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Subscribe to RSSSorry, germaphobes: Those hands-free, automatic faucets that seem so clean and germ-free might actually be housing more bacteria than the old-fashioned, manual kind, according to a new Johns Hopkins University study.
Researchers, led by Dr. Emily Snydor, tested electronic and manual faucets in patient care areas of The Johns Hopkins Hospital, over a seven-week period from December 2008 to January 2009. The team found Legionella growing in 50 percent of cultured water samples from 20 electronic faucets -- compared to 15 percent of water cultures from 20 of the older faucets in the same patient care areas. (Legionella causes Legionnaires' disease, a severe and sometimes deadly form of pneumonia.)
Somewhat surprisingly, this study is far from the first to place the germy blame on hands-free faucets. But Snydor's team believes their research is the first detailed analysis to show how and why the automatic faucets harbor more of the nasty bacteria. Researchers took apart four of the electronic faucets, and swab culture tests showed Legionella and other bacteria on all of the main valves. "All of those different pieces, when we took them apart, grew Legionella," Snydor says. "Manual faucets don’t have these parts."
Also, one reason hospitals and other facilities switched to electronic faucets is that they conserve water, "but decreased water flow may increase the chance that bacteria grows, because you're not flushing them through."
Another theory we'd like to offer: Those automatic faucets never work on the first try! You end up jabbing and poking your dirty hands all over the faucet to try to trigger the stream of water. Couldn't that promote the spread of bacteria? "I think people have hypothesized that," says Snydor. But in this study, "nothing on the outside was cultured."
At Johns Hopkins Hospital, all of the 20 electronic faucets were removed from the patient care areas and replaced with the manual kind, as a result of the study. A hundred more are set to be replaced throughout the hospital, and 1,080 manual faucets will be installed in the new clinical buildings currently being built.
We should note that this research doesn't excuse you from post-bathroom hand-washing. "A person goes to the airport, and goes to the bathroom one time -- that’s really low exposure," Snydor explains. "In hospitals, obviously, people have weakened immune systems -- that’s who we worry more about."
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I hate those things. Not only do they not work most of the time without elaborate hand flailing all over the place, when they finally DO work they emit a weak stream of water for about 3 seconds. I'd say on top of whatever germs grow inside these stupid automatic faucets, their poor performance probably discourages people from bothering to wash their hands at all.
Also, who wants a plumbing part that also requires electrical power to operate? That's just a stupid idea.
I agree completely. Those things are junk. Whatever sensor they use has some narrow view that makes it difficult to trigger the thing on. And yeah, once they're on they give you this trickle of a stream that makes it take longer to wash your hands. The fact that they've become so ubiquitous in our country is perfect evidence that the people buying this stuff are not the same people who actually use it. What's worse though is those automatic towel dispensers. They spit out some 6" square of paper and make you wait 30 seconds for another one. Total waste of time. As if overuse of paper towels was some budget-busting concern.
I agree on both counts, but especially the towel dispensers. At work, I practicly have to do the "Dance of The Seven Veils" to get a 6 inch square of paper towel to come out of the thing.
I agree. Also, the electronic toilets I've encountered will flush while I'm sitting on them, but not after I'm done... kind of defeats the purpose. Then I have to hunt around for the tiny manual button. And flush 3 times so the low flow will do its job. Whoever came up with this stuff trying to save money or water is doing neither.
Yeah, those electric presure washers, water heaters, and refrigerators with cold water and ice dispensers in the door are really dangerous.
Let's not throw out the "baby with the bathwater"...unless it's a baby germ. Let's try to improve the technology to fix those problems, until someone can prove conclusively that there is absolutely NO way around the problems.
(c) 2011
try not moving your hands rapidly under the sensors, slow to no movement works best. the sensors are not very sensitive so they may not detect the change in light if you move your hands fast.
as for the toilets... don't lean forward. when you lean forward you change the light level and the toilets sensor assumes you've completed your business. you can force it to flush without having to push the button by holding your hand in front of the sensor (1 to 2 inches) for a second and then moving it slowly away.
