I suppose this is obvious, but should a woman trying to get pregnant get a flu shot as well? Or are there any complications involving the shot that may interfere with conception and early pregnancy?

(Yes I sound ignorant; I am in matters concerning what is/isn't safe for not-yet-pregnant women).

See above, how I'm not a doctor. Please ask a doctor for a real medical opinion.

Speaking purely in a theoretical way ... if flu shots are recommended for pregnant women (and, incidentally, you won't catch the flu from the shot), I don't see that it would hurt.

John L: if she's already pregnant, she shouldn't (probably) get the flu shot, because it has thimerisol in it, which is bad for fetuses and other living things. Except sometimes they say women should anyway.

If she's just trying to conceive, get the shot.

Also, I'm not supposed to get the shot because I'm somewhat allergic to eggs, and it's in some kind of egg-white base. I get it anyway, because eggs don't send me into shock...yet.

Thanks for the advice; my wife gets a flu shot annually but this is the first year where this situation could occur, and I figured better to ask and look ignorant than not and regret it later.

... for as long as it takes you to sing one stanza of The Star Spangled Banner or two verses of Little Mattie Groves.

And just how long would that be, for someone who doesn't know either of those songs?

(Hint: world+dog != automatically familiar with American cultural tropes.)

While we're on the subject of Clean Things, take a good look around your kitchen, and especially consider getting rid of the kitchen sponge--or else microwave it regularly. Personally, I'd switch dishrags and dishtowels oftener than once a week, especially if someone in the house was sick--but that's just me. The people at that site are still convinced of the value of anti-bacterial cleansers, but I think their suggestions for cleaning with things like white vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and mild detergent are worth looking into.

Of course, the more people using your kitchen, or being fed from it, the greater the risk of passing germs around.

Still, your kitchen sponge is a scarier thing than you might realize, and taking steps to cut your risks there is well worth the effort.

Mary Dell

I understand (possibly incorrectly) that they've taken thimerosal out of all vaccines in the last five years - not so much because the amount in one dose of vaccine is bad, but there are so many now required for kids that they thought the cumulative dose might be a problem.

I had heard that you should wash as long as it takes to sing your ABCs or Happy Birthday. I haven't timed them to see if they're remotely comparable to each other or the Star Spangled Banner, however. (And I've never heard of Little Mattie Groves either.)

hmm, are people prone to sinusitis in the higher at risk group?

Mary Dell @3: Flu vaccines are cultured in duck egg albumin, as is the virus used in the TB test. If you are going to get the shot, please make sure you have an antihistamine (like Benadryl) with you. I found out I was allergic the hard way...

Charlie Stross @5: Sing "Happy Birthday to You" while washing your hands, it takes roughly the same amount of time as the songs Mr. Macdonald mentioned.

Has everyone forgotten how to Google?

The very first hit on Little Mattie Groves is the complete text plus a midi file of the tune.

The answer, for those who don't have Google, is fifteen-to-twenty seconds.

Charlie Stross @ 5: "Mattie Groves" is a Scottish ballad, and predates the U.S. by somewhat more than a hundred years.

How about singing one stanza of "To Anacreon in Heaven"?

... or twice through the ABC song/Twinkle Twinkle Little Star/A vous dirai-je, Maman or two verses of Old MacDonald Had a Farm. This is what they taught us when I worked at a hospital.

Be sure to pay attention to your thumbs, particularly the base(s) of them. I learned this from my father, who learned it while working in some nuclear facility.

Access to Google, I've got. Speakers, I don't have.

Okay, I do have speakers. But they're built into the case of my computer, which is deep under the desk and very muffled unless I put my head under the desk too.

Nice to learn that the ABC song takes twice to be effective. I never knew that part.

Here in Blighty the official line (from the British National Formulary) is that pregnant women *should* get the flu vaccine, but that it should be a thiomersal free one.

As to the Star Spangled Banner, I make it 55 seconds. So in English that's 1 1/2 verses of God Save the Queen, 2 verses of Rule Britannia, Jerusalem up to "Bring me my bow of burning gold" or two verses of Teenage Kicks plus the bridge.

Or Little Melvin Groves:

"Rise up, rise up," Lord Donalduck cried
"Ye damn no-good dopehead
For if I shoot ye where ye lie
I'll ruin my waterbed."

"I can't rise up, I won't rise up,
Now what d'ye think of that?
For you have got two wicked guns
And I'm a scaredy-cat."

"I know I've got two wicked guns
I bought 'em wi' my charge-plate
But ye shall have the forty-four
And I the thirty-eight...."

Since I need feel no shame at admitting to such geekiness here, I have just timed myself with the ABC song, "Happy Birthday*", and the "Star-spangled Banner" (as well as "Old Hundredth", because my grandma would use hymns to time things sometimes, and that one's a traditional timing song among us hillbillies). The first two run around 10 to 15 seconds, depending on how fast you sing them; the US national anthem runs around 45 seconds, sung at a reasonable, non-dragging pace; and, unless your inner organist is a real sluggard, "Old Hundredth" is about a minute long.

Each single verse of the ever-mutating "Old Time Religion" takes a tad over 5 seconds to sing, although I imagine if you were making up the verses as you went it would be slower.

So if Jim would care to give us a time in seconds, folks could choose a tune (or recitation piece**) to suit themselves.

*Original, not "Volga Boatmen" version.

