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Do Germs on Everyday Items Deserve the Hype?
Interviewer: Seems like you can't go a week without seeing one of those lists that talk about, "Oh, there are germs here or there are germs there. You need to watch out. Everyday items that are filled with germs." And I wanted to try to get a physician's perspective on this, if this is something I should really be concerned about when I see one of these articles, or if it's not such a big deal.
, I'm going to go ahead and give you the six things, and then tell me if I should worry or not.
Dr. Jones: Give them to me. I'm ready.
Interviewer:
- When you do a load of underwear, they say here in this article that it could leave 100 million E. coli behind in your washing machine, contaminating the next cycle. So that's number one.
- Lemon wedges in your drinks. They say it contains disease-causing microbes and sometimes tests positive for human fecal matter.
- The car windshield. They're saying the vapor from the washer fluid has high levels of this bacteria that can cause pneumonia.
- New clothes. They're saying that they found evidence of skin flora, feces, and respiratory secretions, I suppose from people trying them on, on new clothes.
- The car dashboard, they say, is the second germiest spot in your car.
- Your contact lens case can also be very, very germy.
So, do I need to worry about these things? Do I need to go out and buy some industrial-strength cleaner and just go to work on these six things?
Germs vs Chemicals鈥擶hat's the Bigger Threat?
Dr. Jones: Well, hold the thought about that industrial-strength cleaner for just a sec.
First of all, we evolved to be together, and what you've talked about is bacteria that are being... maybe being natural. There are bacteria in dirt, and maybe that's also on the lemon, but people have touched the lemon, and then they dropped the lemon in your drink. So we've done a pretty good job, and most of us have stayed very safe, being exposed to other people's bacteria every single day. We kiss people on the cheeks, and we get their bugs. We wash their clothes with ours, and we get their bugs. It goes on and on, and we do okay.
Now, there are clearly some bugs that are not so great, but we've been quite healthy. Now, what worries me about every single one of those things that you talked about, from the vinyl dashboard鈥攚hich off-gases vinyl鈥攚hich is not really good for your liver, or your contacts case鈥攚hich is probably made out of bisphenol A鈥攚hich when you pick it up, you absorb it. And for guys, it can make their sperm not so great.
And in fact, new clothes are covered with all kinds of artificial stuff to make them kind of stiff and make them smell... you know, you smell new clothes, they smell weird.
Cleaning Products Can Do More Harm Than Good
Interviewer: You're not making me feel any better. Actually, you're making me feel worse, like germs are not the problem, is what I am hearing.
Dr. Jones: Well, germs, I don't worry so much about germs. It's all of that stuff that our body never evolved to take care of, which is in our environment now, all of the time. So you have some choices in terms of what you're going to do.
Unfortunately, you just can't get a car that doesn't have a vinyl dashboard, and that's too bad. If you can avoid cooking it in the sunshine in the summer, that would probably be better for you.
I think that washing new clothes is probably a pretty good idea. Now you've just spread all of those awful chemicals that are in the new clothes to everybody else's clothes... but there you go.
Using Vinegar and Lemon to Clean
I think that when you use industrial cleaners, some of those cleaners, the triclosan, which is in many industrial cleaners, that's been shown to cause liver problems and epigenetic problems. So I'm a big fan of vinegar. So, vinegar or lemon juice. Let's go back to that lemon. So, yeah, maybe that lemon has some stuff on it.
Interviewer: Like, even fecal matter? That seems like the worst out of all of these things.
Dr. Jones: Yeah, okay. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. But the lemon itself, being acidic, so it's not whether you have some lemon, you just need to have lots of lemons, because the acids in the lemon can kill bacteria. There you go. And use vinegar for cleaning.
Worry Less, Live Better
Interviewer: All right. So it sounds like they've got me worrying about all of the wrong things. So now that you've introduced a whole new set of things to be terrified of, what can I do about it?
Dr. Jones: Okay. You know the worst thing about the whole process is that living in fear makes your cortisol rise, and you don't sleep, and you get fat, and it changes your whole biochemistry when you're afraid all the time. So I just say to give it up. There are too many of us on the planet anyway. Live a good life. If you like lemon in your water, just go for it.
Interviewer: Don't worry about these lists.
Dr. Jones: Yeah, don't worry about the lists.
updated: June 20, 2025
orginally published: August 18, 2016