The automatic motion activated towel dispensers that I have used are adjustable as to how much paper is put out and how fast the sensor recycles. Both can be set by the user. Faster, cleaner and ultimately less paper is wasted. I like them. As to faucets, very few that I have seen work properly. I think almost all are battery operated and thus a low battery = bad performance.
A lot of the paper towel dispensers are not on timers. After you get a towel, just tug slightly and then wave again and a new one should come out.
This "study" has serious design flaws; therefore, it's conclusions are premature and possibly incorrect. Only 40 total faucets were studied, likely way too few to eliminate that the results occurred by chance.
Secondly, only faucets at one hospital were studied. Maybe these results apply only to that specific hospital due to water contamination or other infectious processes. What about including samples from other hospitals in different states (with different water sources)?
Third, if you believe the prior two faults are nominal, these results can only apply to hospitals, not other public places where people use automatic and manual water faucets. The germ environment may be completely different in hospitals.
Conclusion? This weak study should not have been "published" by any reputable news website or media.
Ah, clearly a member of the automatic faucet mafia.
Another example of poor research and bad reporting. In healthcare facilities, these units are supposed to be flushed periodically to reduce the chance for this type of contamination. It's likely that the facility either skippped the process or didn't perform the maintenance at frequent enough intervals. Or perhaps they were using older, inferior faucets that didn't have the capability to be flushed as required. If so they should never have been installed in this type of environment or they should be upgraded to the appropriated type automatic faucet.
In response to comments about the need to go back to the "good old days" of manual faucets, I say check your facts. There is a growing global water crisis and any product that reduces water consumption by as much as 70% is a valuable tool. So what if you have to move your hands around a little to get the faucet to activate. It's better than wasting water and they will stay on as long as you keep your hands under the faucet.
It's not true that the faucet will stay on as long as your hands are under it. That's why these types of faucets are so obnoxious to use.
Automatic faucets are great if you own stock in them or make a living selling them, but 90% of them are garbage to use. I wouldn't be bothered to try to find the 10% of the lot that actually works as advertised, as trying to sift through all the propaganda that is put out on behalf of the expensive auto-faucets just isn't worth the effort.
The bigger problem with the paper towel dispensers isn't so much the dispenser, as it is the lazy management oversight in seeing that the dispenser is kept filled! No dispenser can work without towels, good or bad.
ALL of this decreased water flow HAS to stop. First it was toilets then faucets. How about population control instead. That seems like the REAL solution.
YouNeedTruth2.............I agree with you...........We need population control.
Shirley O,
Are you suggesting that we start with YouNeedTruth2?
If everyone that believes the world would be a better place with fewer people would start with themselves, the world would be a better place.
You hit the nail on the head with that comment. Population control would solve a majority of the problems facing society today.
Population control? Exactly how do you plan on enforcing that? Forced sterilizations, ala Germany in WWII? Forced abortions? Limits on the number of kids, like China, where you can go to jail for getting pregnant a second/third time? Genocide of whatever race/religion you don't like? Allowing poor children to starve to simply death instead of providing food to the needy?
ooops, should have been "to simply starve to death". (I think my fingers are dyslexic!)
How about through a technique called EDUCATION. Ever notice how the over-populated areas of the world.....over-populated meaning areas where there are more people than resources to provide for their basic needs......are areas with substandard education?
Educated people tend to plan getting pregnant based on the prospects of future quality of life for their family unit. Uneducated people tend to get pregnant based on too much alcohol being consumed today with NO planning as to the future quality of life which may be experienced by the family. A leading factor as to why MOST poor people stay poor or become poorer over time is based in this reality.
If each person would only breed twice....since it takes two people to breed....the population would still grow for a while and then would level off with a slight rise and fall which would become normal. This two breeding event would replace the two original breeders once they die. Basically. And, NO, you don't get to breed twice with each new sexual relationship.....since this would accomplish nothing for population control.
