable food poisoning once in 40 years. As it was Mexican, it's probable it was salmonella. This germophobia is completely an overreaction and puts the immune system on hold with no real defense for something real.
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I've had probable food poisoning once in 40 years. As it was Mexican, it's probable it was salmonella.
You don't eat out much, do you? Food poisoning is a lot more common than most people think. It's virtually always either food cross-contamination (either touching things and then not hand washing, or storing food incorrectly) or contamination with fecal matter due to failure to wash hands correctly, or at all.
This germophobia is completely an overreaction and puts the immune system on hold with no real defense for something real.
Good luck with that, sport. In reality, there's too many different strains of E.Coli, shigella &c; for you to resist them all.
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119 reviews on Zomato say you've no idea what you're talking about.
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You don't eat out much, do you? Food poisoning is a lot more common than most people think.
Washing my hands won't help if the bacteria are already in the food.
I don't want all the germs removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Removing all germs is why more and more people get sick so often. They're so germophobic their bodies don't develop immunity to minor bugs, let alone the bigger ones. These are the same people who run to the doctor when they have a sniffle and demand an antibiotic which is why we are beginning to see antibiotic-resistant bacteria [cbsnews.com].
The best thing a child can do when growing up is eat two pounds of dirt [time.com].
NOTE: this does not mean I don't wash my hands after using the restroom or that people who handle food should not wash their hands. I'm only saying that building up an immunity would go a long way to helping mitigate outbreaks.
Soap (Score:2)
Do they comment on the use, or non-use, of anti-bacterial soaps?
Various sources say to never use anti-bacterial soap (including Dr House!), but I'm not sure if I've seen a definitive study on it.
I tend to use whatever is sold in the shop (which, for liquid soap at least, is likely anti-bacterial).
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Your Belt (Score:2)
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Your phone is probably the most disgusting thing around. How many people play on their phone while in the bathroom, wash their hands, and then play on the phone again ?
I'd be happy ... (Score:3)
I'm familiar with the discussion about over-washing. Many of those germs are actually good for you. But come on, what's worse than an unsanitary public restroom?
20 seconds? Beyond OCD... (Score:1)
everyone? (Score:2)
If I'm not about to prepare food, and if I don't suck my thumb, and if I have a normal immune system, what diff does it make?
Just wash them. (Score:1)
I'd be happy if they would just wash them in the first place.
Seems like a lot of WHITE MEN are not washing their hands. I don't recall a black, asian men not washing their hands after crapping! Just white men.
I politely remind them... then not so politely. WASH YOUR HANDS MAN! NOBODY WANTS YOUR CRAP. I DON'T CARE HOW CAREFUL YOU WERE, THERE IS CRAP ON THEM. Seems like they're all liberals.
Dumbasses.
Wasted time is worse than wasted lifes (Score:1)
300 million people washing their hand 5 times a day 30 seconds (20 seconds with soap, 10 seconds to wash off the soap) = 1427 year of time wasted on hand washing every day. Per year 521 000 year are spent washing hands. If the 3 000 people that die from food poisoning every year expected life span was 80 years their deaths = 240 000 "wasted" year (not taking into account (a) that someone who is 40 years old when she dies only have 40 years left to live and, (b) people dying from food poisoning probably, in
Better Toilet Habits (Score:1)
I do hope that at some point the Western civilizations are properly toilet trained and understand that you can't clean your backside with paper. A very good experiment i read about some where. Rub your hands in nutella and try to wipe them off with a paper towel. Can you still smell nutella ? Water is the only solution . Indian civilizations had a very simple method of maintaining hygiene. Eat with your right hand wash your backside with your left hand. Don't mix the two....
Now that we have better soap if
i'm in the 3% (Score:1)