[Report] Fecal Bacteria found on 72% of Shopping Carts

Considering the majority of men I see in public never wash their hands after using the bathroom (sometimes those that do #2 even), this isn't shocking. Definitely will wipe those handles next time though.

http://blogs.webmd.com/breaking-news/2011/03/fecal-bacteria-on-72-of-shopping-carts.html

Fecal bacteria — that is, germs from poop — can be found on 72% of shopping carts.

It’s yet another icky finding from University of Arizona microbiologist Charles Gerba, PhD, sometimes called “Dr. Germ.”

In his latest report, Gerba reportedly found traces of fecal bacteria on the handles of 61 of 85 shopping carts tested in four states. Half of the 36 carts subjected to further testing yielded evidence of E. coli bacteria.

"That's more [bacteria] than you find in a supermarket's restroom," Charles Gerba, University of Arizona Professor of Soil, Water and Environment and lead researcher, told MSNBC.com. "That's because they use disinfecting cleaners in the restrooms. Nobody routinely cleans and disinfects shopping carts."

Gerba has correctly pointed out that most of the infections people get come not from airborne droplets, as we tend to think, but from germs we’ve picked up on our hands and transferred to our mouths, noses, or eyes.

In recent years, Gerba has warned of bacterial and/or viral contamination in reusable shopping bags, airplane bathrooms and seat-back trays, airport kiosks, ground-floor elevator buttons, bachelor pads, water fountain toggles, pencil sharpeners, keyboards, faucet handles, desktops, faucet handles, paper towel dispensers, shared touchpads such as iPads, cutting boards, shoes, well water, playground equipment, and just about anything touched by children.

This study coincides with previous research he discovered in 2008 stating that children who rode in shopping carts were more likely than others to develop infections caused by two other types of bacteria, salmonella and campylobacter.

That said, Gerba’s main point is a very, very good one: Wash your hands. Often.

– Daniel J. DeNoon, Senior Medical Writer, WebMD

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Pat Fidopiastis, a microbiolgist's response to the Clorox-sponsored study:

There are two camps on this issue with the shopping carts: Obviously those with a vested interest in scaring people (the folks at Clorox, for example), and the "hygiene hypothesis" types that feel we need to be exposed to all the bacteria possible in order to strengthen immunity.

The ideal is somewhere in between.

Personally, I think less about E. coli and bacteria and more about viruses that can be shed in feces along with E. coli, such as noroviruses (so called "cruise ship viruses"), polio virus (from someone who received the weakened strain in the oral polio vaccine—no longer really used in the U.S.), and hep A. But the odds are greatly in our favor that we'd never really need to know they're there.