**Sonnets, unless you have a lot of pauses for effect, seem to come in around 30-35 seconds.

I think it's also important to avoid touching one's eyes, nose or mouth. If I have to rub my eyes (yeah I know I shouldn't, but I have allergies), blow my nose, or something like that, I try to wash my hands before and after.

What we, in Middle English, would call "a Paternoster while."

Not only wash your hands but keep them away from your face or other's. Rewash if they do come into face contact. If you handle things like money which is a big time vector for germs be extra careful. Think of all the other hands that piece of cash came into contact with. Handling cash then food bad combo.

I need my timing in AGV*s. Won't someone think of the hearts of gold?

-----
* Average Greensleeves Verses

Had my flu jab last week (I'm a diabetic)

I also had the difference between flu and bad cold pointed out. If you see a $20 note on the floor and pick it up you have a cold. If you don't see the $20 note, you have flu.

Stay well, everyone.

Re AGV - I just timed one verse of Greensleeves, with chorus, at 32 seconds. A bit long for hand-washing, but not ridiculously so.

And the most important anti-infection tip I know: Don't have kids. Stay away from people who do.

If you don't want to get out of bed even for that morning cup of caffeine, it's flu. (I get flu about once every fifteen or twenty years. It's enough to remember what it feels like.)

fidelio @ 6... your kitchen sponge is a scarier thing than you might realizehuman

"It was of no human shape!"

26 ::: P J Evans wrote:
If you don't want to get out of bed even for that morning cup of caffeine, it's flu. (I get flu about once every fifteen or twenty years. It's enough to remember what it feels like.)

Apparently I've had the flu for years, then...

"I am not a doctor but..."

1. Anyone who has constant close contact with a high-risk individual should also be vaccinated; this especially applies to school-age children of high-risk parents.

2. Anyone who has persistant sinus or ear infections or a history of winter bronchitus (and a negative staph culture) might well want to talk to his or her doctor about getting a pneumococcus vaccine.

Time to watch The Andromeda Strain again.

You lucky sods. I get flu about once a year, and yes, it feels horrible. (I get colds about once a month, excepting for the first two years of my life, which I spent with a *continuous* cold and intermittent pneumonia. Why yes, I *have* had my flu shot... it doesn't seem to stop me getting flu but maybe it makes it less horrible. I don't know, I've never failed to have it and I don't plan to start.)

If there is pandemic flu, the first, best, public-health measure is to immediately close the schools.

If the local authorities don't do it, keep your kids home anyway.

"Soap does not kill germs."

How do you know?

I never get the flu. The last time I got it was... maybe 30 years ago. I never get anything more a a slight sniffle. I never get infections and I often have scratches on my skin. I never microwave my dish sponge either. Of course I use it every day and it rarely dries out and again, I never get sick or get an upset stomach.

I don't think you know what you think you do.

Washing and soap are only 2/3rds of the process -- you have to DRY thoroughly in order to avoid reacquiring germs promptly, as in on the bathroom door handle on the way out with your wet palm.

And instead of turning off the faucet with your hand, if it's a lever, you can use your elbow.

As long as we're discussing flu avoidance, may I humbly promote the frequent use of nasal saline spray, which costs fractions of pennies per dose and yet managed to help flush out the germ catching mucous so very efficiently, especially in the winter, when the air is so dry and cold and sinuses are particularly vulnerable? It's OTC, and you can spray over and over with no fear of overuse.

I'd like to note a couple things.

1. As noted, a pneumonia shot is also important. For mostly the same risk groups as the flu. You only need one every ten years, but if you're in a high-risk group, it can save your life.

2. When washing your hands, spend some time with fingers laced together to scrub the area between your fingers. You'd be surprised (shocked, stunned, etc) at what will stick around there when all else is clean.

noen @ 33: I suspect he's seen studies that involved either taking samples of soap bars to see if they contained germs, or testing to see if germs could successfully be grown on a bar of soap. A 30-second Google reveals only vague references, but I'm no good at searching for scientific studies.

Public restrooms often have only antibacterial soap available, which is something I try to avoid on the principle of not encouraging the evolution of resistant strains.

So is it better to use the antibacterial soap, or scrub hands well under running water without soap?

How do I know, "noen"? Well, try this (follow the links, too), among hundreds of other references.

Since I'm willing to sign my name and you aren't, why should anyone listen to you?

Remarkable how quickly the drive-by "Anecdotes are better than facts!" troll showed up.

What, not a single comment about OCD? This is obsessive as all h*ll.

Ursula -- I'd go with soap rather than no-soap.

noen 33: Hmm, you may be a driveby, or just a clueless first-time poster, but Jim is an EMT and doesn't post so emphatically unless he has backup.

Also, your long paragraph has absolutely no bearing on the rest of your points: it seems to be more a discussion of your immune system than anything else. I'm glad you have a good strong immune system, but that paragraph refutes 'Soap does not kill germs' exactly as well as it refutes 'Towels do not kill germs' - which is to say, not at all.

Now, if you washed the scratches on your left arm with soap, and the scratches on your right arm without, and the ones on your right arm became infected where the others did not, that would at least be an argument, though I would refer you to Jim's description of how soap does help you get germs off your hands, just not by killing them. (I do not, I'd like to emphasize, recommend that you try this experiment.)

As for song timings, me and my friend Lenore, we useta time our bread-kneading by singing "Beren and Luthien" (which we learned to a tune that's a distortion of "The Silkie" twice through per verse of Tolkien's poem). These days I tend to sing it to a bouncier tune of my own devising, and that wouldn't work, but I also don't knead bread very much...it evens out. Sort of.

