An observation. Over the last several months, as recently as an hour ago, I have noticed that more and more men (because I’m not inspecting the women’s restroom…) are not washing their hands after taking care of business. Are y’all stupid or is there something I am missing?
What Drives People To Skip Washing Their Hands?
We’ve been through a pandemic (and with the recent huge spike in COVID-19 cases, pandemic may still be a better label than endemic) that at the very least should have taught us that proper hygiene, including washing our hands often, is critical. Beyond coronavirus, cold, flu, and other sickness is at least partially avoidable by frequently washing your hands. Don’t want to get sick? Start by washing your hands.
This was something drilled into me since I was young and it always struck me as common sense, like wearing a seat belt. But just like many do not like seat belts, I am observing more and more men–both young and old–using a public restroom facility and then just walking out.
I can cite the CDC, Mayo Clinic, and a number of scientific studies that make a strong case for washing your hands, but as we enter cold and flu season and likely a lot more corona cases, just take the extra 30 seconds to wash your hands with warm soap and water. It’s not a hard concept.
It particularly made me chuckle that the guy I saw today in the lounge who took a leak and then walked right out was wearing an N95 mask. Like seriously?
Some things are annoying…like flossing your teeth…but you better do it or you will eventually find yourself with receding gum lines and halitosis. Yuck. Same thing applies to washing your hands: just invest the few extras seconds to do it. You won’t regret it!
Do it for yourself. Do it for others. But do wash your hands often and least after you use the toilet…
Anyone disagree?
Exactly correct , with hot water . And how about food workers who handle both food to go and money at the till ?
CDC does not recommend hot water over cold. Either is fine. https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/faqs.html#:~:text=Use%20your%20preferred%20water%20temperature,of%20germs%20from%20your%20hands.
The hot water meme turns out to be legend handed down by grandma and not backed by any actual study data. Studies during covid showed that hot, warm, or cold water made no difference. The key factor at any temperature is that the lipids in the suspended soap solution make effective contact via sudsing for at least 20 seconds in order for the lipids to destroy the bacteria and viruses. Since most people are not very efficient, 30 seconds of sudsing is best.
Ì believe the case for hand washing after defecation is stronger than after urination, but both are a good idea. Some believe that washing hands before urination is good if you touch your pp.
I wash my hands BEFORE and after using the restroom. What’s amazing to ME is that Men walk around all day touching door handles and shaking hands and filthy surfaces and THEN go to touch their junk with those germs. I would be more worried about that then touching a filthy door handle after I touched my clean junk. But I get it, I see this all the time too Matthew. I’ve especially noticed it when someone is wearing a mask. Or if they use hand sanitizer instead of hand washing afterwards….Luke you still have little bits of splashed urine on your hands, only WASHING gets rid of that. Not some magic gel.
Ummm, neither of those are “studies”, they are guidance. Look at Medrxiv, Lancet, JAMA, etc, for studies. So, if you are going to claim studies, cite them. Yes, it is intelligent to wash your hands. This has little to do with the “pandemic”. Lacet does have a study showing hand washing doesn’t really show a statistically significant reduction in spread. That is not an argument against, that is actually *CITING* a study. It’s gross. This is why I prefer not to shake hands. But it isn’t for the reasons you just listed.
This is a study:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27599874/
Yeah that’s great, but the studies supporting handwashing go back a wee bit before modern clinical trials, the “most famous” one from the 1800’s (although many medical traditions and local practices support it previous to that)
Like many medical practices, it is not a single study but an accumulated mass of data taken together that supports the now obvious practice of handwashing. A little silly to be arguing about whether or not handwashing affects infection risk…
Do you really want people to start citing the “original” papers on this???
