Marc Abrahams in Improbable Research
While some researchers urge the public,
especially children, to come in more contact with common dirt — and thus presumably boost
their immune systems by exercising them against a wide range of threatening
thisandthat — other researchers point adults towards the opposite
direction.
At present, it seems unlikely that these two research camps will
soon join hands.
Witness a new study by the
shaky-about-tolerating-handshakes group:
“The infectious risk of the handshake has been described in the medical literature since the early 20th century. Multiple studies have demonstrated that the handshake can and does transmit pathogens, and widespread hand hygiene policies have been predicated on the well-established link between hand transmission of pathogens and disease.
Bacterial cross-contamination of volunteers through handshaking has been found to be more likely than with “fist bumping” on a surgical ward. Clostridium difficile spores (a common cause of diarrhea in the health care setting) have been demonstrated to be transmitted via the handshake. Moreover, the survival of bacteria transmitted via the handshake has been found to be prolonged in the presence of sputum….
“Banning the handshake from the health care environment may require further study to confirm and better describe the link between handshake-related transmission of pathogens and disease…. Given the tremendous social and economic burden of hospital-acquired infections and antimicrobial resistance, and the variable success of current approaches to hand hygiene in the health care environment, it would be a mistake to dismiss, out of hand, such a promising, intuitive, and affordable ban.”
- See more at:
http://www.improbable.com/#sthash.t1s2iLYe.dpuf