Posted on 07/05/2008 2:04:42 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
NEW DELHI: It's a simple act, yet most of us neglect it. We tend to take it lightly, sometimes dismissing it as unnecessary, little realising its importance. Yet, grandma’s advice about washing hands still holds true. Every time we scrub our hands clean, killer germs get washed away. Though various studies have established that washing hands with soap reduces the risk of normal diarrhoea by nearly half and life-threatening diarrhoea by more than half, very few people take this seriously.
In fact, a study conducted in West Bengal and Tripura last year found that only 49% washed their hands after using the toilet, and 38% before eating food. The percentage was even less for those who washed either before preparing (30%) or serving (26%) food. Only 53% did so after defecation.
"Lack of proper hand washing and general cleanliness can get serious. Diseases like diarrhoea, pneumonia and acute respiratory and skin infection are common when proper hygiene is not maintained," says Dr Sandip K Ray, professor, department of Community Medicine, Khaja Bandanawaj Institute of Medical Sciences, Gulbarga, Karnataka. He conducted the study on behalf of the Indian Public Health Association.
Children are the worst victims of lack of proper hygiene. A recent study in impoverished urban communities in South Africa found that five-year-olds and younger children experienced fewer gastrointestinal, respiratory and skin diseases when their families participated in intensive hygiene education. Use of effective hygiene products such as anti-bacterial soap, surface cleanser/disinfectant, and skin antiseptic further reduced incidences of diseases.
Most people, says experts, wash hands for the sake of washing. Proper washing involves six steps and 15-30 seconds spent soaping. "But what we have seen in our study is that people barely spend that long and just wash their palms," says Ray. The correct way to do it is to not just clean the palms, but also the back and all fingers.
Interestingly, president George W Bush is finicky about cleaning after shaking hands. He shocked Barack Obama when they met the first time. Immediately after shaking hands with him, he sprayed a hand sanitiser, leaving Obama mortified. But as he later clarified, he was just getting rid of some germs on his hands!
Later this year, Ray will undertake another study in Gulbarga to understand the impact of lack of hand washing and poor home hygiene. This time, the study will observe how people touch their refrigerators, raw vegetables are chopped, raw meat is cut, etc. ‘‘People don’t realise how important it is to maintain hygiene at home. Lack of it leads to many deaths, especially among young children,’’ says the doctor.
At least 1.8 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases, 90% of whom are children under five years. In fact, the death of these children can be easily avoided by almost 45% simply by hand washing and hygiene education, says a WHO report.
Hygiene intervention can work wonders, as Ray found out — it led to 98% using soap after defecation. The need of the hour, as most doctors emphasise, is to maintain good hygiene. Certainly not a matter to wash one’s hands off.
Disgusting
urban legend ?
I can’t think of one good reason to ever visit India
If I'm ever in West Bengal and Tripura, remind me not to eat or touch anything. I hope these stats are a little better in the U.S. I'm really hoping.
snopes has nothing on it, at least as I phrased the question. Fight the Smears! ....errr.
Does anyone think that this is why the hand picked
tomatoes cause disease and death here in the USA ?
“It’s condescending to the voters,” said Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat.
A fervent nonuser of hand sanitizer, Mr. Richardson holds the Guinness Book of World Records mark for shaking the most hands over an eight-hour period (13,392, at the New Mexico State Fair in 2002).
Twinkle twinkle little star...
thanks!
Excrement occurs.
Wait a minute, I’m supposed to wash my hands after?
Great timing - it’s only dinnertime here in some parts of the US! :)
From a vaguely similar story, last year:
Men were the biggest offenders, with just 66 percent of men seen washing their hands in public bathrooms
and
Men's hygiene was worst at Atlanta's Turner Field, where just 57 percent of men were observed washing their hands after using the toilet at the baseball venue.
Bull scat.
Don't bet on it. I am amazed at the high number who do not wash their hands in men's restrooms. I have even witnessed doctors(off duty) who failed to wash their hands. Of course, even those of us who do wash have to touch the same door handles that the unwashed use. Sort of negates the whole thing.
Indeed, but this is not confined to the Third World. There was a famous study performed in the men's room at a major convention of infectious-disease specialists. More than 40% of those who had used the facilities neglected to wash their hands afterwards.
The dirtiest thing in the world is the handle on the mens' room door. It is covered with an invisible veneer of fecal matter. I always use a piece of paper towel to open the door after I wash my hands.
-ccm
I do use a paper towel if there is a door knob in the bathroom. I also try to remember to do that if I’m eating at a buffet restaurant—use a napkin to pick up the serving utensils that 500 other people have touched.