Zsoldos J. Egészség regulái. Mostan pedig a’ Helvétziai vallástételt tartó Négy Fo Tiszteletu Superintendentziák’ Egyházi fobb Konstitóriumának rendeletébol, Versekbe foglalta, és mint a’ Négy Fo Tiszteletu Superintendentziákban, az apróbb Tanuló Gyermekek’ számára megrendelt Oskolai Kézi Könyvet saját költéségn kinyomtatta Zsoldos Jakab. Gyor, Streibig Leopold: Gyor, Hungary (1817).
Holmes OW. The contagiousness of puerperal fever. New Engl Quart J Med. (1843) 1:503–30.
I wasn’t saying this one study was the end-all-be-all. I was using it as an example. See the first post.
Yes, there are studies going back to the 1800’s on this subject. Nowhere did I claim otherwise. Also, there is a big difference on handwashing before performing surgery and handwashing as general practice. This also doesn’t go into how dirty is your manhood that it dirties (minus splashing) up ones hands? Etc. Yes, this is an extensive topic. The point of the post was to make light of making declarative statements when the actual data doesn’t bare it out. Have we learned nothing from the last 2-3 years?
I don’t wash my hands after urination. Sometimes I’ll get them wet with water.
Never got covid, rarely get sick.
Pure blood (no vax)
I’d be really curious to see some RCT on this, but, I would bet washing hands is pretty ineffective compared to being healthy/eating well/not obese.
You can do both, eat healthy and wash your hands.
There actually is a couple. Personally, I think it is gross to not wash ones hands (person opinion, no offense), but there the data is pretty mixed on effectiveness of handwashing. That’s not to say it isn’t a good idea, but one should avoid declarative statements (like Matt) when there is no real proof of such claim. We can discuss the merits of handwashing without shaming people over something that is statistically noise.
Can you point out anything that involves human beings doing something that some human beings don’t want to do, on which the data is not mixed?
The data is mixed on wearing helmets when riding a motorcycle, when wearing a seatbelt in a car, drinking, smoking, etc… etc…
There is no RCT showing the efficacy of wearing a parachute when jumping out of a plane. And yet most skydivers do it….
Yes, there are lots of things. Just because you choose not to view the data, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Obfuscating the point because you didn’t understand my post is a you problem. It doesn’t detract from the fact that rational people don’t make declarative statements that can’t be backed up by data.
However, nice strawmen. Thanks for proving that those who want to argue this point aren’t playing with a full deck.
If it’s easier for you, you can just insult me continuously.
We don’t need to keep up the ruse that you’re open to the possibility that routine hand washing after using the bathroom may be beneficial.
Why don’t you just culture the skin of your penis at the end of the day and see what you think about that?
When I was in school, on the first day of microbiology class, we cultured our hands. Then we washed our hands with regular soap and water, and we cultured them again after washing. We saw what bacteria grew out. Everyone in the class did it- this used to be kind of a common rite of passage for folks learning about microbes.
If you’ve never seen 120 people’s hand cultures before and after washing hands, then it makes sense to me why you’d be looking for RCTs on hand washing.
Having seen a great many people claim that there was no proof that cigarette smoking caused lung disease, when there was indeed a great amount of proof of this, allowed me to see that when the existing proof is being dismissed without understanding it and that an unspecified higher level of proof is being requested for something that is actually very well established, that an RCT won’t really solve the problem.
Holy s…. Did you really talk about culturing hands as your “proof”? Geez, you are beyond hope. EVERY SINGLE THING YOU TOUCH WILL SPREAD *BACTERIA*. So, unless you wash your hands and don’t touch a single thing all day, then all of this is meaningless. But how surprising is it that you don’t understand this. Also, *BACTERIA* isn’t a virus. This is the same non-sensical argument that the genius group used for drrrr…. “WhY dOoS YoUd TiNk De ScUrGeNs UsEd dE mAsKeDs FoRbs”…… drrrrr. Try for once in your life to use your gray matter.
Hey- Dufus-i.e. Brandon
Yes, culturing will tell you something. A proper culture will not just show number of bacteria but also species. So yes, although there will be a great many harmless skin bacteria, you could also find staph, e. coli, shigella, etc. etc. etc. Some bacteria cause disease, some don’t. Hand washing decreases amount of both. Basic microbiology, genius.
