Dishing the dirt on the germs: Credit Cards

The average person harbors 150 species of bacteria – so it’s no surprise our hands are often filthier than our toilet seats.

Some bacteria are harmless, some are even beneficial to our health, but others can cause serious illness. We touch some 300 different surfaces every half hour, then we touch our own faces around 18 times an hour. This makes it easy for germs to get into our mouths and noses, where they attack cells and make us feel unwell. Contact with everyday items such as the TV remote or light switches is thought to be the trigger for 65 per cent of colds, 50 per cent of diarrhoea cases and 50 to 80 per cent of food poisoning incidents.

A STUDY found 80 per cent of bank notes and 78 per cent of credit cards had traces of bacteria like rhino-virus. Dr Ron Cutler, of Queen Mary University of London, says: “We all handle money and credit cards but it is unlikely we wash our hands afterwards.”

BUG BUSTER: Don’t touch your face after handling cards or cash. Bacteria can enter your nose and mouth.

THE SUN (United Kingdom) Oct 18, 2012
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/health/health/4595030/Dishing-the-dirt-on-the-germs-in-your-home.html

Read more »

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

Read more »