>>for as long as it takes you to sing one stanza of The Star Spangled Banner or two verses of Little Mattie Groves.

Um. What? I'm from Europe, how much is that in seconds? :)

When I go to my floor's washroom, I don't push the door open with my fingertips. You see, there's this man who, after answering Nature's Call, never washes his hands. I bet you he's never lived with a woman. And he probably never lifts the toilet seat.

ethan 39: Yes, it does have the ring of "I always say 'Rabbit! Rabbit!' upon arising and I've never been struck by lightning" about it, doesn't it?

Jim D. McDonald @32, it's not just a matter of pandemics; in a normal flu cycle, even a vaccinated adult is vulnerable to infection from their sick offspring. Keeping ones kids home from November to February is fine in theory but, in practice, attracts all sorts of negative attention.

And, being the high risk adult in question, it's easier to get a college student with a high public exposure job to have a vaccination than it is to get him to stay home. We've discussed the matter of when to decide to stay home already, but at this point I can only persuade.

I've actually survived a flu epidemic already: February 1978, when the town of Pullman and WSU shut down with the Russian Flu. I've seen estimates that 65% of the population had the disease over a two week period. Classes were cancelled; at one point the radio station went off the air. There was a day or so when the only sounds I heard were other people coughing and the infrequent flush of a toilet: no cars in the street, nothing moving at all.

And that was a "normal" flu, remarkable only because of its high infection rate.

Anyone get the feeling this has been posted somewhere? There sure are a lot of dopey first-timers here.

We have noen, who is logic-challenged; Zeph, who's insulting, and Jurie, who committed the comparatively minor sin of not reading the thread before posting a comment (and which of us has not, I ask you). All on their first posts here. How very odd that they would just happen by here.

After the UV light test in the Food Safety certification course I know all to well what is on ones hands and the difference good washing makes.
The local stores always run out of inventory of the individual alcohol wipes which are great to carry around in the pocket.

Wash your hands before and after preparing food, after using the toilet ...

My Nurse Practitioner actually suggested before and after using the toilet, her reasoning being that if putting a germ covered hand on or next to a mucus membrane is unwise when it's your eyes, it's bad when it's your bits, too.

And thank you for another excellently useful post.

This post got Boing Boinged.

To add a bit late: I work in a hospital, Infection Control tells us 20 seconds. I usually sing the first verse of "Henry the 8th" by Herman's Hermits, though "Happy Birthday" is what is usually recommended as a common song.

I figure if people are sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, I want to avoid their germs. I also clean my keyboard, mouse, and phone on a regular basis. Some of the bugs people here harbor are scary. Can we say MRSA? ::shudder::

T.W @ 48

We did a culture, back in advanced biology in HS, of whatever was living on a fingertip. Staph, mostly, IIRC.

Oh -- for the experimentally minded -- culture the scrapings off a bar of soap.

Tell me again about how soap kills germs on your hands. A bar of soap is just going to cross-contaminate you unless the running water flushes the bad stuff away.

Things I Hate, part 1138:

"Liquid Hand Sanitizer."

I ran into this the week before last, on a plane. The bathroom sink was broken, and they put out a bottle of Purel or what-not. Apparently, you're supposed to rub this stuff all around your hands and keep rubbing until . . . when? Even if the stuff was a mixture of alcohol, bleach, and benzene I can't imagine the stuff actually getting your hands clean.

* * *

I think people have a ritual, or perhaps symbolic, view of sanitation. Effectively getting the schmutz off is less important than:

Application of purifying substance (dab of soap, hand sanitizer).

Performance of prescribed ritual (pouring of water on hands with two-handled vessel; dunking in specific river).

Interesting, the Real Deal appears to be a careful combination of these two.

Jim @ 53

Well, at least most public facilities use liquid soap in dispensers, which may minimize the problem.
I hate those air-blower dryers, though. And the alcohol-gel hand-sanitizers.

Last year Levitt and Dubner of Freakonomics fame published a NY Times article on hand washing, call Selling Soap. I loved the part where they culture the hands of staff members. Heh.

PS to Xopher: Looks like Cory linked to this from BoingBoing, hence the new faces.

I also clean my keyboard, mouse, and phone on a regular basis.

What's the best way to clean such things? Telephone cleaning wipes as sold in office supply stores, or something else?

Hand sanitizer gives a clean feeling, but doesn't get anything off. It smells like alcohol (and it should-- it's a less sugary jello shot) and it dries your hands out, so you must be clean, right?

In Microbiology, we incubated bacteria with soap. If the antibiotics in antibacterial soap kill bacteria while you're washing, shouldn't they kill bacteria during an hour-long incubation? As expected, not a significant difference. We also touched plates to see what was on our fingers, and then washed, then touched, then washed, and it was only after two washings that there was any difference. We ended up with more bacteria after one wash, supposedly because we'd stripped the bacteria of anything sticky. However, we also weren't supposed to wipe our hands dry very aggressively.

I'm another one that doesn't clean as well as I could. I've avoided illness seemingly by my own immune system-- that and washing my hands a lot. If you work in a lab, with nasties and chemicals galore, you get weird about that.

P.J. 52, Oh I know.
I and others round here have actually endured the food poisoning that comes from stalph contamination. Common and nasty. But god do you feel better once the purge stage is done.

