Raise your hand if you’ve used hand sanitizer in the past year. Now keep your hands up if you think it’s kept you from getting sick. According to a recently released UVa study, there’s a good chance you’re wrong.
The study, led by Dr. Ronald Turner as published in The Daily Progress, sought to find if using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, like Purell, actually helps increase your ability to fend off cold or flu viruses. Turner’s team had a group of volunteers use disinfectant every three hours and had another group use nothing. The study showed that subjects who used the disinfectant had 42 cold infections for every 100 volunteers, while there was an incidence of 51 cold infections per 100 volunteers who didn’t use the sanitizer. Flu infections were found on 12 out of 100 subjects using sanitizer, while they were found on 15 per 100 subjects using nothing. Turner calls the findings “very surprising”, stating, “We all thought if you used hand disinfectants, it would have an impact.”
Now what does this mean for us? Well I have to say that I was raising my hand with what was probably the majority of you for both statements earlier. People around me have beat it into my head that washing your hands and using hand sanitizer should be like breathing or walking: just an involuntary step as you go throughout your day. Does this study mean I’m going to stop doing these things altogether? No, probably not. I’ve been pretty lucky to avoid H1N1 and the seasonal flu virus for the past couple years so I’m not likely to change my habits now. However, what this does tell me is that we need to be smart with how we interact with each other around flu and cold season, especially in densely populated places like college campuses, because things like Purell aren’t just a magic potion that will make these things disappear. Thoughts? –MA
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