Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren volgabam Here. The last thing people want in a
Speaker 1: public restroom is more germs, But depending on how they
Speaker 1: wash and dry their hands, that maybe exactly what they're spreading.
Speaker 1: There's a large vein of research studying the effects of
Speaker 1: hand washing, hand drying, and germs, and the results are
Speaker 1: complicated and take. A study published in the journal Applied
Speaker 1: and Environmental Microbiology, the authors found, after studying samples collected
Speaker 1: from both ambient bathroom air and air dryer blown bathroom air,
Speaker 1: and that because hand dryers suck in the air in
Speaker 1: a restroom which is full of constantly circulating microbes and debris,
Speaker 1: and then spew it out at a high velocity, they
Speaker 1: actually expose people to more microbes. The researchers exposed both
Speaker 1: types of air to petree dishes and found out that
Speaker 1: when the hand dryers weren't running, only six bacterial colonies grew,
Speaker 1: but when the dryers were running, the total number of
Speaker 1: colonies grew to as many as sixty per plate, and
Speaker 1: included strains of staff that are capable of causing serious infection.
Speaker 1: Another study published in twenty fifteen in the Journal of
Speaker 1: Applied Microbiology compared different hand drying methods and their effect
Speaker 1: on germ dispersal. The researchers discovered that those vertical jet
Speaker 1: air dryers can actually spread viruses across a distance of
Speaker 1: nearly ten ft or three meters. The jet air dryers
Speaker 1: are activated when a person vertically inserts their hands inside
Speaker 1: the machine, causing powerful air jets to turn on. However,
Speaker 1: the researchers found that these air jets spread viral plaques,
Speaker 1: which are groups of clumped viruses, at a rate of
Speaker 1: one thousand, three hundred times more than paper towels. The
Speaker 1: study did not investigate the distribution of bacteria, which are
Speaker 1: bigger than viruses. The findings were recorded after participants dipped
Speaker 1: gloved hands into a solution with an innocuous virus. Participants
Speaker 1: then shook excess liquid off their gloves and used one
Speaker 1: of three drying methods paper towels, warm air dryers, and
Speaker 1: jet dryers. The researchers then collected air samples at a
Speaker 1: variety of distances from each type of dryer. They also
Speaker 1: used petree dishes to collect viruses that landed on surfaces
Speaker 1: adjacent to the drawing stations. In the end. The jet
Speaker 1: air dryer spread viruses the farthest, so that sounds bad,
Speaker 1: but not so fast, says Dyson, the company that makes
Speaker 1: the popular air Blade jet air dryers. In two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: the Dyson jet air dryer was the first such product
Speaker 1: to earn accreditation from the Royal Society for Public Health.
Speaker 1: Dyson argues that other research from found that upcent of
Speaker 1: fresh yet unused paper towels tested in the US contained
Speaker 1: bacteria which can transfer to hands. Dyson also contends that
Speaker 1: the Journal of Applied Microbiology study artificially inflated germ concentrations.
Speaker 1: In real life situations, the company says most people would
Speaker 1: not have the sheer number of viruses on their hands
Speaker 1: as was used in the study, nor would they stick
Speaker 1: their unwashed, virus coated hands into a jet dryer without
Speaker 1: rinsing and cleaning first. So what's the best course of
Speaker 1: action for hand washers? Even the professionals are debating the issue.
Speaker 1: A study published an Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology in
Speaker 1: compared the three step handwashing method outlined by the US
Speaker 1: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC to the
Speaker 1: six step strategy of the World Health organization. The study,
Speaker 1: which observed doctors and nurses using both of these hand
Speaker 1: washing techniques, found the six step method got rid of
Speaker 1: more bacteria. This method includes using an alcohol based hand rub.
Speaker 1: The CDC has since changed the recommendation from the three
Speaker 1: step handwashing process to a five step protocol. The issue
Speaker 1: of compliance when implementing the six step process came up
Speaker 1: during the study, though for the article this episode is
Speaker 1: based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with Jackie Riley, these
Speaker 1: studies lead author. She said only of providers completed the
Speaker 1: entire hand hygiene process, despite participants having instructions on the
Speaker 1: technique in front of them and having their technique observed.
Speaker 1: This warrants for their investigation. Taking all of this into
Speaker 1: consideration for now, I'd say that everyone washing their hands
Speaker 1: properly in the first place is perhaps more important than
Speaker 1: which drying method is used afterwards. As we all learned
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, that's wetting your
Speaker 1: hands and rubbing all of your hand surfaces, including the
Speaker 1: fingertips and nails, with soap for at least twenty seconds
Speaker 1: or two rounds of Happy Birthday. Today's episode is based
Speaker 1: on the article Hand jet, hand dryers, really blast out
Speaker 1: a germ cloud? Well, yes and no on how Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot Com, written by Laurie L. Dove. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.