Flu is rare in this house about once every 7 years now. I used to get sick every year when I worked retail. Seriously people if you got it stay home stop spreading it around to every one. The number of half dead customers at Christmas I had to deal with. Getting that photo frame is not worth making others sick.

Diatryma @58, hand sanitizer isn't intended to "get anything off", it's intended to kill things, so that anything left is "clean dirt", as it were. (My most common use of the stuff is while camping, when hot water is hard to come by, so it's soap & cold water followed by hand sanitizer). It is true that some stuff on the market (IIRC from a study mentioned in the news a year or so ago) doesn't have a high enough concentration of alcohol to be effective, but that doesn't mean that even the higher-concentration varieties are useless.

I fail to see the connection between hand sanitizer and "antibacterial soap", however, the latter which is (as you know) not only useless but actively harmful in the long term.

I work in an office with a fair amount of shared equipment.

One such is an old Sun workstation in a hardware lab. Many of the keyboard keys had accumulated black/brown plaques of dirt and skin oil.

Now, I'm not an especially fastidious person. I pick up dog shit with naught but a thin plastic bag between my fingers and the dump; I do not freak out when my dog, an enthusiastic consumer of cat crap, licks my hand. I clean up the bathroom floor without rubber gloves.

But there's something about a black-stained keyboard that I find utterly revolting. I still used it, mind you, but I eventually had enough:

A few months back I got a bottle of White Board cleaner (no ingredients listed, but it's a "combustible eye irritant") and some paper towels and really let that keyboard have it. The cleaner did a great job. I'm sure the shared keyboard still has germs, but at least it doesn't look like it.

Fidelio @ 6:
I always throw my sponge in when I run a load of dishes; I suppose there's no evidence of whether that works better or worse than microwaving?

A more general question: I got pneumonia last November; does that put me at greater risk of getting it this year? Do I worry about a cold developing into pneumonia, or the pneumonia coming on out of the blue. (Ha! Trick question - I worry about both. I'm a champion worry-wart.) I have a toddler at home, so the colds are inevitable.

Lexica @ 57: I use a two step process a lab tech I used to work with shared, I've never asked here at work (note to self -- track down IC or a Pathologist and ask).

Use a dilute bleach solution saturating a cloth, wipe everything down, the cloth should be moist but not dripping. Everything I have is hard plastic*, so the bleach shouldn't hurt it. Repeat with a Hydrogen Peroxide solution.

Her premise what she didn't kill with one would be taken out by the other. She worked with the toxicology folks, so I figured she knew what she was doing. Of course, now I'm wondering if she did. I'm certainly going to have to go and ask . . .

Thanks for provoking me, in a good way!

*Added benefit - I don't have nasty keyboard/mouse/phone cruft!

Any thoughts on the utility of germicidal ultraviolet lights?

I had 3 fluorescent lights, each taking 2 24" tubes, which I originally used to harden emulsion in a photo-process. When I was working with students in a small computer lab a few years ago, I rigged up something so if a student had been coughing and sniffling, I could expose his keyboard and mouse to UV overnight (this was unfiltered UV, and you weren't supposed to let it get into your eyes for any length of time). I don't think I could claim I was cold-free that winter, but maybe it helped some.

I've wondered if there would be any benefit to setting up something like this in a kitchen, run off a timer so it could run overnight.

Rubbing alcohol straight out of the bottle on a swab cleans keyboards really well and will not damage circuits if it gets in the cracks. Cheap as well.

Any Brits or Europeans (who don't happen to know Little Matty Groves - and why not?) might prefer the old drinking song that F. Scott Key was filking from in Baltomore Harbor one evening.
Too few folks who know it, learn beyond the first verse, which is a pity, even if rawther too long for continuing to wash one's hands:

To Anareon in Heav'n, where he sat in full glee
A few sons of harmony sent a petition
That he their inspirer and patron would be
When this answer came down from the jolly old Grecian
"Voice, fiddle, and flute
No longer be mute
I'll lend you my name
and inspire you, to boot!
And likewise I'll teach you
Like me to entwine
The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's Vine!"

The rest of the verses lie here on the shelf,
If you want for to sing them, go fetch them yourself:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_011.html

I'm not real enthusiastic about alcohol-based hand sanitizers (in conjunction with dry New England winter air they tend to result in lots of nasty cracked skin and split cuticles which promptly get very uncomfortable) with one exception:

Porta-potties.

I am SO GLAD to see that wall-mount box with the fluorescent goop inside it.

Cause, you know, portable toilets. They beat p'ssing on the walls, but not by much.

When I was a nursing student on a hospital rotation, the infections person told us that they had taken samples from the pump packs of antibacterial handwash on the wards, and found it full of bacteria: the mechanics of washing your hands is what gets the germs off. Warm water is better too, than cold. We were told to think of our hands as having planes, and to make sure you washed them all, sides of fingers and all (also to rinse off from fingertips to elbow, so that if any bacteria is left on your skin, it ends up on your elbows where you can't paste it all over Mrs Whatsit's open wound).

Re transferring bacteria from one place to another: I used to always lick a cotton bud before using it in my ear (I don't know why, but note I say "used to") until the time I had a sore throat, did it, and ended up with a painful ear infection.

