Offices Full of Germs: Women the Worst
From – I am not kidding – The Nigerian Tribune.
(A recent) study pointed out that for a woman, her office desk may harbour far more bacteria than the workplace restroom and the office desk of men. In fact, women have three to four times the number of bacteria in, on and around their desks, phones, computers, keyboards, drawers and personal items than men do, the study by University of Arizona Professor Charles Gerba found. Gerba, a Professor of Soil, Water and Environmental sciences, tested more than 100 offices on the UA campus and in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oregon and Washington, D.C. in a study commissioned by the Clorox Co.
The researchers swabbed the offices of 59 women and 54 men in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. They sampled eight sites in each office: the phone, desktop, computer mouse, computer keyboard, exclamation key on the computer keyboard, pen, bottom of desk drawer, and handle of desk drawer. The researchers also swabbed workers’ personal items at the office, including personal digital assistants (PDAs), women’s purses and makeup cases, and men’s wallets and found women have more germs on their office desks than men.
“I thought for sure men would be germier,” Gerba said. “But women have more interactions with small children and keep food in their desks. The other problem is makeup.” The tendency is high to doubt this statement. But much as a woman’s desks may typically look cleaner, the germs are likely to be more abundant. Cosmetics and hand lotions make prime germ-transfer agents, Gerba said. Makeup cases also make fine germ homes, along with phones, purses and desk drawers. Food in desk drawers also harbour lots of microorganisms, and it is more abundant among female office workers to have food in their desks and munch while on an assignment, on the computer or even picking a call.
Then, they tend to be around children more often than men, and we all know how easily kids transmit germs. And finally, they use makeup, which tends to absorb germs. Then it rubs off the face or gets scattered by brushes and sponges. The news was not all negative for females though. Gerba in the study found the worst office germ offender is men’s wallets. The back pocket is nice and warm; it’s a great incubator for bacteria. Another hot spot for bacteria in men’s offices: the personal digital assistant.” Men tend to play with their palm pilots more, thinking they’re playing video games or something,” Gerba said.
The top three bacteria hot spots in women’s offices, in order of germs amount : Makeup case, phone, and purse and in men’s offices starting from the highest to the least: Wallet, personal digital assistant and phone. Though a similar study by the Clorox Company, a manufacturer of disinfectant in February 2006, reported that in a study of nine office-based jobs, teachers had the work space with the highest amount of germs and lawyers had the least, Gerba said everyone should arm their office with a germ arsenal that includes: disinfectant wipes, disinfectant spray, paper towels and fruit (for drawer).
According to Gerba, people should clean cell phones and desk phones to get rid of bacteria. “You need to use a disinfectant wipe, or spray disinfectant on a paper towel, and clean the phone off. Never directly spray disinfectant cleaner on phone,” he said. “Do not use soap and water — that just pushes the germs around.” “We recommend that you use a wallet or purse that can be easily wiped off — like leather. A fabric bag is harder to clean and just holds more germs.”
Finally, Gerba said office knickknacks and accessories should be given the same thorough cleaning as everything else , explaining that “people tend to touch and pick up the germs on their desks. It’s a vicious cycle of germs transferring from hands to objects to desks. Hand sanitizers are great in eliminating the transfer of germs from your hands.” The level of germs on office desktops and telephones came in gender neutral; women had three to four times more germs on their keyboards and computer mice than their male counterparts. Desk drawers at women’s desks contained seven times more germs than men’s. Surprisingly, the research showed that the average office desktop has 400 times more bacteria than the average office toilet seat.
What Gerba found among the bacteria was coliform — intestinal bacteria generally found in human waste — on the restroom handles and faucets, in the kitchen sink and sponge, and even in candy basket. That “indicates to me somebody’s not washing his or her hands after coming back from the bathroom,” Gerba said.
That’s why Gerba found hundreds of thousands of bacteria on hot spots like a printer button and the button for the first floor in the elevator, touched by hundreds of fingers each day. Even though none of the bacteria Gerba found was life-threatening, they could lead to more colds and flu.
Prof Oluwole Adebo, a cardiothoracic surgeon commenting said this is a study Clorox, maker of a disinfectant commissioned and is motivated at helping them sell more of their products.” Without being in an office, the surface of our hand picks up germs throughout the day, but you don’t get infected by them because the skin is a barrier against germs. Some of the germs are not in a state to infect, especially in places that are dry and hot, but where humid, it can incubate bacteria. So when you are to eat, wash your hands because there are bacteria on your hands. These bacteria are not in a position to harm us and therefore these is no reason to clean with disinfectants.
