LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - We are taught from an early age to wash our hands, but apparently drying our hands may actually be spreading germs.
A new study shows if you use one of those public hand dryers, it actually blows fecal bacteria onto your clean hands. THV11 verifies, is it true?
And if it is, are those hand dryers safe? Our sources: the study itself and the state's chief medical officer Doctor Gary Wheeler.
"Well see I always considered it going green you wouldn't waste any paper, conservative, save a tree," said Elizabeth Bumgardner.
She always washes her hands and encourages her grandchildren to do the same. Bumgardner regularly uses those hand dryers along with millions of others to dry her hands. But now, a new study published in the journal for Applied and Environmental Microbiology shows, "Many kinds of bacteria, can be deposited on hands exposed to bathroom hand dryers."
The state's chief medical officer, Dr. Gary Wheeler explained, "The way that happens is it's blowing very high volumes of air so it basically concentrates any bacteria in the air and after you've washed your hands and cleaned them you may actually end up with some bacteria or spores on them after it's over."
THV11’s Dawn Scott asked Bumgardner, "If I told you a study came out that showed that the air blown from them actually also blows fecal matter on to your hands, what would you say?” Bumgardner laughingly replied, “Yuck, yuck I probably won't ever do it again." Dr. Wheeler said, "We do think paper towels are better than hand dryers." He pointed to the study's findings that, "Plates exposed to hand dryer air for 30 seconds averaged 18-60 colonies per plate." But he wanted to see more like it with similar results before issuing a warning or calling the dryers dangerous.
Dawn asked Dr. Wheeler if he could understand why people, at first glance of this story’s headline, would be taken back. He laughed and said, “Yeah, I can." People like Elizabeth Bumgardner and Michael Young said it’s not something they want to hear.
"I think that it raises some issues particularly for health facilities and other places where the spread of bacteria and spores may be critical to keeping people healthy," said Dr. Wheeler. "The big picture is we haven't seen, at least we haven't recognized, big outbreaks related to this phenomenon. And the second thing is there are bacteria all over the world, on the floor, on the table, our immune system has developed over the years to be pretty immune to this."
The researchers also added HEPA filters to the dryers in the study, at which point, the bacteria was reduced to almost background levels. So, perhaps technology will change to make them safer. Dr. Wheeler verified this study was legitimate but said it is still important to wash your hands, even if you must let them drip-dry.