The next frontier in the battle for the freedom to infect

Let Restaurants ‘Opt Out’ Of Employees Washing Hands after Using Toilet 

By Brian Wood

Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) has some ideas on how to lift what he sees as regulatory burdens on businesses, one of them being health department regulations that require employees to wash their hands after using the washroom.

The freshman Senator wrapped up his discussion at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC)  with a story that he felt illustrated his point on the U.S. being overburdened with unneeded regulations.

“I was having this discussion with someone, and we were at a Starbucks in my district, and we were talking about certain regulations where I felt like maybe you should allow businesses to opt out,” Tillis recalled.

“Let an industry or business opt out as long as they indicate through proper disclosure, through advertising, through employment, literature, whatever else. There’s this level of regulations that maybe they’re on the books, but maybe you can make a market-based decision as to whether or not they should apply to you.”

Tillis went on to state that he noticed a Starbucks employee leave the bathroom.

For more cartoons by Tom Toles, click here.

“Don’t you believe that this regulation that requires this gentlemen to wash his hands before he serves your food is important?” Tillis was asked by someone at his table.

“I think it’s one I can illustrate the point,” said the Senator. “I said, I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says ‘We don’t require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restrooms.’ The market will take care of that.” EDITOR’S NOTE: Who exactly is going to make the restaurant post a sign, and isn’t that at least as onerous as mandated hand-washing?

“That’s probably one where every business that did that would go out of business,” he added. “But I think it’s good to illustrate the point that that’s the sort of mentality that we need to have to reduce the regulatory burden on this country.”

“We’re one of the most regulated nations in the history of the planet, and I think if we go about it in a common sense way that that solves a lot of problems. It makes these other big problems that we’re talking about imminently more easy to solve,” claimed Tillis.

Fair warning that this may be a little gross, but according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “Feces (poop) from people or animals is an important source of germs like Salmonella, E. coli O157,and norovirus that cause diarrhea, and it can spread some respiratory infections like adenovirus and hand-foot-mouth disease.

These kinds of germs can get onto hands after people use the toilet or change a diaper, but also in less obvious ways, like after handling raw meats that have invisible amounts of animal poop on them. A single gram of human feces—which is about the weight of a paper clip—can contain one trillion germs.

Germs can also get onto hands if people touch any object that has germs on it because someone coughed or sneezed on it or was touched by some other contaminated object. When these germs get onto hands and are not washed off, they can be passed from person to person and make people sick.”

Specifically referencing food and drink, the CDC goes on to state that “Germs from unwashed hands can get into foods and drinks while people prepare or consume them. Germs can multiply in some types of foods or drinks, under certain conditions, and make people sick.”

Somebody should tell Senator Tillis that public health isn’t a regulatory burden and the invisible hand of the free market should be washed thoroughly.

Brian Wood is a writer and political activist. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.