And as for bacteria being different from viruses; we surgeons know that. We also know that virus hitch rides on macro hydrophilic droplets… so guess what- still works.
Nicely said.
Wow, the irony of you pretending to be a “genius” when you aren’t smart enough to know the amount of bacteria, virii, etc on every surface you touch. It’s a good thing covid has proven without a doubt most physicians are morons. Nice job being so confidently wrong.
Um- Brandon…. your statement just shows how little you understand anything about microbiology… nobody is saying that there aren’t lots of viruses and bacteria on every (nonsterile) surface…. but some are harmless, some aren’t.
Sounds like you know far too little about this to even come up with a coherent statement…. sounds like you are the last person to be insulting anyone’s intelligence…. hope your rants help you feel smarter than people who actually know what they’re talking about.
Congratulations on your immune system being effective against the germs on your skin, at least to the point of being asymptomatic. But your immunity will not protect those to whom you spread the germs because you don’t want to wash your hands. Mary Mallon, aka “Typhoid Mary,” was asymptomatic and yet spread the disease to between 51 and 122 other people.
My favorite is the jokers who, when called out for not washing their hands, respond with third grade cleverness by saying their mother taught them not to urinate on their hands. At that point I ask if they wash their hands after defecating because no doubt their mothers also taught them to avoid that. Gotta love the Typhoid Mary wannabes.
do you wash your hands after scratching your balls? why can’t you beloeve the sometimes men piss w/ zero dribble or splatter? so, all they’ve done is touched their cock & balls, something i do a dozen+ times a day. i wash my hands when i think there could be germs on them. my cock doesn’t have germs of concern to me because it’s my cock.
I don’t wash my hands after I pee. I also don’t touch the handle or the door. But I also don’t care about the my homeland’s kung flu nor regular flu.
I’ve noticed the same disturbing trend recently — in airports, restaurants, and the office bldg. I have my own theories as to the psychology involved. Meanwhile it makes me even more conscious about washing hands or using sanitizer like Detective Monk.
As we become a society where the focus is on the individual, each individual becomes less concerned with the needs of others and the group as a whole, not willing to spend 20 seconds on handwashing because the individual simply “doesn’t want to.”
Put another way, when you shake a man’s hand, you are now sharing in the same bacterial milieu as his genitals.
So explain to me. Why if I go to the bathroom w/o touching door handles I need to wash my hands. My junk isn’t dirty, it’s undoubtedly cleaner than many things we touch every day.
Mind you, I’m not against hand washing, it’s a good habit. I just don’t get the fixation with doing it after urination.
You might have germs on your ding dong.
Is there any data that would convince you that a decent percentage of the population is rolling around with not clean junk?
Like if thousands of people unexpectedly got their junk cultured, and it turned out that say 20% of them had some not so clean results?
Would it make sense then to recommend that folks wash their hands after touching their junk?
Sure it would. But even then I doubt my junk is dirtier than half the other surfaces in the airport that get touched by thousands of ppl a day. Yet we don’t rush to wash our hands after touching those surfaces. My junk gets touched by mostly me and occasionally my wife and no one else.
Your junk sits in a warm moist environment ideal for growing germs.
I have been writing numerous articles about washing hands for years, Matthew.
I still shake my head in disgust when I see people leave the washroom without washing their hands after using the toilet.
Like you, I do not venture into washrooms for women — but I have been repeatedly told by many women over the years that women are far more disgusting than men in public washrooms.
I have no desire to conduct official research to validate that claim…
LOL! Yes, we’ll leave that to others, indeed! I haven’t heard that, though.
100% low life trash and they should be called out publicly 100% of the time.