Unfortunately, flu shots kick my allergy response into high gear. I got a flu shot, had a three month nasty head cold, followed by a year without shot or long head cold (I did get the flu), followed by a year with flu shot and three month nasty head cold. I realized it wasn't a head cold when I had to be presentable for a public appearance - and couldn't even reduce the symptoms with my normal flu and cold killers*. As I told my physician, I can deal with and subdue the flu, even grim flu. But a three month head-cold-like allergy reaction is more than I want to deal with.

I did get a pneumonia shot.

---
*Vitamin C, zinc, chicken soup, more vitamin C, etc. Massive doses of antihistamines pretty much does in the "I have to make a public appearance" thing.

Rob @ 24: That is cool.

Check out the UV Disinfectant Wand.

Thanks Jim - while my family and I are pretty hand-washing savvy, I didn't know about the bleach concentration thing. What about those "sanitizing wipes" for surfaces and whatnot? Any idea if those are at an effective strength?

As far as kids as disease vectors - my daughter hasn't brought home one cold this year or last, because the school is focusing heavily on hand washing, mouth covering, and using hand sanitizer in between. There hasn't been one 10-kids-out-of-class-with-cold incident. A far break from when I was a kid, for sure.

I wish I could say the same for work, where people cough, sneeze, and don't wash their hands to their heart's content.

Ick.

Oh, I forgot to say thank you for the info on soap. I had no idea... I'll pass it on to my collection of nephews, and mothers of same.

Tania @70: Thanks for the link! I would not have expected that UV was so effective that a 10 second exposure would be sufficient (though that may depend on the UV source, too).

Oh, I also wanted to thank Jim for the explanation of why to use a 1-in-10 dilution for bleach. That's the ratio that's recommended for cleaning bird cages, and although I've been willing to take the experts' word for it, I've always wondered why stronger isn't better.

It's my understanding, again from bird cage cleaning, that the 10% bleach solution should be used reasonably promptly, as it loses effectiveness if it sits for too long — so no mixing a huge batch and storing it for later.

And likewise I'll teach you
Like me to entwine
The Myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's Vine!"

Ever since learning this verse, I've said that this makes "To Anacreon In Heav'n" the eighteenth-century forerunner of Jimmy Buffet's "Why Don't We Get Drunk And Screw."

Two notes:

Alcohol hand gels are effective at reducing certain illnesses, but they should be at least 60 percent alcohol.

A study announced today says that MRSA is a bigger killer than previously thought, with 95,000 infections killing 20,000 people in 2005.

noen @ 33 - I'm a homebrewer. Soap does not kill anything. It cleans things, which is an essential first step in sanitizing things. Dirt hides bacteria and wild yeasts from the sanitizing agents.
Bleach is an excellent sanitizing agent, except that it can cause extreme off-flavors in beer, so you have to let anything sanitized with bleach dry thoroughly, or you have to rinse, both of which mean you have the chance of desanitizing the sanitized equipment. There are other, no-rinse, sanitizers, but they're either more expensive, or have other risks and tradeoffs.
Also, remember, please, bleach is highly reactive. Do NOT mix with other cleaning products.
Bleach also works best in cold water. Warm water tends to let the bleach break down faster. Not that it should matter to much in the concentrations and time it takes to wipe down the kitchen.

I'm getting my flu shot this Saturday. I'm getting my pneumonia vaccine in a couple of weeks. I have found the flu shots to be remarkably effective for the last 5 - 6 years, and because of that, I always get one. I can live with a cold, even, usually, function on a minimal level. (Answer phone, stare stupidly at monitor screen, drive, feed the cats and the dog, read...) Flu, not so much. And my cats and my dog all really like to be fed.

Actually, when you wash your hands, you should be especially careful to get the webs between fingers -- not just rub the palms together.

Be really, really careful about rubbing your eyes if you haven't been able to wash your hands recently. That is a common route of bacterial entry. (Naturally, an eyelash or two always lands in my eye when I'm working in the garden.)

And don't forget to ask your doctor or nurse if THEY washed their hands before attending to you. Lots of them think they don't have time.

Scary studies have been published about the bacteria count in physicians' neckties ...

I have a stopwatch feature on my cellphone, and using it timed myself "singing"* the Alphabet Song** at 17.5 seconds.

* Actually, subvocalizing. Not out loud. I'm at work, in a library, after all.
** Knowing the ABCs is especially helpful to librarians, although not as much as it used to be when we had real card catalogs, i.e. with real cards. (Even more so when I remember filing the d**n cards!) The thought of those grimy and even tattered cards and all the fingers brushing past them make me happy for computerized catalogs, though, in the light of cold/flu/other nasty stuff season.

Diatryma: the variant I got (in an introductory pharmaceutical microbiology course) was this:

Take three sterile agar plates.

Open one, take a thumbprint impression, and incubate.

Wash your hands with soap.

Open one, take a thumbprint impression, and incubate.

Wash your hands with chlorhexidine (or povidone iodine) surgical scrub. Note: not hand sanitizer, not disinfectant soap, but the stuff surgeons use when they're scrubbing up.

Open one, take a thumbprint impression, and incubate.

The unwashed print was a jungle after 48 hours; the soap-and-water print was similar. Only the surgical scrub showed less growth -- much less, but still some.

Bacteria are tenacious, and exponential growth with a generation time of 40-60 minutes mean that leaving even one bacillus per square centimetre means you're going to be back to a normal population inside ten to twenty hours. All disinfection buys you is time (which, admittedly, is exactly what your immune system needs in order to get on top of the problem).

