The recent tragic shooting in Germany makes gun control an increasingly emotive issue. Young and quite innocent people have also been gunned down randomly in Alberta, Québec, Colorado, Scotland and Tasmania in recent years. Such massacres have increasingly become global phenomena. These murderous outbreaks not only occurred in different countries, but on different continents. The Port Arthur slayings in Tasmania took place in a different hemisphere. The isolation of this small Australian island state had remained immune to the spread of much North American and European flora and fauna, yet the virus of senseless killings had somehow crossed the Pacific. The slayings took place amid the ruins of what are, ironically, quite lovely stone buildings in the remains of a former British penal colony.
In reality, only a few Canadians are killed by guns annually but, as the recent drinking water tragedies show us, a tiny bug like E. coli 0157:H7 or parasites like Giardia or Cryptosporidium can be deadly to humans. Tainted drinking water, in fact, has killed or mutilated far more humans than all of the wars of recorded history.
There are many awful diseases in the Third World but tainted water can also be lethal even in advanced countries. In 1993, 400,000 people became sick, 4,000 were hospitalized, and 50 deaths were attributed to Cryptosporidiosis from contaminated drinking water in Milwaukee.
Gun control, in the public eye, equates with public safety and a few bloody scenes on TV news coverage confirm the public's fears. Yes, people do get shot, even more get stabbed, and, as we have seen recently, even hurt in fist fights, all resulting in senseless injuries or death. But a larger killer lurks virtually unnoticed -- a lack of personal hygiene in toilet use.
I have often seen people in fast food restaurants emerge from the stalls, go to the door and pull on the door handle and exit without having washed their hands. The next users, even those who have scrubbed their hands, inevitably have to touch now contaminated handles to leave. Meanwhile, our first unwashed friend is in the burger line-up passing over paper money for his fast food. Not for nothing do they call it filthy lucre.
When Winston Churchill spent a night gambling in Monte Carlo, his wife, Clementine went to bed early, fearful he would lose heavily at the tables. She awoke to find she was covered from head to toe in French bank notes -- his winnings. This story delights many but she was probably in more danger from the bank notes than from any of the WW II air raids. Bank notes have been found to be crawling with an assortment of lethal bacteria when analyzed. The combination of dirty money and unclean door handles make it a macabre relay race for pathogens going from hand to hand.
I doubt if there are any epidemiological studies available on the lethality of poor washroom hygiene. Common sense, however, makes poor washroom hygiene a prime suspect in many unsolved cases of individual illnesses. Large concentrations of humans are involved, which, when combined with their high mobility, provide an almost perfect environment for a range of bacteria and parasites which can be lethal to other humans. Ironically, these unquestionable hazards could be mitigated by use of soap and water which are freely available in most North American washrooms.
Studies show most of the viruses that cause colds are spread through physical contact -- people touch their noses or mouths and then touch someone or something else. Bacteria that cause diarrhea are commonly found in bathrooms. "Handwashing is cheap, it's easy to do and it works," says Dr. Julie Gerberding of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "I think if we were really compulsive about washing our hands we could drastically reduce our risk of colds."
A 1996 study showed Americans do not wash their hands as often as they should, and studies have shown that people in other countries are not any better. The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) launched a public education campaign and did a second survey. "We repeated the study to see if people really are cleaner than they said they were," Barbara Hyde, a spokeswoman for ASM said. They were not.
The ASM paid for a study to observe 7,800 people in public washrooms to see if they washed. Restrooms -- in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, at Atlanta's baseball stadium and in New Orleans -- all had working sinks with soap and towels. "In New York," the ASM said in a statement, "only 49% of the 2,283 people observed washed their hands after using a restroom in Grand Central and Penn stations."
Across all cities, women washed their hands more often than men. The survey found 75% of women washed up after a bathroom visit, while only 58% of men did. A team at the University of Utah watched people at home and found they often failed the handwashing test, forgetting to wash their hands after handling chicken, for example, or before preparing a baby bottle. And this was when someone was watching.
As few as 10 microbes of E. coli 0157:H7 can cause death or serious injury to humans. Guns are a more obvious and dramatic danger than E. coli, but they are infinitely less lethal. The facts about bum control surely should have a higher political priority than gun control.