Don't Want SARS, Wash Hands After Wiping

IOL ^ | 9-16-2003

[blam]

Don't want SARS? Wash hands after wiping

September 16 2003 at 07:09AM

Chicago - There's nothing like the fear of catching a dangerous infectious illness, it seems, to make people do the right thing after using the bathroom.

A survey of hand-washing habits in airport restrooms found that travellers were exquisitely fastidious in Toronto, which has just endured an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Elsewhere in North America, though, people were just as slovenly as ever.

The survey, released on Monday, is the third conducted by the American Society of Microbiology, which has long campaigned - with little apparent effect - for people to follow common-sense habits of cleanliness to prevent the spread of disease.

The only bright spot this time was Toronto, where health officials harangued the public for months to wash frequently to help stop the spread of SARS. Ninety-five percent washed up.

"If this study had been done pre-SARS, we would not have been different than any other city. But it is nice to look so squeaky clean," said Dr Donald Low, microbiology chief at Toronto's Mount Sinai hospital.

Overall, the survey found that people washed their hands after using airport toilets 78 percent of the time. However, the society said that if Toronto were taken out of the totals, this year's figure would be about the same as in 2000 and 1996, when surveys found about two-thirds of people washing.

"Unfortunately overall, we are unhappy to say we have not seen a statistically significant change," said Judy Daly, the society's secretary.

The latest survey was conducted at airport bathrooms in August in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami and Toronto. The researchers pretended to brush their hair or put on makeup while watching and recording fellow travelers' bathroom habits.

'

Women are cleaner than men. Overall, 83 percent of women washed up, compared to 74 percent of men.

For reasons no one could explain, the least scrupulous were women at the San Francisco airport. Just 59 percent washed their hands.

The dirtiest men were at Chicago's O'Hare and New York's Kennedy airports. Just over 60 percent stopped to wash.

So why do people so often skip washing? "Busy lives," said Daly. "It just doesn't cross people's minds."

Daly, head of microbiology labs at Primary Children's Medical Centre in Salt Lake City, said the society hopes to drive home the clean hands message with a new website, www.washup.org. There, people will learn the society's recipe for manual hygiene: Rub hands together for 10 to 15 seconds using soap and warm, running water.

"That is an excellent, effective intervention," said Daly.

Hand washing prevents the spread of a variety of germs that cause common illnesses. These include the various cold viruses as well as the Norwalk viruses, which have triggered bouts of intestinal illness on cruise ships and are a common cause of sickness on land too.

The society also sponsored a telephone survey of one thousand Americans about their washing habits. The results suggest people clearly know what they should be doing, even if they don't do it. When asked if they washed after using public rest rooms, 95 percent swore they always did. - Sapa-AP

[blam]

The most frequently found contaminant on public computer keyboards is human feces.

[The Other Harry]

The other thing is that you need to try never to touch anything in public restrooms. Use paper towels. If there are none, you are probably safer not to wash.

It's fairly gross, but the germ counts on things like sink and door handles is not nice.

[mrtysmm]

ICK!

[firebrand]

What about that other study that found urine on those mints that restaurants leave by the cash register?

[EggsAckley]

My big phobia is grocery store carts. How many times have you seen young babies/toddlers sitting in those seats slobbering on the handles? I keep a bottle of that hand disinfectant stuff in my car, and before I even turn on the key, I use it.

[blam]

"What about that other study that found urine on those mints that restaurants leave by the cash register?"

I didn't see that one. I never take the mints anyway.

[The Other Harry]

My big phobia is grocery store carts. How many times have you seen young babies/toddlers sitting in those seats slobbering on the handles? I keep a bottle of that hand disinfectant stuff in my car, and before I even turn on the key, I use it.

That's not irrational. All you need to think about is someone who used the restroom just before handling the cart you now have. Given the number of times we handle shopping carts, the odds of that are pretty high.

[Age of Reason]

My big phobia is grocery store carts. How many times have you seen young babies/toddlers sitting in those seats slobbering on the handles?

LOL

Forget the slobbering. What about leaky diapers?

Bigger problem: Those shopping cart SUVs I've encountered lately, with the cute little plastic truck bodies for the kids to sit in.

They're road hogs--they're so long they're always in the way.

But I guess we can't complain 'cause they're cleaner because the kids don't sit in the cart.

[Age of Reason]

The other thing is that you need to try never to touch anything in public restrooms. Use paper towels. If there are none, you are probably safer not to wash.

That reminds me: One of the dopiest things is how people turn on the water to wash their hands, and then after cleaning their hands, they have to touch the dirty faucet handles to turn the water off.

This is not just a problem in public restrooms, but with any sink.

Just another example of bad design (which is all over the place).