Sarah @62: if you had pneumonia last year, your doctor should tell you to get a pneumonia shot this year -- if that is not the case I would ask why. I had pneumonia twice in four years, and it was definitely much worse the second time; now I stay up to date on the shots (the last one I got was good for ten years).

Oh, and now that I've read forward a bit, let me clarify. Hot water for cleaning. It's just the bleach sanitizer that should be cold, or room temp.

Another thing to keep in mind is that contact time is very important. Bleach takes a good 15 minutes to work at any reasonable concentration. That is, a concentration that isn't going to be corrosive or destructive to what you're trying to clean.

Where does the myth soap kills germs come from? Kill aphids yes but germs no. Soap is to keep germs and dirt from hanging on while you scrub and rinse.

How long did the MythBusters figure it takes for a dirty surface to contaminate whatever food falls on it? Five seconds? (Do you really want to eat that very last bit of cheese?)

ai! I have dogs. Big, slobbery, poo-eating dogs. I yam doom'd..

...

Seriously, though, who determined that restroom doors that open in were a good idea? Or those flaps on trash cans?

Ayse @ 82

Thanks for that; I'll give my doctor a call tomorrow.

Steve @ 77: Do you use the bleach for homebrewing, or one of those more expensive options?

I'm thinking of trying my first batch of beer soon...

JESR @ 46
Keeping ones kids home from November to February is fine in theory but, in practice, attracts all sorts of negative attention.

You're much better off farming them out to someone else for those months. :-)

I wonder if spraying your hands with some sort of beneficial (or at least, nonproblematic) bacteria would be useful in creating an ecological balance that drove out unhelpful bacteria?

In fact, you could genetically engineer bacteria that created pleasant smells, or moisturized, or some such... ;)

We just spent two months with no working bathroom*. In the interim we had a rented PortaPotty sitting in the driveway. The rental company's solution to the problem of hand sanitation was a dispenser for waterless hand cleaner. I used it just as something to keep between my hands and the door as I left; we still had laundry and kitchen sinks working, so we washed with soap in them immediately. I really wonder how often the workers who use PortaPotties regularly come down with diseases transmitted through them.

* They're working now, a lot better than before, and they look nicer, too.

An acquaintance of mine was diagnosed yesterday with real-live-hello-honestly-we-really-mean-it influenza. It's out there. Wash your damned hands. Thanks.

Ahh, Making Light.

90 comments in a little over 5 hours on the topic of hand washing.

Are we geeky, or what?

It is a public health action any one can do and every one can benefit from. The simple things can make really big differences.

Rob@64: Any thoughts on the utility of germicidal ultraviolet lights?

The emergency room nearby has them in the waiting room with big "Do NOT stare at blue light!" signs, which only makes me want to print up a sheet that says "Do NOT think of an elephant." right below it.

I seem to remember that the Physics for Future Presidents course explaining that ultraviolet light breaks DNA bonds, which means it kills bacteria, viruses, and skin cells, if strong enough.

And I'm pretty sure that bacteria and viruses can't evolve to be resistant to ultraviolet. Not unless they change to the point that they aren't relying on standard DNA organic chemistry. But given evolution's tenacity, I wouldn't bet the whole farm on that one.

Not sure how bright it would have to be to sterilize the air in a room or something.

P J Evans @ 52

There's an even scarier experiment that's part of repeating Pasteur's refutation of spontaneous generation: take a petri dish of sterile culture medium, lift the top off for 10 seconds and put it back. Wait a couple of days. The stuff that's growing in the dish now is what was floating in the air and managed to get into the dish in that 10 seconds. Rhetorical questions; how much of that gets on everything you touch?

Things can be UV-resistant, just as they can be heat-resistant, gamma resistant, et cetera. It takes work, though. Extremophiles are wonderful things, but they are not typically found on my hands.

I used to pick up colds at conventions. I started a program of obsessive hand washing (when at cons) and stopped getting sick. I suspect many other ML readers have had a similar experience.

Bacteria rule the Earth. You're not going to get them all, but do you want to? What proportion are actually pathogenic? Anthro-pathogenic, even (is that a word)?

Re the antibacterial soaps as menace: I was worried about this (and the antibacterial cutting boards) when they first came out, but I have seen some studies saying they do not cause resistance to develop, although they also aren't any more effective than bacteriostatic soap.

Re the alcohol based hand washes, studies on that showed that doctors had less germs when using those between patients than in washing their hands. I suspect it has to do with taking those twenty seconds to really scrub. It's still recommended to use soap and water for the bathroom and before eating, but the touching your face or other people the wash is good. (Remember to use enough to make your hands feel wet.)

Flu shots are officially recommended for women who will be pregnant during flu season; also for parents of children under 6 months old.

Having had pneumonia once is not a particular indication to have the pneumonia vaccine. On the other hand, it shouldn't hurt anything to have it.

Then there's the discussion of the proper way to use tissues (throw them away afterward) and to sneeze (into your elbow or sleeve, which is awkward the first dozen times you do it.)

The CDC website has a lot of good information about the flu. Including that the first few cases do seem to match up to the vaccine again this year. Also a page about thimerosol in flu vaccines.

For the record, I am a real family doctor, but please consult your own doctor for official opinion.

I got the flu shot last year. I got the pneumonia shot this year.

The flu shot did not prevent me from getting terrible, aching week long flu due to the pneumonia shot.*

ARG.