“America is full of studies like that. They study everything and make money out of it. The fact is this, in the air you breathe in, there are bacteria in it. Do you sterilize it? No, the body is sufficient to keep the germs at bay. It is all out to pursue people to buy their product”, he concluded.
My Comment: Remember Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics where we talked about who structures the survey? It works the same for studies. The sponsor of this study is Clorox, who make Clorox bleach and multiple cleaning disinfectants. It is in their interest for Professor Gerba to find a very germy environment. The more disinfectants we buy, the higher their profits soar. Prof Oluwole Adebo is right! Germs are everywhere, and we survive, and even develop immunities to them. This study is purely to sell more Clorox products by convincing us we have an epidemic of uncleanliness.
On the other hand . . . it may be time to clean out the make up case and throw away that candy bar . . . 🙂
Hawally Monster in Custody?
Today’s Kuwait Times, page 2, under National News/Crime:
Children Report Kidnapper
Children on spotting a police patrol asked for help after informing them that two Arabs tried to kidnap them. Police chased the expats and arrested them, and referred them to the relevant authorities. After conducting initial investigations and taking their blood samples, the blood group of one of the men matched that of the Hawally monster.
That’s not exactly a DNA match, but it does help narrow the field. Does the man look like the Hawally victim’s descriptions of their attacker?
Three other things – one, police were patrolling a neighborhood. That’s very cool. Second, the children trust the policement enough to ask for their help. That is also very cool. Third, BIG Hoorah for the parents of the children who reported these two losers and got them off the streets, for teaching their children well.
And meanwhile, even if the Hawally monster is caught, there seem to be a lot of other creeps out there who feel entitled to force sex upon the weak, the small, and the unwilling. Keep your eyes open out there.
Who Knew? Skimmed Milk Affects Fertility
Today’s Kuwait Times 1 March 2007 has a front page on women who drink skimmed milk having reduced fertility, inspiring a whole new category for my blog entries: Who Knew?
Skim milk as been a mainstay for women trying to maintain desired weight, along with non-fat yoghurt, low fat cheeses, and tofu – all which help women maintain bone density by providing calcium in our diets. The study, done in the United States between 1991 and 1999 concluded that non-fat dairy products may well be contra-indicated for women desiring to become pregnant.
When I was pregnant, I got nervous. I’m normally NOT nervous, but the new hormones bombarding my system made me really nervous and a little anxious, and it had a spiral effect. When I talked to the doctor – in Germany, where I was living – she just laughed and patted me and said “drink a little wine, my dear, and you will feel better! Have a glass at lunch and a glass at dinner.”
I followed her instructions. I felt better. I had my glasses of wine religiously. Thank God, my son turned out just fine, because now people react with horror to the very idea of a woman having anything to drink during pregnancy. But then – Who Knew???
The truth about the world as we know it changes daily. Our assumptions are challenged, and we have to be flexible, and move with the times and with the newest information. But I’m happy not to have to give up skimmed milk.
I have an apology to the Kuwait Times, too. I thought they had misused “affect” and should have used “effect”. I was wrong. They were right. I looked it up, and here is the information:
* Note on affect and effect from answers.com: USAGE NOTE Affect and effect have no senses in common. As a verb affect is most commonly used in the sense of “to influence” (how smoking affects health). Effect means “to bring about or execute”: layoffs designed to effect savings. Thus the sentence These measures may affect savings could imply that the measures may reduce savings that have already been realized, whereas These measures may effect savings implies that the measures will cause new savings to come about.
Jet Escort
Less than a minute ago, outside my window, a plane departed Kuwait with a THREE jet escort. Who could that be?
Women in Pakistan
Last but not least from today’s Kuwait Times are two articles from recent news in Pakistan, both involving women and the men who (seem to) own them:
Police Seek Pakistanis Pressing Woman to Hand Over Her Daughter
Karachi: Police are seeking ten men, including several tribal elders, accused of pressuring a Pakistani woman to hand over her teenage daughter as payment for a 16 year old poker debt, officials said yesterday.