Maybe we don't need to restrict the number of children - but it would be a good idea to stop paying people to spawn large numbers. US tax codes reward those who have more and more. How about no further deductions or credits after the first two?
You breed 'em, you feed 'em, house 'em, etc.
Population control is going to remain an entirely voluntary and highly unpopular concept in our country, primarily because the Book of Genesis directs all of these talking monkeys to multiply, so I don't see how we'll ever get to that point short of a global scale natural disaster or epidemic.
Thing is, the population of the US or any 1st world country is not the problem. We are able to sustain a very high number of people. The problem is countries like India who don't have easy and reliable access to contraception, who have such large families in order to have the labor pool in order to work the land.
As I asked before, how would you ENFORCE this rule... in our own country, let alone the rest of the world?(China already attempts to enforce this rule. How's that working out?)
I don't see humanity ever controlling its own population willingly. Mass starvation, wars over scarce resources, super-bugs, natural disasters... those will do the job eventually, and repeatedly. It would be great if we humans all could agree to work on these things together, but we can't even talk about *faucets* without fighting! :-}
Best population control, historically speaking, is widespread warfare. Especially if you kill off an entire generation of young men before they get a chance to reproduce.
Actually the best population control is prosperity, education & a healthily lifestyle!
One big problem - borrowing against future prosperity to stimulate the economy presently, funding redistributive social programs, even something as basic as social security - all require continually more people to pay into these programs than reap the benefits. These programs REQUIRE population growth to be even remotely fiscally practical.
In short, the entirety of liberal fiscal and social policy are implicitly built (quite hypocritically, BTW) on a foundation of sustained population growth.
Population decrease = fewer new people creating GDP and tax revenues = less $ to repay future obligations for social programs and debt service = drastically reduced future public fiscal health, prosperity and sustainability.
Like it or not libs, the horse is already out of the barn when it comes to population control.
What's your point, exactly? Obviously, you're against social programs, but what's your point about population control? It's bad? It's good? We're all gonna die of starvation? Oh, wait, I know... we should murder all the stinkin' libbies. Problem solved!
The idea that one does not need to touch the faucet is a good one. Instead of doing away with that idea, how about improving the design of these things so that they actually work in a satisfactory way?
You know they've been around for a long time now and they still seem to work like garbage. If there is a reason they haven't been improved I'm betting its because a better sensor would be too powerful and give too many false positives. Since the only thing they seem to care about is saving a few pennies on water use then having a powerful sensor that made all the sinks go off when someone walked past them would defeat the purpose. Because the purpose of a sink isn't for people to get their hands clean, its simply to fulfill the requirement in American culture that the public be given a place to put water on their hands after using the bathroom while using the least amount of that water possible. Saving $0.0003 on every patron really adds up.
Take a look at whats out there in the market, as a walk in user you see the cheap stuff for public use. Most are 2nd generation-the yechnology needs to catch up. Ever wonder why the one's on a urinal or actual toilet seem to work just fine?
Why is that? Really, what is wrong with touching a faucet? If you're that paranoid, use a piece of paper towel so you won't come in contact with it directly. But honestly, a person with a typical immune system in a typical situation needn't be so worried about touching every last thing. In a hopsital setting or for a person with a suppressed immune system, special precautions might be needed. But for most of us, there is no need to feed into the germ paranoia that the media likes to promote.
i NEVER wash my hands at a public toilet. why should i? when i piss, i touch my own private part and then i walk out. i don't touch the door either. i open it with paper towels or toilet paper.
It is so you don't spread germs from YOUR private parts to other people. No one wants your germs. It's not all about you. Other people exist and they can get sick from your germs.
Exactly, keep it simple and it works, haven't had a flu in 7 yrs.
I think that the point he was trying to make was that he touches nothing but his private parts, so that he doesn't get germs from surfaces, and doesn't transmit germs to surfaces...
EEEwww!!??!! Wash your hands! Your privates are not germ free and do not likely smell nice.