*which is not to say I expected it to, just that ... well. Shots aren't supposed to get you sick, is the general idea we're meant to get, right?

Everything in the Flu Pre-Pack (except the Merck Manual, but I'm experienced in evaluating my lung condition) is always in my condo.

I had my flu shot yesterday (Jim, you left kidney disease off the list) when I saw the rheumatologist for two new gout tophi (my uric acid has been normal for a couple of years, so technically, I can't have new tophi).

I spend most of my time at home, so I don't get exposed as often as most people do, but since I have lung damage, when I get something, I get to talk to the doctor, even if it's just a cold.

fidelio, #6, if you use cellulose sponges (as most people do), you can clean them in the dishwasher. I have a little cage thingie that's meant for baby stuff that I put light items in, and the sponge goes in there.

JESR, #29, I've had three pneumovax so far. And fortunately, my tetanus is up to date because I accidentally stuck a needle in my finger two nights ago.

noen, #33, we know soap doesn't kill bacteria because there's been studies and tests done. Feel free to use google.

Tania, #51, central Virginia just had a student die of MRSA and 21 schools in that area are closed to be disinfected. It started with a batch of football players.

firefly, #79, when I was checked by the resident after my vocal cord surgery (which is why I just count and don't sing) and he not only didn't wash his hands in the room but pulled out used gloves to check my wound, I insisted he wash his hands where I could see it and get new gloves. And then I reported him to the otolaryngologist.

Karen, #100, I normally use hankies, but the minute I get something respiratory, I get the tissues out of the closet and grab an empty bag and haul them around with me.

Marilee, I'm just about exactly 10 years out from my first pneumovac, and by that fact also ten years from my last major ear infection and case of "bronchitus" after having both every winter since childhood.

My school and work experience would probably been improved more by having access to that vaccine than treatment for my ADHD, and that's a strong statement of how much better my life is because of it.

Tetanus? I get those on the schedule recommended for vets and vet techs, because I'm living with horses.

What a hate filled reception. My first thought was "Wow, interesting blog, maybe I'll stick around." But you put an end to that pretty quickly. I'll never come to this fucking blog ever again. Thanks folks.

All I did was follow the link from boingboing and ask a simple question followed with a few personal anecdotes. For that I get shit on by the likes of you. You might want to re-examine this "making light" BS of yours. From over here all you are doing is patting each other on the back and making enemies of anyone who happens by. Way to take the high road.

"Since I'm willing to sign my name and you aren't, why should anyone listen to you?"

I wasn't asking you to listen to me. I wasn't lecturing you or anyone. I asked a question. Do you also not listen to "fidelio" and "shadowsong" since they also do not use their real names?

BTW John, I followed the link and read the CDC report. Nowhere did I see an answer to my question. What I saw was a lot of good pragmatic advice for the general population and slightly different advice for healthcare professionals. All of which was backed by research showing those who wash are better off than those who don't, more or less and with a few caveats, (surgeons shouldn't shower too soon before entering the operating room) and so on.

Here is the truth, soaps or detergents really do kill bacteria. They do so by dissolving the bacterial cell wall. This is probably not as important as the mechanical action of washing followed by rubbing with a paper or cloth towel. None of this makes your hands sterile and you wouldn't want to anyway. John's advice is actually very good but the idea that soap does not kill bacteria is false.

So gosh kids, thanks sooo much for the warm welcome. Good luck with the "making light" thing. Concept is good but the execution needs work. This could have been a positive interaction but you chose otherwise. Is this how you treat all newcomers? How's that working out for you? I suspect you thought you were "defending" John from some evil interloper, you guessed wrong. I suggest you all read Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder. It has some good advice for you along the lines of "How not to be an ass". Good luck.

Kidney disease is in the "etc."

But yeah, kidney disease too.

You need two things to happen at once in order to get sick: 1) you have to have a sufficient number of the disease-causing organisms hitting you all at the same time, and 2) you have to have low resistance to them.

The flu shot raises your resistance (just as having diabetes, say, lowers your resistance). Washing your hands lowers the number that'll hit you all at once.

Again, nothing's perfect and nothing's guaranteed. You just want to tip the odds a little bit further in your favor.

So what is the Germ Brigade's take on seasoning one's iron skillet?

I'm not talking about the do-not-soak commandment, nor the hot-or-cold-water argument, nor the soap-or-no-soap debate. I'm talking about the very basic-most practice of creating a baked-on non-stick coating of lard, shortening, or oil.

I mean, in the soap-or-no-soap debate, I go with soap. It may result in some degradation of the non-stick layer, but that's better than random icky bits of food or excess oil left on my kitchenware to become rancid and incubate germs. (Also, see above.)

But isn't the oil/fat coating itself potentially an icky bit of food left on my kitchenware to become rancid and incubate germs?

On the other hand, trying to use an *unseasoned* iron skillet is a nightmare.

And I think I'm beginning to swear off teflon after watching our wedding-gift T-Fal frying pans slowly come to bits and having to throw them away for fear of teflon bits in my scrambled eggs. (What did I do wrong? Mom's T-Fals remain in good shape, and they're older than ours were. I never used the hard green scrubby side of the sponge nor metal untensils! Maybe I overheated them?)

And stainless steel is nice, but it lacks the heat dynamics of iron or soapstone. The latter supposedly doesn't really need seasoning, as it's naturally non-stick, but I've only ever seen it used for pots, not frying pans.