In the latest case highlighting how conservative customs threaten women’s rights in Pakistan, Nooran Umrani alleges that despite paying off her late husband’s debt of 10,000 Pakistani rupees, she was threatened with harm if she failed to hand over her daughter, Rasheeda. The 17 year old was to be surrendered as a bride for the son of Lal Haider, the man who won the card game years before, Umrani told reporters . . . Police said yesterday that the mother and daughter were in their protection and that an investigation was opened against Haider, his son, and eight others. . .
Nooran said her husband was a gambler who ran up the debt at a poker game when Rasheeda was 1 year old. He promised Haider that he would get Rasheeda in lieu of payment when she grew up, Nooran said. . . .
President General Pervez Musharraf has vowed to give women more rights in line with his policy to project Pakistan as a moderate, progressive Islamic nation. In December, Musharraf signed into law a bill that makes it easier to prosecute rape cases in the courts, and the country’s ruling party recently introduced a bill to outlaw forced marriages, including under tribal custom in which woman are married off in order to settle disputes.
My comment: The debt was paid. And what was the father thinking?? giving away his daughter to cover his debts? I can’t wrap my mind around it.
Pakistani Sells Wife’s Kidney to Buy Tractor
Karachi: Pakistani police have arrested two men after a village woman complained that her husband and relatives had sold one of her kidneys in order to buy a tractor, police said yesterday. Although her kidney had been removed 18 months earlier, the woman named Safia only learnt it was missing after seeking treatment for a urinary tract problem in January. “She had said she was three months pregnant when her husband, Shakeel Ahmed beat her and then took her to the hospital for treatment,” said Mohammad Akram, duty officer at Noushera Jadeed police station in Punjab province. “But at the hospital, her husband, in connivance with three other people, sold her kidney to buy the tractor,” he said. Unlike many other parts of the world, including neighboring India, there is no law in Pakistan banning the trade in organs. Poverty-ridden Pakistanis living in rural areas sell their kidneys to pay off debts or raise money for their families. Sick but wealthy Pakistanis, and foreigners from the Gulf, Britain and Canada flock to private hospitals in Pakistan for kidney transplants, made possible by these donors.
My comment: Seems his wife is just another revenue-raising resource to Shakeel Ahmed. If asked, she might have even agreed, but it would be nice to be asked, not to discover it 18 months later. The news article says he was arrested. I wonder if he committed a crime under Pakistani law?
On a Lighter Note: Exhibitionist Held
God bless the reporters of crime news in the Kuwait Times, in the midst of all that horror, they occasionally find an article that is almost purely hilarious:
Exhibitionist Held
Farwaniya police arrested an Arab expatriate after he put on an artificial male organ on his own to seduce female passers-by. The organ, which was too huge to be true, drew shocked gasps, not only from females but also from all around. The expat however shrank when he saw the police and was subdued after a hot chase.
My comment: *Dying laughing.* From beginning to end. The title. *Gasping for breath* he “shrank” *howling* and was subdued after a “hot” chase. Kill me now! This reporter is too funny!
Indian Maid “Falls” from House Roof
This is from yesterday’s Kuwait Times (27 February 2007) and by the way, the Kuwait Times has a new, more attractive and easier to use web-page.
Hanan Al Saadoun, the reporter for this column, does a great job with crime reporting. Even when forced to be oblique, he gets the gist across.
Kuwait: Sabah Hospital investigators recently referred to the police the medical report of a woman who was admitted to the hospital with several injuries on her chin, jaw, lower lip, broken teeth and pelvic bone fractures. The lady was in a coma and was admitted to the intensive care unit of the hospital. They said after a while, the brother of her sponsor (who had reportedly been out of the country) brought in her passport, and informed the hospital that she was an Indian maid and had fallen from the roof of her sponsor’s house. Further investigations have been stalled until after her recovery from the coma.
My comment: Injuries on her chin, jaw, lower lip, broken teeth . . . . and a “fall” from the roof? Too outrageous for words.
Egypt blogger jailed for ‘insult’
From BBC News:
An Egyptian court has sentenced an internet blogger to four years’ prison for insulting Islam and the president.
Abdel Kareem Soliman’s trial was the first time that a blogger had been prosecuted in Egypt.
He had used his weblog to criticise the country’s top Islamic institution, the al-Azhar university and President Hosni Mubarak, whom he called a dictator.
A human rights group called the verdict “very tough” and a “strong message” to Egypt’s thousands of bloggers.
Mr Soliman, 22, was tried in his native city of Alexandria. He blogs under the name Kareem Amer.