How stupid do you have to be to be surprised that some people don’t wash their hands after using the restroom? Welcome to earth. And if that behavior was how pandemics begin or are sustained or exacerbated, we’d all be dead by now. And if you actually think your thorough handwashing is saving you from germs, get real. Your thorough hand washing might be relatively useful…at least for the few seconds until you grab the germ-laden handle to turn off the water or touch the handle of the restroom door to exit or touch any seat or touch literally ANY other public thing thereafter. lol. Luckily our bodies are amazingly resilient when faced with these germs since they are literally unavoidable if you want to go about living a life without living in a hazmat suit. Denying that basic fact of life is how we get the deranged mask nazis. And please oh please, let’s never go full mask-deranged again.
Poop and urine can also hit your hands without your knowledge. Rotovirus and norovirus are not fun. Just wash your hands after the restroom?
Especially in an airport, my goal is to get out of the bathroom asap. There’s generally a hand sanitizer station within 50 yards of anywhere within most airports that I frequent, so I adjust hit one of those without breaking stride and keep moving on to where I need to be.
Half the time airport bathrooms have soap dispensers that aren’t full or don’t work, are out of paper towels, or want to force you to wait around to use a dyson air blade. Just hitting a mid-concourse sanitizer dispenser or using your own is much easier.
Q: “Didn’t your mother teach you to wash your hands after you pee?”
A: “No, she taught me not to pee on my hands.”
Reading the comments section just gives me more of a reason to actually wash my hands. Some of you guys are disgusting, full stop rofl
Regarding COVID: Touching ones wee-wee and bathroom stall is no more likely to result in catching COVID than other sections of the airport that are covered with germs such as escalators and door handles. Heck, when I washed my hands in the bathroom during the COVID thing, I chuckled if I had a open a door on the way out and defeated the whole purpose of the exercise… That’s why there are those neat foot grips on many doors now (which are handy if you have your hands full!)
It’s just good manners to wash hands if handling one’s personal unit as others point out when shaking hands later or handling something someone else may use. Think about that when someone asks you to handle their phone to take their picture. 🙂 (Or heck, as we all know, what do people scratch in bed and then use the TV remote control?)
Heck, I think it’s safe to say that we probably handle an object handled by someone whose touched their personal unit in the last hour or so a few times a day. So we best get over it.
Unless you have an active STD or UTI, or you’ve had sex* recently without a condom, your weenus is as clean as the last time you washed it.
Get over this hand-washing fetish.
*a wank does not count as sex HTH.
Ok, Forty2….
I assume you pull your junk out of the way when you wipe your bottom after taking a dump….. and probably not using some kind of sterile technique while you do it….
So guess what… you have trace feces on your junk……
And maybe your junk gets sweaty and swampy during the day… and your underwear isn’t sterile…. so no- your junk isn’t sterile…..
Not picking on you personally- this is everybody.
There are trace “feces” everywhere in any bathroom, and other places for that matter. You would know that if you had any sort of understanding of fluid dynamics.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/07/health/germs-home-wellness/index.html
So, I’m guessing you have a touchless facet? Otherwise, you are transferring “fecal” matter right back to your hands after you wash them just from touching your sink. Again, I get this is over your head, “Dr.”
Even before I read the article you referred, I knew that the most dangerous item in the house is the cutting board. I put mine into the dishwasher and although it does warp the wood over time, it’s a good idea to get all that bacteria cleaned out regularly.
The holidays are coming up and it’s good to point out that you’re better off NOT washing off your turkey or poultry for the holidays in the sink before cooking. Yes, it’s sat in that disgusting water for the past 2 weeks from the processing plant but that will get sterilized in the oven HOWEVER when you wash it in the sink, you spread all those germs all over your sink that is NOT sanitized and spread salmonella to your regular food.
Great point that I make all the time. I just shake my head of those that leave the restroom without washing their hands.
What about pumping gas? Ever think how filthy the pumps are? I bought food handler throw away gloves to use at gas stations.
