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US Government Study Concludes: You're Probably Washing Your Hands Wrong (cnn.com)
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.
"Just in America, foodborne illnesses"
Also known as being a sugar fiend and a fat obese whaleburger fuck, rather than washing your hands wrong.
If it has a sweet taste, don't eat it anymore.
If it has a sweet taste, don't buy it anymore.
Daily reminder that obese lardwhale fat activist tumblrinas leave the biggest carbon footprint in history, ruining our planet and our future as a species
-their weight forces more fuel consumption in vehicles
-their size requires more water and boiler energy wasted
-their anuses release several volumes more greenhouse gases than the average person, and methane is the most destructive Greenhouse Effect gas
-the clothing industry needs to waste more resources to create clothes that fit them
-they produce several volumes more trash than the average person thereby polluting both land and air several times more
-their lard clogged up and destroyed crematoriums in multiple documented cases, creating disaster for the environment and society
-their shits clog up toilets and create additional strain on waste processing plants
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.
Studies have shown that excessive cleanliness increases chances of developing allergies.
If you wash your hands like this they're going to dry out and crack.
We've known this approximately forever. Expecting people to do this perfect hand washing doesn't seem to be working, from a systems perspective. Maybe invent a box that people can just stick their hands in for thirty seconds, emerging perfectly washed. Or keep complaining about them being lazy and just keep letting them get other people sick. Whatever you prefer.
About half the time, participants spread bacteria to spice containers while preparing burgers, and 11% of the time, they spread bacteria to refrigerator handles
What does it matter if, in those cases where bacteria is spread, the test participants don't become ill?
"Look where my hand was."
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.
it's my bacteria, why should i be afraid of it?
For uncompensated public performances of copyrighted music.
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.
They don't have a shorter lifespan than non Christians for sure. There is plenty of scientific evidence to back that up.
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!
... 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...
They recommend singing the alphabet song once or "Happy Birthday" twice.
That explains all the fake happy people at work these days.
Goodbye, Slashdot!
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?
If you live in the boonies and only ever interact with your family and close acquaintances, that's one thing. It's what our immune systems were designed for, and your odds of catching something dangerous and/or terrifying are rather low. But in, say, NYC, you are quite foolish not to wash your hands thoroughly. Just imagine all the other exotic people who have touched that subway post...
Is it really front-page news that people in red states don't know how to wash their hands?
You are welcome on my lawn.
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."
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Remember that the next time you stick out your paw and expect me to shake it.
There's nothing wrong with washing hands, but an hour after you do that, the germs are back.
At one time I got sick (cold or flu) about twice a year. Then, after reading some article, I started consciously trying to never touch my face with my hands. You may think this is easy, but it's hard. People do it all day long without realizing it. At first I would catch my hand going up to my face, and twist it so that the back of the hand landed. Eventually, I quit touching altogether. Haven't had cold or flu in maybe 6-7 years, except for once this past winter (and I think I remember touching my face to cause it).
It's demoralizing to see the state of handwashing hygiene. While using a public restroom I would hazard that fewer than half the population (of males at least) wash their hands regularly based on the frequency with which I see someone turn away from a urinal or exit a stall to bolt directly for the door. The slight consolation I get is knowing they grab the same door handle that every other non-handwasher grabbed before them. I, like many other handwashers, use our drying towel to grab the door handle.
Two postscripts. The Sierra Nevada Brewery's restaurant restroom has a footgrab specifically to open the bathroom door without using hands. I like that. Second, I recently washed my hands next to a person who was fastidious about it, putting my own handwashing to shame. A nice additional trick I noticed was that he operated the hand lever-operated towel dispenser prior to washing his hands, then just tore off the paper towel once his hands were clean.
Because you cannot be trusted to wash your hands by the correct book. Leave that to the professionals at your favorite eateries, like Chipotle.
Very scientific, indeed!
How much do you weigh and what's your height?
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.
The U.S. government. Who else?
He is going around pissing on his hands then shaking hands with other people. Stuff like that is sure to spread some bacteria.
So people don't go pissing on your hands before greeting people.
Good. That means we're building our immune systems instead of killing them.
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.
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.
The best thing a child can do when growing up is eat two pounds of dirt.
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.
To conclude all Americans are like this is a big flaw in this study. This and the other study only looked at specific regions, at best you can conclude that Carolinians are worse at hand-washing than Michiginians but a proper study has to be done across geographies which would show perhaps geographical preferences correlated perhaps with educational, occupational or other metrics.
