After buying your clothes, do you wash them?
If you don't, you might want to start today!
Good Morning America enlisted the help of Dr. Philip Tierno, director of microbiology and immunology at New York University, to see what's lurking on newly purchased clothes and the findings are disturbing!
Garments were collected from various stores including a high end department store. After swabbing areas on different clothing items, results showed evidence of respiratory secretions, skin flora, yeast, fecal germs and vaginal secretions.
GROSS!!!!!
Tierno also discovered:
"Some garments were grossly contaminated with many organisms … indicating that either many people tried it or … someone tried it on with heavy contamination. In a sense, you are touching somebody's arm pit or groin. So you want to be protected that's all. You may not come down with anything and, most cases you don't, but it's potentially possible."
Yikes!
If you aren't already sick to your stomach, Tierno adds clothes could potentially spread "a very bad type of diarrhea — you can also transmit things like the norovirus, stomach virus. You can transmit things like MRSA [a staph bacteria]."
Nasty!
So what can you do?
Wash your clothes! Or you can even run them through one cycle in a hot dryer.
He also suggests wearing a layer of clothing while trying on clothes.
Happy shopping!
[Image via AP Images.]
Posted: January 10, 2010 at 10:20 am
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