Recently the European Tissue Symposium (whose members are manufacturers of paper towels such as Kimberly-Clarke Europe and Sofidel) sponsored a hand dryer vs paper towel hygiene “study” which was published by the Journal of Hospital Infection. Guess what they found? Paper towels are more hygienic than hand dryers. Was it a balanced scientific study? Of course not. It was the kind of study that we have come to expect from either side of the industry that shows what the interested party wants to show.
A study like this should be simple, right? The researchers test lots of people in real life situations, washing and drying their hands and then using paper towels or hand dryers. Collect, analyze and publish the results. But here’s what they did here: Smother rubber cloves in bacteria, or, as “The Skeptical Scalpel” described it, “….the equivalent of putting your hands in liquid feces…”, don’t wash them yet dry them. (What? I thought the point here was to dry the hands as part of the test.) Then hold them under hand dryers and try to blow whatever was on the gloves around the room. The results? There was much more bacteria in the area afterwards than there was before. Shocking!
In this day and age we are used to this type of thinly-veiled marketing. But what really is impressive is how quickly the European Tissue Symposium was able to spread their message across the globe. Almost immediately we saw headlines such as “Hand dryers splatter bacteria into air and onto users, report warns,” by The Independent (irony anyone?) and “Using a public restroom hand dryer? You may be spreading bacteria all over the place,” by the Washington Post.
What is fascinating to see is that these and many other publications will accept the original press release sponsored by a biased entity like the ETS and simply republish it with very little analysis of their own. In this, the day of the internet, these publications are just looking for content that they can put on the web. They don’t care really what the content is, but if it has a sensational headline that just might grab your attention in one of those flashing internet ads, then all the better. Most of them would not dare to simply republish this type of thing in their physical paper, but in their haste to elbow for attention online, they have created a new genre of Bubble Gum Reporting. All flavor, no nutrition, but tons of bacteria. (We did not actually test bubble gum for bacteria, but we could commission a study to show you that after it’s chewed and discarded, it’s more dangerous than fecal matter under a hand dryer.)
We saw many publications splatter the Tissue Symposium article all over the web without much of a glance at the content. And then there was the Minn Post and the Skeptical Scalpel quoted above who actually took a second to analyze the report. They came up with an elegant response: “Latest ‘paper towels vs. electric hand dryers’ study underscores need for skepticism”. Very simple. Read. Think Report. Thank you Minneapolis for your old fashioned Mid-Western ideals.
Well aren’t we biased? Absolutely. At Wedhygien we sell both hand dryers and paper towel dispensers. We happen to like them both and we think they can be appropriate in different situations. But full disclosure: we are partial to hand dryers.
