Germy credit cards like a 'dirty toilet bowl': study

Monday, October 15 was Global Handwashing Day, but a new study suggests maybe it's more than your hands you'll want to wash. UK researchers have found that one in 10 bank cards and one in seven bills were found to be contaminated with fecal matter.

Announced Monday, the study is the latest to be carried out by researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London, alerting us to the fact we live in a cesspool of filth. The research team did get backing from Radox Handwash soap products, but nonetheless, the results do supply your gross-out du jour

The team took bacterial samples from hands, credit cards, and currency in various formats from cities in the UK, including London, Birmingham, and Liverpool. Findings revealed that more than a quarter of hands sampled showed traces of E. coli.

Also, 11 percent of hands, eight percent of cards, and six percent of bank notes showed "gross contamination - where the levels of bacteria detected were equal to that you would expect to find in a dirty toilet bowl," claims a press release.

Rather than bathing your money in a bucket of bleach, the solution is to simply wash your hands, frequently with soap and water. "If you eat or drink something without washing your hands, or if you touch your own nose, mouth, or eyes after shaking someone's hand, you can introduce whatever germ was on their hand, and now your hand, into the portals of your body," said Philip M. Tierno Jr., director of clinical microbiology and immunology at New York University Medical Center, in an interview with health website WebMD.

You can also lightly wipe down your credit cards with a sanitizer, advises Money Blue Book website. While the idea of touching fecal matter isn't pleasing, credit cards can harbor flu bugs during peak seasons, so it's not a bad idea to keep each housed in its own plastic case in your wallet so it doesn't touch other cards or any money.

NY Daily News | http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-10-16/news/34505271_1_credit-cards-hands-soap-and-water

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Sanitize your hands and your credit cards often

With flu season gearing up and reminders about washing hands often, a new study has found there are even more sources where germs can thrive it turns out credit cards are an unlikely source of bacteria, according to a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Queen Mary, University of London.

Researchers found that one in 10 credit cards were contaminated with fecal organisms.

The study was done to raise awareness of Global Handwashing Day, which highlights the importance of washing your hands with soap before eating and after using the bathroom.

Money Blue Book lists the five biggest reasons credit cards can carry germs:

• Flu germs remain alive on surfaces
• Germs thrive in conditions where you keep your credit cards - dark, warm, slightly moist places
• Being too casual about where you're placing your credit cards
• Many people touch the credit card
• Credit cards touch other germ-laden objects

Money Blue Book recommends keeping yourself safe this flu season, by sanitizing your hands often, wiping credit cards down with sanitizer, avoiding the use of communal pens, keeping your hands away from your face and keeping credit cards in individual plastic cases.

WTOP | Sunday - 10/21/2012, 11:02am  ET
http://www.wtop.com/267/3087121/Sanitize-your-hands-and-your-credit-cards-often

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