It should be standard for faucets to either be controlled by foot pedals or by long-arm handles that you can turn with your elbows.

(And bathtubs should have their drains opposite the end having the faucets--makes rinsing the tub easier.)

[SouthernFreebird]

I wanna know who gets paid to sit in airport bathrooms and keep a headcount on who washes and who don't.?

[netmilsmom]

I never dry my hands on anything but my clothes. It comes from working in a Baskin Robbins was nothing but those roll towels. Yuck. Now my kids have picked it up.

[TXBubba]

And a warning to anyone who deals with salespeople. Make sure you wash your hands after shaking theirs. The one person my hubby noticed at his office that NEVER washed in the restroom was the company salesman...the guy that probaby shook the most hands. oooooo....just the thought is gross

[The Other Harry]

It should be standard for faucets to either be controlled by foot pedals or by long-arm handles that you can turn with your elbows.

That really should be. With all the other rules we have, you would think we would have that one. That seems basic. It isn't complicated.

[Judith Anne]

If I'm forced to use a public restroom, I wash my hands, dry with a paper towel, and use the towel to open the door.

If you are ever in the hospital, and the nurse and doctor do not wash their hands before touching you or anything that touches you, and then re-wash them before leaving, complain, and do it loudly. Most hospital rooms have the alcohol gel dispensers, which are very convenient, so there is NO excuse for not cleaning the hands.

This actually applies to the nursing assistants, the respiratory staff, the PT people, dietary--everyone. Standards can get lax in any particular location.

Gloves should be put on and discarded IN THE ROOM. No one should walk in your hospital room with gloves on. Ever. No one should help you to the bathroom, and then pour water for you without washing their hands. Patients need to complain. I hope everyone does.

[The Other Harry]

Gloves should be put on and discarded IN THE ROOM. No one should walk in your hospital room with gloves on. Ever. No one should help you to the bathroom, and then pour water for you without washing their hands. Patients need to complain. I hope everyone does.

I have been taking EMT training. Gloves are basic. Bodily fuild isolation.

They tell us that they are more to protect the the patient than to protect us, but it goes both ways.

[Age of Reason]

LOL.

I've encountered sinks in century-old office buildings with two faucets: One hot and one cold.

And each faucet handle was spring-loaded: As soon as you removed your hand, the water turned itself off.

Picture trying to wash your hands with that arrangement: first you scald each hand in-turn, and then hold it under cold water; then soap and rub hands together for a few seconds before your hands start to dry, then repeat, with alternate hands, scald-cold/scald-cold/scald-cold to rinse dirt and soap off hands. Good luck.


I believe in the old days they washed their hands by filling the sink with water and then dipping their hands into the sink.

Many people back then grew up without indoor plumbing and were used to washing their hands by filling a basin with water from a pitcher or from a pump.

So it must have been when they installed indoor plumbing, they designed sinks to be used the same way.

The faucets were designed to turn themselves off because people might leave the stopper in the sink and forget to turn the water off, causing a flood.

[Age of Reason]

And if there's one thing I can't stand it's facuet handles that are cylindrical with those concave depressions around the surface like a fluted Roman column.

What a pain to clean!

Faucet handles should be straight levers, which shape you can keep clean much more easily.

The problem is that in the U.S., women spend or dictate how 80% of all money is spent.

Not understanding the mechanics of things, their purchases did little to influence practical improvements.

That's 80% of the reason there are so many poorly designed things in a house.

Wall to wall carpeting? YUCK.

Would you take off your shirt and walk on it?

Talk about a dirt magnet--and when you spill something . . .

But my biggest pet peeve around homes is tile.

Tile itself is wonderful stuff for kitchens and baths--easy to clean and seemingly immune to water damage.

But grout ruins it.

Grout between tiles is the stupidest thing going.

Personally, I believe a kitchen should be stainless steel, like you see in McDonalds.

Same with bathrooms: And you take a high pressure steam hose to it when it needs cleaning--made even more practical by a drain in the center of the floor.

[Dec31,1999]

A thought occurred to me today: What ever happened to all those SARS patients hooked up to respirators? Did they eventually recover? And how did China overcome the disease?

[Billthedrill]

Yeah, I was wondering that as well. I really can't visualize myself walking up to an attractive young lady, clipboard in hand, and intoning something like "good afternoon, madam, I'd like to know if you washed up after you pooped?"

I'm thinking it would be a tossup between a black eye and a warrant for my arrest. On a good day, both.

[Dec31,1999]

Interesting you should say that. In Chinese apt. buildings, they have center drains in the floor for cleaning purposes; but that's what the suspected transmission route in those Hong Kong buildings was. Or was it Taiwan? Remember the cockroach theory? LOL!