In India as well as other countries in that region, the hand , right hand for that matter is the eating utensil,
left hand for other purposes, enough said, both need to be washed.
I do that, too, when possible. That’s a trick I learned from my Dad. Not washing one’s hands is one of my pet peeves. They are nothing but inconsiderate slobs.
how about a straw instead of the supposedly cleansed lip of a glass ?
The entire world is turning into one gigantic pigsty.
Why do you think it’s just India? I worked at a hospital and right across from our office (in the basement) was the men’s room. One day it was out of paper towels and we kept count of the number of men who either came out wiping their hands along their pants or came to ask us if we had any paper towels. Most men did neither, obviously not handwashers. Of all the men that went in morning (about 50), only 2 of them came out with wet hands and requested the towels.
The places we eat at use styrofoam cups,but there really
is a certain danger eating out.
Um, maybe they'd learned not to pee all over their hands?
As an aside: Is it just me or does anyone else notice that during a TV episode or movie once in a while a character will use the toilet, walk over to the sink, turn on the water then splash his face first. I saw Mulder do that once on the X-Files. Disgusting! Wash your hands with soap and water first, THEN splash your face. Yuk.
Howard Hughes lives!
the urine itself is sterile; it’s the neighborhood the tool itself hangs out in, so to speak, that’s the problem
In an information age, this is an example of too much information.
Urine isn’t what you need to worry about. Urine should be sterile. Gross, but sterile. Especially in men.
It’s the other one that can lead to some rather unfortunate consequences.
Urine in a healthy individual does not contain bacteria.
It is truly amazing the number of people in the U.S. that do not wash their hands. At least the men....
You mean that those Mexican farm ownners and American farmers who hire illegal aliens don't give their slave workers a toilet break with washroom facilities n the fields???
I.m shocked!!
I.m shocked!!
it's not Politically Correct.{/sarc} You can't say that !
Filthy habits are ingrained in third-worlders. They obstinately reject hygiene as a “western” concept to save their pride.
What’s the deal with hospital personnel shopping in scrubs??
I figure they are either going to work, or just got off work, and either doesn’t make sense in a grocery store or exposure in public??
Urine in healthy individuals is in fact sterile, but not everybody is healthy, it should be noted.
Germs like telephones/cell phones, door knobs, fridge doors, countertops.
On the other hand, I knew a well-to-do only child who grew up and ran a successful business but died of some obscure disease. The thinking then went that he had not been exposed to enough germs or “dirt” as a child and thus his immune system never developed well. There’s some truth to the “if it don’t kill ya, it makes ya stronger” in any case.
“Honey, don’t ever question my judgement again. I told you I don’t want Indian food, ever, OK?”
But does urine stay sterile?
When I read "urine is sterile, at least in healthy people" (and do you want to bet that everyone who uses the bathroom is healthy down there? :þ) I'm always reminded of 6th-grade science class. That's where I learned about germ theory and long-ago experiments, involving sterile broth that soon became non-sterile broth.
Memo to self: Cancel all future trips to India and ME.
Oh wait; I never planned on going to those *turd-world hellholes*, anyway. Nevermind.
Well, one day he did.... a macaroon from a street vendor.....(he hasn't had one since)...
..He had dysentery so bad they sent him away to a hospital to recuperate...
The doctor treated him with arsenic in the AM, and mega doses of vitamins in the afternoon to counter the Arsenic....(or so he tells me)
I believe you. I work at a place filled with medical professionals. The women I see in the restrooms are fastidious about washing their hands, even if they have just gone into the washroom stall to straighten some clothing out and the toilet is not used (you can tell by the sounds). Then the women all use a paper towel to open the restroom door. They put a garbage can next to the restroom door so that the paper towels could be dropped into it.
But often I am standing not far from the entrance to the men's room, where the coffee machines are located, and I hear the toilet flush, then the door immediately opens and some doctor or male nurse comes out. Maybe they think their germs are special and they don't have to wash?
It’s one of my pet peeves too among a few. People blowing their nose at the eating table is another thing that bothers me.
That’s another thing I’ve heard too—you CAN be too clean and it’s not a bad thing for kids to get some germs into them. It builds up their immune system. I’m not super, anal clean but I do make my kids wash their hands after they go to the bathroom or come in from playing. And I wash my hands many times during the day.
Your crank is what’s dirty, bubba.
This moving story makes me realize that 53 per cent of dumpers don’t wipe, and therefore don’t feel the need to wash.
Nobody ever thinks of the menu, which was handled by a thousand nonhand-washers. I order my food, wash my hands, and THEN touch the utensils and cup.
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