Talk:Hand washing

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[edit] Baptism

I removed Baptism from examples for Hand Washing since it doesnt belong there. As can be seen from Baptism it can be:

• Aspersion - sprinkling water over the head,
• Affusion - pouring water over the head, or
• Immersion - lowering the entire body into a pool of water.

Hands are not even mentioned, and washing hands is not part of the ritual. To reiterate, Im not saying washing is not involved its just not hand washing, which is the title of this article. Shinhan 06:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personal hand washing

I haven't been able to find any decent studies showing rigorous hand washing linked to a decrease in illness incidence in a non-medical setting. If anyone can find anything (verfying or contradicting the claims in the article), we could remove the verify tag. The section currently reads well, but seems based on conventional wisdom rather than scientific fact. Scott5834 18:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

See http://www.cdc.gov/germstopper/home_work_school.htm they in turn cite a study at Am J Infect Control 2000;28:340-6. I don't think we need second guess the CDC. Also see the FDA's guidance at: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/%7Edms/a2z-h.html#handwashing --agr 20:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Most of my questions arise from CDC studies, see the 2001 paper, Hygiene of the Skin: When Is Clean Too Clean?".

Specifically:

From the public health perspective, more frequent use of current hygiene practices may not necessarily be better (i.e., perhaps sometimes clean is "too clean"), and the same recommendations cannot be applied to all users or situations.

The trend in both the general public and among health-care professionals toward more frequent washing with detergents, soaps, and antimicrobial ingredients needs careful reassessment in light of the damage done to skin and resultant increased risk for harboring and transmitting infectious agents. More washing and scrubbing are unlikely to be better and may, in fact, be worse.

Scott5834 20:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The CDC's recommendations are here: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/cruiselines/hand_hygiene_general.htm. Presumably they have taken this paper and other research into account. I don't think Wikipedia is in a position to form an independent judgement on the matter. --agr 23:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the CDC Vessel Sanitation Program (the place you linked to) is as authoritative as a CDC research publication, especially considering the VSP information is undated, unsourced, and contradicts a foremost expert in the field (Larson). Scott5834 02:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a source: S P Luby and others. Effect of handwashing on child health . Lancet 2005; 366: 225 193.174.133.20 16:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External link

I would like to add the following link to the external links section. The article identifies and explains recent research in hand washing, soaps, alcohol-based hand antiseptics and hand-hygiene techniques. Wikipedia links to external pages that contain further research which is accurate and on-topic, and I believe this to be one. Comments? Wjjessen 13:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems totally appropriate. See WP:RS " Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible." The problem with research articles is that Wikipedia has no way to assess various viewpoints in the research literature. --agr 17:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Any other comments regarding the addition of the link above to the external links section? Wjjessen 17:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless there are any objections, I'm going to add Hand Washing - A review of research findings at HighlightHEALTH.com to the external links section. Wjjessen 02:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)