Calling All Germs-Hand Hygiene and Cell Phones..Duh

WSJ reports on hand hygiene facts and cell phones..
Should you apply hand sanitizer to your cell phone?
If so, what happens to your phone?!

1. JUST DO NOT EVER USE ANY WIPE OR SPRAY THAT CONTAINS AMMONIA!!
   alcohol wipes, etc are great and so handy. keep in mind that about half the wipes you find now aren’t alcohol wipes but contain benzalkonium chloride instead, which is also a disinfectant, but is replacing alcohol in many cases as it’s less drying, not able to be abused by goobers and is gentler on your skin. just make sure your wipes aren’t linty!
   *sometimes i grab a little hand sanitizer foam in the dr. or clinic and dampen my phone with it. ..just don’t wet it!

click here for link to WSJ article.

Hand Sanitizer Cocktails Send Teens To California Hospitals

According to a ridiculous column in today's "Huffington Post.."Hand sanitizer is supposed to kill germs, but some southern California teens are using it kill brain cells as well. In the last few months, six teenagers have shown up in two San Fernando Valley emergency rooms with alcohol poisoning after drinking hand sanitizer, according to the Los Angeles Times. This insane use of hand sanitizer has public health officials worrying that it's just the start of dangerous trend. Hand sanitizers use a formula up to 62 percent ethyl alcohol to kill germs, but some students desperate for kicks are using salt to separate the alcohol from the sanitizer, and making a potent 120-proof liquid equal in strength to a shot of hard liquor..."

Here's the insane part: the topic of kids (of all ages) getting sick after imbibing on alcohol hand sanitizer is hardly a new news story. This blog has been re-distributing similar stories from the US, Canada and Europe for the past 4 years.

Here's the other insane part: according to various news accounts..."Los Angeles officials are recommending that people use foam based sanitizers as an alternative to the alcohol gel products." What the officials in lala land forgot to advise is that people should be using NON-ALCOHOL, foam-format hand sanitizers. After all, whether  ingesting alcohol in foam or gel, you're still going to have the same side-effects. Here's the latest video clip

Deadly cocktail: Mouthwash, sanitizer: kasa.com

Gastrointestinal Infection Deaths More Than Doubled : #C.diff: Hand Hygiene Facts v. Fiction

Noted the New York Times, the US Centers For Disease Control (CDC) says that Clostridium difficile aka C.diff was the root cause of a doubling of US fatalities attributed to gastrointestinal infections during the ten year period from 1997 to 2007.

Aside from the head scratching caused by wondering why the recently-released study is otherwise five years delayed, the spike in visitors to this blog using key phrases "what type of hand sanitizer kills C.diff", "does alcohol kill c.diff?" and similar queries--here's what we know:
1. Alcohol rubs do not kill C.diff.
2. Alcohol rubs do however kill protective skin cells that typically block bad bacteria.
3. Benzalkonium Chloride-based hand sanitizers do not kill protective skin cells and ARE effective against C.diff (veg.)*
4.* "veg." is the "vegetative" strain, one of the two strains of C.diff. Spore-based c.Diff  is the more typical form of c.diff and is transmitted in various ways.