So. What's a germ conscious user of cast-iron cookware to do? Maybe just wash it with soap and warm water briefly before each use?

I think that, by the time the cast-iron is up to cooking temperature, the "germ" problem is solved.

Oh, and "noen": work on your own presentation some, pal. You aren't sending the message you think you are.

"So what is the Germ Brigade's take on seasoning one's iron skillet?"

Wow.. I mean just wow. What an incredibly stupid question. (Hey! See how that works? I'm making light! I bet Nicole and I are gonna be the best of friends right? Right?)

Not too many living organisms can withstand temps of 300 to 400 degrees. This has been another episode of blindingly obvious answers to incredibly stupid questions you should already know. Thanks for viewing.

Oh hai! i can has FLAMR BINGO.

whadduz i can has win?

(translation: "When you come in here with fists flying..." and "people challenging your claims, or asking you to back up your claims, with facts is not shitting on you..." and "you gotta earn the cred before you engage in hostile rhetoric..." and all that good stuff.)

noen, #104:

"All I did was follow the link from boingboing and ask a simple question followed with a few personal anecdotes."

Plus your last line "I don't think you know what you think you do." Perhaps on your home planet, that's innocent and non-confrontational.

"For that I get shit on by the likes of you."

Evidently you think that getting shit on by "the likes of us" is worse than getting shit on by, I don't know, regular people. Which raises the question of exactly what kind of attitude toward "the likes of us" you must have brought over in the first place. From here you seem to be saying, in essence, "I was perfectly polite to you fools, knaves, and shitheads, and you had the nerve to not recognize my obvious superiority to you."

I do sometimes think that the immune system of Making Light's commentariat is dialed a little high. (For instance, I didn't instantly process Zeph's #40 as "rude." A joke that didn't quite fire, I thought.) I sometimes think we should work a little harder to cut slack for newcomers. But you know something? Not in your case.

re 106:
icole, do-'t worry about your skillet. Germs cooked at high temperature are very low risk. If you must worry, worry about seaso-ed wood salad bowls.

(I'm havi-g a keyboard problem. I feel like I'm tryi-g to type i- the middle of a Lem story.)

I think that, by the time the cast-iron is up to cooking temperature, the "germ" problem is solved.

True, but given the 10-seconds-to-infected experiment posted above which demonstrates all the germs flying around in the air, what prevents the oil layer from getting infected after it cools?

Maybe I'm just demonstrating how long it's been since I actually took a food-handler's test (and then, having passed, went to work at the cafeteria surrounded by co-workers and supervisors who ignored everything in the manual, *sigh*), but now that I think about it, what makes lard on a seasoned pan any different from sufficiently cooked meat products left out on a counter to come to room temperature as far as risk of food poisoning goes?

Thanks in advance!

I can has pinata?

Nicole,106, if you would like to clean the iron of food debris without removing the seasoning layer,which when done right is tar not food, dry scrub with baking soda then rinse with hottest of water then heat up to dry then cool down and freshly oil.
People even with dead bacteria you can still get food poisoning of the intoxication kind. Some germs leave behind nasty chemical waste that contaminate your foods and do not go down well at all. See botulism.

Adrian, whatever happened to your N key? I'm worried that your E key might be next, and then it's being force-fed corrasible bond or onion skin or whatever it was Annie brought home for her captive writer in Misery. And then your thumb. It'll all end with someone getting a typewriter to the back of the head, I just know it!

(Seasoned salad bowls are lacking in this house, for exactly the reason mentioned. But I would dearly love a nice wooden bowl to mix sushi rice in, that I would.)

I got your name wrong James, sorry about that. Still looking for any proof that soap detergents do not kill bacteria. "Go Ask Alice" and "Myth Busters" don't really make it as scientific references in my book. The CDC reference was good but didn't really address my question.

All I did James, was ask a simple question and I got attitude from you about it. I admit that I am now giving attitude in return. Honestly, I didn't come here with one, though I sure as hell got one now. Why do you suppose that is?

Thanks, T.W., also, for the tip.

I think the difference is that lard on a pan can incubate germs, but you'll always heat it up and kill them before you eat. Food left out and cooling may not be heated between plate and eating.

I agree that sometimes we the fluorosphere are quick to bite. My own trolldar is rather less sensitive than many here, perhaps because I haven't had as much experience. However, even I could see noen was fighting.

Noen:

"All I did James, was ask a simple question and I got attitude from you about it. I admit that I am now giving attitude in return. Honestly, I didn't come here with one, though I sure as hell got one now. Why do you suppose that is?"

BZZZZZZZZZT!!!

Because you're a known variety of idiot!

Next question?

My goodness, noen. To quote your own initial post: "I don't think you know what you think you do."

I took that closing of yours to be hostile. If there's some other reading I'd be glad to learn of it.

In the fifteen-to-twenty seconds that are involved in hand-washing, soap doesn't kill germs. It just helps move them around. That's a fact.

For that matter, since "germs" is a pretty broad term, I'd be grateful for some information that shows soap kills the flu virus.

Bars of soap can be contaminated and can help spread germs from one person to another. Some organisms can live for a long time on them. That's another fact.

Sorry you aren't having a good time here.

Your welcome Nicole. The goal is to clean to the fused carbon layer without removing it. I use a high temp oil like peanut for my cast iron not lard though as most lard is salted and the salt reacts with the iron. Also the soda will reverse minor rust on the iron.