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Ok, I am going to state the rules first. Please, only response if you have a link to actual peer reviewed research. Anecdotal comments, references from this agency said, and other informal sources not allowed ( but I bet I get them anyway)
Any one have a link to research suggesting the amount of bacteria on your hands before entering the restroom and after and various combinations of utilization (ie #1 + wash, #1 no wash, #2+wash, #2+no wash, #3)
My Google fu only yieled results that linked anecdotal evidence and not a single piece of scholarly research on the subject.
I am not debating that washing hands is not good, and I concede that public policy of asking people to wash after use is good since more hand washing with non-anti bactieral soap is good [This assumes proper technique and drying hands of course] but is their any research that proves a definitive hygienic link pre bathroom vs post.
Ie, Do your hands contain statistically significant differences of germs and other bacteria. (Not just "run the risk" which is anecdotal since I know that e. coli and other sort of bacteria can exist)
Well?
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I know this is specific to ladies restrooms, but is this[^] the type of scientific research you're after?
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Yeah!, Kind of, really wanted to see Wash vs Not wash but if you look at the chart on the table, it doesn't matter since the sinks were 63% positive, Door 35 and handle 50% positive! Hah!.
Would like to see before vs after.
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Not completely relevant, but Mythbusters did some work on the effectiveness of hand drying you might find useful: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2013_season)[^] - episode 200.
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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I've always figured my willy is cleaner than my hands - so I should be washing it after visiting what the Americans refer to as a bathroom for some reason.
but I stopped doing that after being thrown out of a shopping centre after using the Dyson Hand Dryer "inappropriately"
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I work on a similar theory with towels.
They should never need washing: when I get out of the shower I'm the cleanest thing in the house; towels should get cleaner by contact with me... 
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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I've been trying to convince my wife of this theory for years! 
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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_Maxxx_ wrote: I've always figured my willy is cleaner than my hands
This is a common misconception.
The truth is that your, ahem, willy is covered by potentially disease causing bacteria due to its proximity to your No.2.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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I bow to your superior knowledge on the subject of penile-anal proximity 
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Thanks, I think...
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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So, the Dyson is a hand dryer. That explains the mess I did.
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Isn't this the reason that public bathrooms (e.g., at the cinema) commonly no longer have doors? So that after you wash your hands you don't need to touch anything another user has touched?
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The stalls have doors, obviously! But most places don't have a door to the toilet area itself, just a long twisted corridor.
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Not in my neck of the woods, they don't. Doors on most entrances as well as cubicles.
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Well, years ago I read in Science News (a layman's digest of scientific journal papers and conventions) that someone had done some research showing that soap (anti-bacterial or not) is essentially irrelevant -- 90% or more of bacteria is removed simply by washing with water. I believe this would be a study that meets your criteria, but I seriously doubt I can find the article, even though Science News has an online presence[^]. Certainly my feeble attempt failed!
Marc
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Proper handwashing promotes wellness in child care
JP Niffenegger - Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 1997 - Elsevier
http://www.jpedhc.org/article/S0891-5245%2897%2990141-3/abstract
The effect of a soap promotion and hygiene education campaign on handwashing behaviour in rural India: a cluster randomised trial
Adam Biran, Wolf-Peter Schmidt, et. al., Tropical Medicine & International Health
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2009.02373.x/full
Those are just abstracts though, but those are old studies.
----------------
Now, for facts that I have read in several places, but do not have references I can cite. (You predicted you would get such facts, and I won't disappoint you - beside, you only asked for peer-reviewed articles, but not for such articles for every single statement that is made!) One of these places where I read such facts is Scientific American, and in the specific issue, I believe there was a peer-reviewed reference for the fact I am about to relate. The fact is, there are more bacteria cells in the human body that are not the body's cells, i.e. they have different DNA, then there are human cells in the human body!
Also, if interested in the spread of disease, then the question about a statistically significant difference in bacteria with washing and not washing is not the only relevant question. Bacteria are a part of the human ecosystem. Certain types of bacteria that can be picked up in the environment are more likely to cause disease than the natural bacteria that exist in the body. Or to put it more accurately, there are both bad and good bacteria in the human body, but mostly good ones that consume resources and keep the bad bacteria in-check.
----------------
By the way, another real peer-reviewed study, which again I cannot cite, found that children raised with pets had fewer allergies later in life than those who were raised in very clean environments. I know a lot about allergies as I am very allergic to a number of things and I've been treated by a Harvard-educated allergist who related a lot of information I won't go into here. Allergies are caused by the body's immune system attacking things that aren't bad. The theory is that the children with pets had more exposure to bacteria, which primes a young child's immune system to learn what to attack and what to ignore. That, however, is just a theory and has not yet been proven.
In other words, avoiding bacteria too much can be bad too, particularly when young. But it is clear that washing hands is good to avoid the spread of disease.
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I've heard this theory and I think that while it may have some merit, however in my particular case it wouldn't be very applicable. I have lots of allergies and my family had all kinds of domesticated animals when I was growing up. Some of what we had were birds (parakeets, cockatiel and a parrot), cats, goldfish, dogs (no more than 2 at any point in time), hermit crabs, iguana, gerbils, hamsters... and I'm sure I've forgotten some others that were at home and my sister had a horse. If this reduced my allergies, I'd hate to see what my life would have been without the menagerie. However, my allergies are comparable to my mother's, so perhaps this only applies to people with allergies that aren't genetic?
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This might help: How to wash your hands[^] (cdc.gov - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
There is a list of references and studies at the end and a search for 'hand wash' on the site turns up quite a few results.
Cheers,
--Russ
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Did you even read the titles of the results? Not a single paper in the list addresses my question. Though, maybe I will email the researchers, I am curious. Someone must know!
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I was just daydreaming and thinking about the differences between the HTTP GET and POST verbs (OK, I'm a little tired, OK? The mind wanders) and I suddenly remembered a trick I had to do in the wee early days of the internet when posting article content. We used to have to split the content into small chunks before sending it in the form postback, and then rebuild it on the server end.
What sort of relatively recent stuff (this was 10 years ago) did you used to have to do to get your apps to work?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Gawd!
Back in the early days (when I was all embedded, and only had 4K of ROM and 4K of RAM to play with) there were all the tricks: self modifying code, undocumented processor features (that only worked in the pre V3 hardware mask), hand tuned spaghetti assembler, all the kinds of things that I recoil from these days!
Nowadays, all I have to do is pour the blood of a virgin sacrifice into the DVD drive and Windows does the rest...
Mind you, you wouldn't believe how hard it is find that around here these days!
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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OriginalGriff wrote: all I have to do is pour the blood of a virgin sacrifice into the DVD drive and Windows does the rest...
Right. And just where are you going to find a virgin in your part of the world?
Will Rogers never met me.
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Lambing season
If your neighbours don't listen to The Ramones, turn it up real loud so they can.
“We didn't have a positive song until we wrote 'Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue!'” ― Dee Dee Ramone
"The Democrats want my guns and the Republicans want my porno mags and I ain't giving up either" - Joey Ramone
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