A former student at al-Azhar, he called the institution “the university of terrorism” and accused it of suppressing free thought.
The university expelled him in 2006 and pressed prosecutors to put him on trial.
During the five-minute court session the judge said Soliman was guilty and would serve three years for insulting Islam and inciting sedition, and one year for insulting Mr Mubarak.
Egypt arrested a number of bloggers who had been critical of the government during 2006, but they were all freed.
“This is a strong message to all bloggers who are put under strong surveillance that the punishment will very strong,” Hafiz Abou Saada of the Egyptian Human Rights Organisation told Associated Press.
Global Terrorist Incidence Map
My husband told me about a website, Global Incident Map.com where terrorist events are entered on the map and refreshed every 300 seconds (sometimes a little faster and sometimes a little slower.)
You first see a map of the world with flashing incidence icons – explosions, planes, some I am still figuring out. You can click on any one incident to get more information. You can also zoom in and out a la Google Earth – same kinds of controls, to get a closer look at any one part of the globe.
As you scroll down the page, you find a listing of the 25 newest events, listed by country. Scrolling down a little further, you find a search feature, and just below that, events divided into categories (airport/aviation, arson/fire, biological incidents, threats, bomb threats, chemical events, etc.)
The one drawback I have is that every now and then as the maps and incidents refresh, the program hangs up for a matter of seconds to a minute. It clears up faster if you just sit there and do nothing, but I am not good at sitting and doing nothing.
The map is worth a slot on your favorite places list, just for it’s astonishing relevance. Today, for example, in Kuwait, it says:
Kuwait increases security alert
“Officials said authorities did not rule out the prospect that Al Qaida insurgents from Iraq would seek to infiltrate Kuwait and conduct attacks during Hala.”
During HALA????? Strike the desperate bargain and entertainment seekers in Kuwait? We’re that dangerous???
On Wcities.com, HALA is described thus:
“Tourists flock to Kuwait during the period of Hala February. This month-long shopping festival celebrates the beauty of the spring season in the majestic deserts. Whether you come to enjoy the lush springtime greenery and animal life or to purchase items like spices, jewels and ornaments at great discounts, Hala February has it all. The city comes alive with its annual parade, cultural celebrations, entertainment and various organized events. Experience the true, warm Arabian welcome and make your stay a fun-filled experience.”
I don’t think life gets any sweeter than February in Kuwait, but I have a real hard time buying into tourists flocking here for the shopping experience. And a harder time imagining Al Qaeda crazies targeting bargain-crazed shoppers.
Personal Debt and Blogging
Came across this article this morning in the New York Times. Overcoming debt is not unlike overcoming other addictions – and getting support online can help. Interesting article with international application.
Debtors Search for Discipline via Blogs
When a woman who calls herself Tricia discovered last week that she owed $22,302 on her credit cards, she could not wait to spread the news. Tricia, 29, does not talk to her family or friends about her finances, and says she is ashamed of her personal debt.
Theo Rigby for The New York Times.
Leigh Ann Fraley, a financial educator, writes a blog about how she overcame $19,947 in credit card debt. “I teach people how to get out of debt for a living,” she said, “but I couldn’t do it myself until I started the blog.”
The King and Queen of Debt Tell All
Yet from the laundry room of her home in northern Michigan, Tricia does something that would have been unthinkable — and impossible — a generation ago: she goes online and posts intimate details of her financial life, including her net worth (now negative $38,691), the balance and finance charges on her credit cards, and the amount of debt she has paid down since starting a blog about her debt last year ($15,312).
Her journal, bloggingawaydebt .com, is one of dozens that have sprung up in recent years taking advantage of Internet anonymity to reveal to strangers fiscal intimacies the authors might not tell their closest friends.
Like other debt bloggers, Tricia believes the exposure gives her the discipline to reduce her debt. “I think about this blog every time I’m in the store and something that I don’t need catches my eye,” she told readers last week. “Look what you all have done to me!”
A decade after the Internet became a public stage for revelations from the bedroom, it is now peering into the really private stuff: personal finance.
The blogs open a homey and sometimes shockingly candid window on the day-to-day finances of American households in a time of rising debt, failing mortgages and financial uncertainty. In 2006, the average American household carried about $7,200 in revolving debt (mostly on credit cards) and $21,000 in total debt.
