Getting dirty with bacteria panic and unjustified sterilization

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By David Annis
Article ID: 132

Recently I was watching The Today Show.  During one segment, they cultured swabs from what looked like clean kitchens and bathrooms.  I watched as they swabbed sinks, microwave ovens, and toilets.  Imagine my shock when they found all sorts of bacteria.  I was even more horrified when I found out that the kitchen was the worst offender, both in their specific example and in the rest of the world.

Horrified, I rushed home and began researching what I needed to do to protect myself.  A little research on the web revealed a study that found “nearly half of all kitchen sinks harbor high levels of potentially dangerous bacteria.”  My house is dirtier than most as a result of three young boys that have priorities other than cleanliness.  Convinced that we were doomed, I ran to my car so that I could shop for Lysol, Clorox, and an autoclave.

As I drove I began to have misgivings.  To protect myself from dangerous, potentially disease-causing bacteria I’d need to either stop kissing my wife or simply sterilize her mouth.  I knew this was true because we once plated our breath to settle a bet.  She’s got bacteria in her mouth.  (As an aside, I can assure you with a high level of certainty that calling your future wife “dog breath” is far more dangerous than giving her a kiss, despite my study having an N of only 1.)

The study of bacteria in homes was sponsored by Lysol ® brand products, makers of cleaners and disinfectants.  Now there is a funder with a financial interest in the study’s outcome.  I also realized that if nearly 90% of sponges and 48% of sinks are swarming with bacteria, we should all be sick and dying or those bacteria rarely cause harm.

Nevertheless, I was determined to try to make my house bacteria free.  I knew that NASA scrubbed spacecraft free of all life before sending them off to Mars, lest we find that life on Mars was only a bacterial contaminant brought by Earthly spacecraft.  Perhaps I could use their methods.  Unfortunately, a New York Times article that I read not long ago began “Researchers have found a surprising diversity of hardy bacteria in a seemingly unlikely place – the so-called sterile clean rooms where NASA assembles its spacecraft and prepares them for launching.”

So, it looks like I will not achieve a sterile environment in my kitchen, whether or not I use Lysol ® products.  In fact, I found that if the hygiene hypothesis is correct and increased exposure to “infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms (e.g. gut flora), and parasites” helps a child’s immune system, then providing a sterile environment for my kids would be detrimental to their health.

There has also been concern about the use of anti-bacterial products in the home contributing to the development of drug resistant organisms though at least one study found no effect over a period of one year.

Don’t get me wrong, I recognize that food-related illness is a serious problem, causing about 76 million illnesses a year in the U.S.   Bacteria can and do cause disease, but consider the numbers we’re dealing with: You yourself have more bacteria in your body than you do human cells.  I’ll wash my hands and my sink. But I refuse to lie awake at night, frightened by the fact that neither my hands nor my sink will ever be sterile.

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