May 4, 2008
A few months ago, a colleague told me of the dangers of leaving one’s toothbrush in the bathroom. According to him, germs get catapulted into the air everytime we flush the toilet and land on everything (I see a forthcoming commercial sequence for bathroom cleaners: tiny battle-fatigued monsters land with parachutes on the bathroom sink. They then proceed to swathe everything with muck. Camera focuses on a purple toothbrush. Toothbrush gives out a yelp. Que Mr. Clean, cape fluttering, chest puffed. Order is restored. Crowds cheer). He advised that we should keep our toothbrushes someplace cleaner, like the kitchen for instance. I only half believed him. It sounds an awful lot like wives’ tale but sometimes the thought lingers when I brush. Most days I shrug it off. May I remind everyone that I live in Manila. I drink the tap water. I go out and eat isaw. I breathe in that pristine big city air. Guess what? I’m still alive.
The other day, without actively looking for clarification, the answer was served to me by our friends from the Discovery Channel (and who says television rots your mind? It’s really just a matter of switching to the right channels). I’m sure you’ve heard of the MythBusters. Apparently, my friend’s germ yarn was not just locally distributed. It is a belief among folks in the US as well.
Anyway, Mythbusters Adam and Jamie were dead set on getting to the bottom of it all. They had two sets of toothbrushes. One group they placed in the bathroom and a control group they placed in the kitchen under a protective plastic cup. They used the toothbrushes for a month after which they had them sent to a lab for testing.
Here are their findings: They found fecal coliform, a strain of facultatively-anaerobic, rod-shaped, gram-negative, non-sporulating bacteria that originate in….well…poop. They were on the toothbrushes they left in the bathroom but also in those they left in the kitchen. But the guest microbiologist of the show assured them that they were in such small quantities that they would hardly cause any disease in humans.
Myth busted! At least in a way. Lesson learned is that no matter what part of the house you’re in, poop is eveywhere. I’m curious to know what other forms of bacteria they would find should they do the experiment in a place that is less sanitized, say…here. I’m sure the results will bowl Adam and Jamie out of the room. But that would only prove one thing: when it comes to grime, we Pinoys are iron-clad, baby!
May 4, 2008 at 1:12 pm
And why did the toothbrush sample have to be purple?!?
May 5, 2008 at 12:10 am
Here’s a very simple solution: Keep your toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet. Yes?
May 5, 2008 at 6:11 am
Either way. The germs are everywhere. So far we haven’t seen the resurgence of the Black plague so it really doesn’t matter where we keep them.
May 5, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Point taken.
May 6, 2008 at 12:57 am
@Beached Bear: I chose purple because it seemed like a very common color for toothbrushes. I can recall several movies wherein they were mentioned in the script.
May 6, 2008 at 6:46 am
More on germies: The mythbusters also did an episode on the 5-second myth on food that fell on the floor. According to this myth, if you dropped a piece of food on the floor, you have about 5 seconds before it gets contaminated with germies, ergo food on the floor for less than 5 seconds is safe to eat. Their results show that it doesn’t matter how long your food stays on the floor. Yes, the germies do not actually invade the food, like how we imagine say an astronomic piece of cake falling from the moon and landing in the middle of EDSA.
The actual landing of the food on the floor in itself contaminates the food, the dirtier the floor, the more germies. And to add to the ickiness factor of this episode of mythbusters, they compared the amount of germies on the surface of their office toilet seat with their workroom floor. And guess what, the toilet seats have fewer microbial colonies, fewer germies compared to their workroom floor. Meaning it is way safer to eat a piece of baloney on the surface of their toilet seat than on their workroom floor.
Iew! Would you?
I love geeks!
May 8, 2008 at 2:07 pm
The Pinoy version of that myth being that the germs flee at the sight of a colossal meteor (from their view point that is) falling from the sky. After a 5 seconds they realize that it’s just a piece of bread and proceed with the contamination process.
And it makes sense that a toilet seat has less germs. Our feet get dragged around in the dirt more often than our butts ever will.
May 8, 2008 at 2:42 pm
it’s also not the amount of germs. it’s the type of germs.
different germs inhabit different places. the germs that inhabit toilet seats are different from those that inhabit the telephone mouthpiece (another dirty object).
another super dirty place is the kitchen sink. and computer keyboard and mouse.