Do you then shake hands with people? , Touch your loved ones?
scir91onYouTube, I guess you never touch a phone, a computer keyboard, a door handle other than the restroom,etc . . . that's just plain gross.
I'm guessing that scir is a dude and therefore touching just his penis when he pees. It's skin. It's no different than touching your ear. Unless he's pissing all over his hands, then I don't see him not washing them as that big of a deal. If scir's a chick, then again, unless she's pissing all over her hands, there's toilet paper cleaning her and it's not like she's using her bare hand to dry the urine.
The faucets provide a nice "warm water" area to grow over time... treat the source of the contamination and those faucets would have much less chance of having Legionella contamination. Remember, chemical or thermal eradication does not fully penetrate biofilm and will cause re-colonization within 3 to 5 weeks. These "short term" legionella remediation techniques also stress facility pipes over time and pose human exposure issues such as smell and/or scalding.
Warm?! Every one of those things puts out ice water.
The faucets provide a nice "warm water" area to grow over time... treat the source of the contamination and those faucets would have much less chance of having Legionella contamination. Remember, chemical or thermal eradication does not fully penetrate biofilm and will cause re-colonization within 3 to 5 weeks. These "short term" legionella remediation techniques also stress facility pipes over time and pose human exposure issues such as smell and/or scalding.
Manual foot pedal or elbow operation with decent, adjustable waterflow would solve the problem.
Gee, you must mean a return to 30yr old technology, amazing how well it still does the job. But then again, who would you sell fancy electronic valves to? And how happy are you with the low flow toilet that can't flush properly 1/2 the time. causing you to keep flushing?
Dr. Larry, I've used public restrooms in Europe that had sinks with faucets operated by a foot pedal and am surprised that they're not commonplace in public restrooms in the United States. (As an aside, by definition a foot pedal can not be manual. I knew what you meant when I read your post, but you did give me a chuckle.)
It's still manual in that you have to turn it on by means other than waving your hands in front of a sensor.
Foot pedal activation may pose a challenge for the handicapped. But it's a nice idea, and I'm sure it could be incorporated into a wheelchair-friendly design somehow.
If adults can't use automated faucets with ease, try getting a toddler or small child to throughly wash their hands with one of these things. I don't have much luck getting my hands clean, much less my toddlers.
I agree, a foot pedal thing should be able to work to avoid the electronic problems and still keep people from touching the surfaces with their hands to spread germs.
as long as you have feet
Ha,this is all too complicated,life's too complicated! Let's just kill ourselves and get it over with! Bang! Dead! Done! x_x
you goin' first?
One "improvement" to the automated faucets might be to add some internal UV lights to "self sanitize" to help avoid this problem. After all, the electricity is there! :)
Are they saying that Legionaires Disease isn't caused by wearing blue c*nt caps, smoking 3 packs a day, and drinking bourbon by the quart?
This is the kind of EXCELLENT reporting that the public desperately needs to get. We must never forget that industrial profiteers will sell ANYTHING, ANYTHING to make money while totally disregarding any possible danger to Society. Whether it be defective cars, oversalted foods or, in this case, "no touch" devices THAT one would think must be a healthy choice, they don't care! It's a silent war out there people; don't let your guard down!
This may sound like a paranoid rant but it's a valid assessment of what's going on out there.
No, I think you nailed it - it's a paranoid rant.
for all the thought companies put into going greener, electrical water faucets deserves to be a bust. Even my grocer, went from that manual take a number tiny slip of pink paper and lame LED, to an electric dispenser that prints a large piece of bleached white paper with an enormous font for the number and coordinates this with several computer screens for both the workers and shoppers to see - the appearance of "modern technology" is extremely overshadowed by the blatant disregard for energy consumption.
We do need population control. People need to get it out of their heads that everyone is somehow required to "make a family."