A blog called “Poorer Than You” (kgazette.blogspot.com) describes the financial doings of a 20-year-old film-school dropout. (Typical post: “Yesterday we ate lunch at Subway for a total of $8.00, and went grocery shopping … with a list! And didn’t buy anything that wasn’t on it!”) On saveleighann.blogspot.com, Leigh Ann Fraley, 37, provides daily accounts of her escape from $19,947 in credit card debt.
“I teach people how to get out of debt for a living, but I couldn’t do it myself until I started the blog,” said Ms. Fraley, who conducts seminars in personal finance for a bank in Northern California. “I started to write everything down, like, ‘I saved 20 cents today by parking at a meter that still had time on it.’ I tell things I wouldn’t tell my family.” When she got out of debt in December, she said, “The blog was the first people I told.”
A Boston couple who call themselves the King and Queen of Debt started their his-and-hers blog, “We’re in Debt” (wereindebt.com), last March as a way to talk to each other about their debt. They owed $34,155.70 on their credit cards at the time, and an additional $120,000, mostly in student loans.
“My wife and I have good communication skills in every avenue of life except finances,” said the King of Debt, insisting on anonymity because, he said, “We don’t want our parents to find out and kill us.”
Starting the blog, he said, “was a way to communicate.”
Tricia started her blog after reading the online account of another woman, thedebtdefier.blogspot.com, who said she had paid off her credit card debt of $19,794.23 in a little more than a year.
Like other bloggers interviewed for this article, Tricia said she and her husband had arrived at their debt gradually, not by big financial crises but by regularly spending more money than they made, using credit that was offered freely by credit card companies.
“It was nothing over the top,” said a Georgia blogger who calls himself N.C.N., for No Credit Needed, describing how his credit card balance reached $11,510.22.
“Just pretty much what everyone I know does and continues to do,” N.C.N. said. “Every month I’d say, ‘We’re going to pay off this credit card completely.’ Then I’d say, ‘O.K., just this month we’ll let it slide.’ Then you wake up and you have $5,000 on your credit card.” He says on his blogs (ncnblog.com and ncnnetwork.com) that he has no debt now and no credit cards. Like other blogs, his sites run advertisements for debt-reduction services, and N.C.N. says he makes a small profit.
Tricia said her credit problems began in her freshman year at Michigan Technological University, when she opened a Visa account in return for the campus signup premium, a large candy bar. Since then, she said, she has rarely made more than minimum payments. As credit card companies offered her more cards and deeper credit lines, she said she kept her balance close to the maximum, eventually topping $37,000. Even as her credit card debt surpassed her annual income, she assumed that someday she would make more money and pay it off.
She said she never discussed her debt with family or friends. “You don’t want them to know,” she said. “Our parents hope for the best for us, and it’s hard to let them know we’re struggling. And with friends, you don’t want them to think less of you. And when you go out with friends you don’t want to say, ‘Oh, I can’t do that, I don’t have the money.’ ”
Keeping the blog, she said, has made her conscious of her spending. Though most of her readers are strangers, she worries about letting them down.
“I know that if I use my credit card, I’ll have to go on there and say I used it. I’ll have to fess up. I’ve been wanting one of those L.C.D. TVs for quite a while now, but every time I see them, I think about having to come on the blog and say I bought it. Because we don’t need it, we have a TV, but it’s still a temptation that’s there. And I’m sure if I wasn’t blogging we’d already have it.”
For the engaged couple who say they are behind a blog called “Make Love, Not Debt” (makelovenotdebt.com; net worth: negative $70,787.94), the feedback from readers has not always been gentle. “People have very strong feelings about debt,” said the blog’s female half, who calls herself Her. “People were appalled by my spending, like buying a $500 pair of shoes.”
“Just having the amount of debt we have is offensive to a lot of people,” said Him, the blog’s other half. “People will levy personal attacks for mistakes we acknowledge. We don’t think that’s quite necessary.”
When they discussed wanting a $25,000 wedding, one reader scolded them: “Grow up, a wedding isn’t about how much debt you put yourself or your parents into. If you are worried about that, in my opinion, you are not ready for marriage.”
Tricia said the comments she had gotten had been overwhelmingly supportive. But she acknowledges that the fear of censure can be useful as well.
“I feel embarrassed about it,” she said of her debt. “I try not to, though. I try to put a spin on it when I start to get too down. I think to myself if we didn’t get in this mess and get out of it, we would’ve just kept going the way we were. But now we have health insurance, we’re saving for retirement. We could’ve just been living on the edge, but not underneath.”
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