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).
How emaciated are you? People with under weight problems tend to see healthier people as overweight. It's a mental/physical disease they actually culture.
I see an amazing number of people who don't even know how soap works. It's apparent they don't because they get some liquid soap on their dry hands, spread it around for a couple of seconds, and then rinse it off - as if the soap itself is some magical cleaner. Don't try to explain to them how water does the cleaning work and soap just allows it to happen, their eyes glaze over.
You have probably been washing your ass wrong.
They recommend singing the alphabet song once or "Happy Birthday" twice.
They should recommend just count two sets of one mississippi two mississippi ......
Your bandying about of "mental disease" makes me think you are a ProgLib living in the SF Bay Area If not, you should move there -- they are fond of calling everyone not like themselves "crazy" or "mentally ill" That's not to say you don't have a point, but it's a "perception" not an illness. As in obese people perceive normal people as underweight and vice versa. However, we as humans all have our biases, and having a bias DOES NOT make you mentally ill, merely human Frankly I wish people such as yourself would get some help. Maybe get out and interact with others, take up a sport or other social activity -- there's clearly something not healthy about your lifestyle and way of thinking about other human beings. It's like the guy that walks around all day calling everyone else an asshole for every minor transgression -- oblivious to the fact that he's the one that's actually the asshole Maybe you could start by taking a good look at your biases in every day life. It might help you relate to human beings better
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That I dont care what our government concludes.
You must be its TSA.
If you want the lowest quality for the highest price, just ask Uncle Sam.
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You wipe your ass, pull up your pants and do them up, then do up your belt. THEN you wash your hands. Your belt, pants button, and zipper are probably fucking disgusting.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
if most people flushed the toilet or urinal and tried to wash their hands in the store. Truth is, many of them just come in, do their business and leave - no flush, no washing. Then there's those that do flush but don't wash.
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?
Not even some people with OCD dry their hands for that long.
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?
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.
Did the study mention what percentage of CDC employees wash their hands wrong?
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 general, are old and weak, reducing the number of remaining years further).
In other words, washing your hands is a very inefficient way of spending your time if you want to use your limited time alive to do something meaningful.
The recommendations for lowering sodium intake are stupid. Many people actually get too little salt from their diet, but "common knowledge" is that we all consume too much of it. The purpose is apparently to lower the mean consumption, which looks good on paper but does very little to save the minority of over-consumers from potential heart disease.
What does this have to do with washing your hands? Well, barely anyone washes their hand by the book. But the question is, are the recommendations good? Or are they there to increase mean soap-on-hands-time? Should the 15-second-washers increase their scrubbing time, or should the 2-second-water-only-washers learn some basic hygiene?
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 we continue to follow this philosophy its much easier to keep things clean.
Linkedin http://in.linkedin.com/in/robinsaikatchatterjee
Just like the Jews want.
It's THIRD WORLD people who aren't washing their hands properly, including doctors and nurses from shithole countries like India, who are KILLING people because of their third world arrogance and stupidity. It's third world people who cause most foodborne illnesses, with their foul takeaways and food production plants. It's eating animal products that causes these foodborne illnesses too.
We are talking about people who come from countries where open defecation is the NORM. Who never wash their hands. Who dive into the Ganges to wash, for God's sake.
What a waste of Money!!!! What we should do is wash our hands of the ones who ran this study, fire them all. We've been washing our hands for thousands of years! I don't think we need some pencil neck in Washington telling us that we're all doing it wrong. What an idiot!
Two more tips for washing hands in a public restroom:
(1) leave the water running while you dry your hands (with a paper towel)
(1a) use the paper towel to turn off the faucet.
Why? Because your hands were dirty when you touched the faucet to turn it on. And so were everyone else's hands. It's one of the dirtiest spots in the restroom.
(2) use the same paper towel to open the door. Same reason, except worse: often times there are people who never wash their hands opening that door. Even people who have just pooped and wiped.
Ain't nobody got time for that. If that's how you are wasting your time, we're gonna have to dock your pay.
What's all this, "you're washing your hands wrong", stuff?
That's for Apple to tell us, Mister!
i'm a paleontologist by profession, and i can note that those who do indeed wash their hands "correctly" are almost ALL employed either in medicine or the sciences. The others (the 97%) don't feel the need. Who is right and who is wrong? i can't say, because i've also noticed, the human race is not exactly going extinct...