It's not in our heads; it's in our jeans! :-}
This is what I use prior to scrubbing into surgery and I'm not sure why we can't change our washing habits to this form. If it's good enough for surgery, it's good enough for after bathroom use: ducts/hands/sterillium.php
Apparently the URL doesn't show up. Google "Sterillium"
I have to share my experience with the restroom at Sprouts Grocery. My grandson, 4, needed to use the toilet. I went with him, and helped him wash his hands. Unlike the mom with toddlers, he was just able to reach the faucet in the sink. He also was not quite tall enough to reach the sensor. But after I waved my hand under the faucet we got enough water to soap up very nicely. Another pass got us both enough to rinse thoroughly. Ok, maybe it took one more pass.
The automatic towel dispenser gave us at least a towel and a half, enough to dry thoroughly. Obviously, someone had tested equipment, and established optimum settings. Kudos to Sprouts, one of my favorite places to shop.
I suggest they take the best of both worlds..
many automatic faucets have a temperature control knob next to the faucet. I suggest they keep the temp control and change it from a motion sensor control "on/off" switch to the trusty foot petal. You would only need a single "on" pedal vs the older two pedal system (hot & cold) This way you have a steady and strong stream, its preset at a safe and warm temperature, no one has to touch the sink to turn it on, and there are no electronic parts to break or repair. problem solved.
surprise - the manual faucet is the most germ laden thing in a public bathroom. Number 2 is the hot-air hand dryer. It sucks the air up off the floor and shoes that have been standing in pee in front of urinals and toilets. No surprise - this is the kind of research your $$ are used for at schools of higher learning.
The problem is PEOPLE. Look at you cry babies! My water is too hot or too cold, I might get a germ from something! Technology has ruined quality of life, but has given us so much! We can work 100mi from home, never be alone, never be too close. Have 500+ friends and know nothing about them. We are in touch with the drama of the world everyday. That's ok.. they make a pill for everything you touch, how you feel, how much hair you have, and yes, they even have a pill to fight the stress that technology brings you everyday.
Take your blue pill and have a nice day.
Mine's pink, but thanks for your concern.
I am so glad this article and study came out! Germaphobes...honestly! You wash your hands with warm water and soap, then touch the handle to turn it off. so clean hands turn it off! The more we try to eliminate germs, the more germy we get. Suck it up and ingest and contact some germs. You'll end up healthier for it, guaranteed!
Maybe they took all the tests using the tainted swabs that have been in the news lately. It happened in a grocery store near me, shut the place down for 24 hours until they found the source - the swabs.
they use has some narrow view that makes it difficult to trigger the thing on. And yeah, once they're on they give you this trickle of a stream that makes it take longer to wash your hands.
Seems that many of these units are adjusted to save water. The local Mall has automatic faucets in their restrooms. They start immediately and run full stream.
They are adjusted to work properly. Maybe the local Health Department needs to inspect these faucets to make sure they are adjusted for optimum performance - after all - it is a health concern when they don't.
Real water savings can be achieved with the use of these auto-faucets - with the old ones many people would actually leave them running with they left the restroom.
One other auto device in our Mall - the Urinals and the Toilets auto-flush. They work well and no one has to touch a handle that someone with feces or urine on their hands has touched.
As always - view any research with caution. Since they tested the interior of the faucets - Anyone wonder how the germ got into the faucet in the first place? Where the auto and manual faucets in the same location - using the same water source?
I do all maintenance work in my new church and the new building has eight sink faucets and nine toilets plus two U's. The toilets do seem to work very well but sure make a racket when they do flush. The sink faucets were made with a .5 gal per minute aerator. The instruction reads that the water will not flow more than 35 seconds (if you can keep the water running that long) but it does shut off in about 1.5 seconds. I changed all of the sink aerators to the 1.5 gallon flow rate and it is way better. The .5 was pathetic and with the water heater about 100 feet of pipe away it is impossible to get hot water to the faucet (most germs do not live in hot water).
If you are having problems getting the faucet to operate, it might be time to change the batteries. Yes, the auto feature runs on AA or C batteries. If one day these faucets start to fail (the electronics) I'll be changing them out for the real ones with levers. About $100 for a good one compared to $400-$500 for the auto. Batteries not included.