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.

Comments

This is idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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 world, but a clean one is ideal.

Wash your hands!

Well

[cascadingstylesheet]

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.

Sterile environments are not good for you

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Of course

[Kohath]

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?

I don't want all the germs removed

[quonset]

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.