Beware Of Bacteria Lurking In Hot Tubs!

Until recently, I thought hot tubs were relatively safe because they are chlorinated like pools. Apparently not. If not properly maintained they can contain a bacteria called pseudomonas aeruginosa that infects the hair follicles. This infection is more commonly known as "hot tub folliculitis." To my relief, it is not spread by personal contact.

See A Penny, Pick It Up??

"See a penny, pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck.

See a penny, leave it lay, bad luck you will have all day."

Really, is picking up a dirty, germy penny good luck? Although I feel somewhat guilty about passing money by, even if it is a very small amount, I tend to "leave it lay." I haven't experienced any bad luck so far. If I do happen across a larger amount of money, sometimes I'll pick it up but I wipe it off before I put it in my wallet. Technically, I should probably wipe off all the money in my wallet but that's not very practical. I just make sure I sanitize my hands after handling money. I usually don't carry cash. I mostly use my debit card anyway.

How Clean Is Your Steering Wheel?

Have you ever thought to sanitize your steering wheel? I do from time to time but its been a while. I took my van in today to get the leaky windshield fixed and noticed that the workers handling it had some pretty grubby looking hands. So, I wiped my steering wheel off and ended up with three very dirty wipes. Yuck! How often do you snack on something when you're driving? I do sometimes. I also hand snacks to my kids while I'm driving. A steering wheel is one of those easily overlooked places that I usually don't think about but really, how many germs could be lurking there? I don't think I want to know. I'm going to start cleaning my steering wheel more often.

Beware Of Self Serve Fountain Drinks!

STUDY: Nearly half of soda fountains contaminated with fecal matter
By Dr. Kim Mulvihill
SAN FRANCISCO -- Many of us have filled up our cups at the local gas station. But those self-serve soda fountains may be serving up a lot of bacteria.

Researchers from Hollins University in Virginia tested more than 100 beverages from self-serve and staff-serve dispensers. What they found coming out of these machines is pretty unappetizing.

"We obtained soda fountain beverages from a wide variety of fast food establishments and found that a significant number of the drinks had levels of bacteria, including coliforms, which would not be allowed in municipal drinking water," said Dr. Renee Godard, professor of biology and director of environmental studies at Hollins, and a co-author of the study. "To our knowledge, no one has looked at bacterial contamination from soda fountain machines before, and our results may have public health implications. They signal the need for regulations that enforce the manufacturer's recommended cleaning regimens for these beverage dispensers."

They found 48 percent of the beverages contained fecal matter.

More than 11 percent were contaminated with E. coli and 17 percent were tainted with a bacteria known to cause meningitis.

Most of the bacteria showed resistance to one or more of the 11 antibiotics tested.

In these drinks, they also found smaller amounts of other kinds of germs including staphylococcus, klebsiella and candida.

Publicly Used Computers

I am taking a website class at a local technical college. The classroom consists of rows of tables with a computer for each student. These computers are used by a lot of different students in a lot of different classes. I don't know who's been sitting there and whether or not they are sick. When I sit down at a computer, before I touch anything, I get out a sanitizing wipe and wipe the keyboard, mouse and desktop area.

This is also a great idea for the workplace. I used to work in customer service. Every time I sat down at a cubicle I would wipe the computer keyboard, mouse, desktop area and the phone headset. I always found it disgusting that the companies I worked for made us share headsets. Its like finding a hat on the ground outside somewhere and putting it on your head. Yuck!! That's a great way not only to spread germs, but also lice! Since I was just a lowly customer service agent, nobody in the company cared about my opinion of everyone getting a headset of their own, so I always took the time to thoroughly clean mine.

Another Raw Chicken Story

So, today I decided to make chicken for dinner using the store brand equivalent of Shake 'n Bake. I thawed the boneless, skinless chicken breast that I had in the freezer. I planned to wear rubber gloves as I always do when handling raw meat. However, when I went to get a pair out of the box, it was empty. Don't you just love it when the kids use something up and don't throw the box away so you don't know they are all gone? Anyway, I ended up using my bare hands. I haven't used shake 'n bake for a while and I forgot how messy it is. The crumbs were flying everywhere. It got all over my shirt. I felt some bounce off my forehead and it also got all over the stovetop where I was working. After thoroughly washing my hands, I put the chicken in the oven, changed my shirt, wiped my forehead and the stovetop (with antibacterial wipes, of course). I also used a wipe to get under my fingernails really well. I may be paranoid, but that's better than getting sick from salmonella.

Raw Chicken

Today I was at the store in line behind a woman with 2 kids. As she was unloading her cart, I noticed that the raw whole chicken she picked up (which was even bagged) was dripping all over the floor. I informed her of this and she carefully handed it to the cashier who scanned it and bagged it. If my hands weren't full, I would have offered her some hand sanitizer. After all, raw chicken can contain salmonella. She just went about her business as if it was nothing.

I looked at the checkstand and the cashier's hands thinking there is raw chicken juice there now. I considered getting in another line, but all the other lines were long. The cashier did not wipe the checkstand or his hands before moving on to my purchases. So, wierdo that I am, I grabbed a couple cart wipes on my way out the door. When I got to my car, I wiped off everything that I bought and threw the bags in the trash. Fortunately, I didn't buy very much. I bought some chips and a sub sandwich and I didn't want myself or my kids to risk handling the packaging and possibly transferring salmonella to our hands. I've had food poisoning in the past and that's something I would rather not ever experience again. Too bad this particular store doesn't have self-checkouts.