Even after washing ones hands in the restroom, when you open the door with the same hands, it defeats the purpose of washing ones hands
This was/is the entire point that is being missed. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good idea to wash ones hands, but to boil it down in overly simplistic terms the way the commenters here are is just silly.
No..How STUPID it is for you to COMPLAIN about what other people do, in this complex World.
Some people think that exposure to germs is a prerequisite to healthy living, some don’t.
As long as you keep your own hygiene regime to yourself and your family; then surely that’s all that matters.
(BTW:-After washing your hands, you’ll most likely to still have to touch the door handle to the restrooms.,.,.to leave.)
That’s what paper towels and trash cans by doors are for.
You should wash your hands, WW.
OMG all the man babies on this blog!!!!! “My penis is clean, I’m so superior I don’t get sick, blah blah blah. Just wash your GD hands!!! It’s not hard-your rights and freedoms aren’t at risk. When you ask why do men not wash their hands I believe it’s because a great majority, not all, are disgusting pigs who need to be told what to do, and btw “stop picking your nose”
Here, here. Cheeky reply!
The problem with washing your hands is that they become contaminated again once you touch the faucet handle or the door handle. Or use a paper towel to touch the faucet or door handle after washing. I would use a few disinfectant wipes as soon as I return to my seat. And don’t touch your face.
Oh yeah, an airplane surface environment is CONTAMINATED with everything including feces, urine, and bacteria, viruses. I try to wipe down my seat and everything around me. Nothing is totally clean and bacteria- virus-free not even the air.
Totally agree, Matthew. These are many of the same guys who talk loudly on their phones sitting in the airport bathroom stall or standing next to you in the urinal and staying on their call throughout the process. “Stupid is as stupid does”….
Since urine is sterile (no bacteria) coming out from your kidneys, most of the time there is no bacteria there. But it is the environment around you that is dirty and contaminated with viruses, the norovirus, bacteria from the gut, poop. So in addition to washing don’t touch anything and use disinfectant wipes when you return to your seat. And with flu season just in, I got my Flu shot and getting the new Covid vaccine too.
Matt I totally agree with you. My parents made sure that I washed my hands every time after I used the washroom. I was a truck driver for a quarter century and I saw lots of people fail to wash their hands after using the washroom. I always made it a point not only to wash my hands but use a paper towel or napkin to shut off the faucet then use another paper towel or napkin to open the door if the washroom door opened to the inside like the majority seem to do. I did all this for decades, long before the Coronavirus became a thing.
When I review a restaurant on Yelp if the washroom does not have paper towels I always and without exception deduct at least one point or star.
Seinfeld was such a great show, but pity they have a laughtrack on it. In one episode, Jerry has a girlfriend whose father owns a restaurant and Jerry sees the father in the restroom leave the toilet stall, fix his hair, and then leave without washing his hands. For the rest of the show, Jerry is disgusted and unable to eat the food.
But that being said, it’s possible that the owner washed his hands in the kitchen before handling food. As you say, all the worry about washing your hands is moot if you use your hands to exit anyway.
I went to a vocational agricultural high school and we were taught to wash our hands BEFORE and AFTER going to the bathroom.
And, of course you don’t touch the doorknob on the way out, if there are no paper towels, let someone else open the door.
Or grab toilet paper and use that. I’ve gotten pretty good using my elbow to open a door if there are only air dryers.
I would just like to say that if those who run restrooms would be considerate and use fragrance free soap life would be so much better. I carry my own hand wipes in my purse because fragrance both gives me a migraine and causes instant hives on my hands. I get a LOT of looks when I walk out not washing my hand but there is a reason for it. Maybe judge mental people should consider that before condemning others. I know I’min the minority and most just don’t care but I just can’t use that horrible stuff.
The germs the germs
I get sick quite often (covid multiple times despite vaccines and boosters, RSV last year) and always have since I was a kid so I try to wash my hands often. The fresh feeling of cleanliness, as it is with brushing and flossing, is its own reward.