Elmo is right: Wash your hands!
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has a rip-roaring good time today making fun of “Secretary Elmo,” as he calls the Sesame Street character that the Obama administration has appropriated for a public service campaign to combat swine flu. Elmo appears in videos to tell listeners (children and adults) to wash their hands and cough into their sleeves. Milbank thinks that Elmo is the administration’s anemic response to what might be an impending crisis, but he also points out that the U.S. has fallen behind for years in its ability to produce vaccines.
But any good public health specialist, including a good school nurse, would tell you that frequent handwashing is one of the best preventive strategies, even if a vaccine against swine flu were immediately available. Public health docs have been urging handwashing for years.
My brother, a nephrologist, says he not only washes his hands between patients (you’d be surprised how many doctors don’t do that) but he also washes in the patient’s room, so the patient knows he’s washing.
I’ve always been a reasonably conscientious handwasher, but I became a fanatic after I became a mom. Now, I wash my hands as much as Detective Monk.
So, don’t make fun of Elmo! If you want to keep flu at bay, handwashing is certainly a good strategy.
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18 comments Add your comment
RealityKing
September 2nd, 2009
4:16 pm
ie.., our great federal government that some have come to totally depend on has fallen way behind this year and doesn’t really know how to protect you from this new strain of flu any better than the school nurse of the 1950’s.
Davo
September 2nd, 2009
4:21 pm
Elmo?
Affirmative action has gone too far this time.
jk
RealityKing
September 2nd, 2009
4:23 pm
Of course, these kinds of children’s antics are what we expect from the guy that ran for president on a cartoon slogan.
joe matarotz
September 2nd, 2009
4:39 pm
After the doctor touches my forehead, he washes his hands. I follow right behind and wash my forehead. The look I get – priceless.
Mike
September 2nd, 2009
4:40 pm
Detective Monk? Hmmmm. Cynthia, you’re a genius. They should sign him up next to teach the adults.
RealityKing
September 2nd, 2009
4:58 pm
Apparently I am..
The Cookie Monster. You are a glutton. You often make attempts at controlling yourself, but why stop yourself from getting what you really want? Cookies. Inside, you are sensitive and vulnerable and it just may be the source of your problems.
Victoria Nahum
September 2nd, 2009
5:04 pm
As both a patient who personally became infected, and a parent of a child who died from a hospital-acquired infection, I can tell you that hand-washing is no laughing matter. Even the CDC told me that if healthcare workers (including physicians) would just practice ONE THING consistently in the delivery of care – HAND HYGIENE, then perhaps up to 40% of people who become infected would NOT. 1.7 million people per year actually GET infections FROM THEIR MEDICAL CARE and 99,000 of them die from their infections. Community-acquired infections are keeping emergency rooms busy and now with the prospect of H1N1 rearing its head, we need to pay attention. Our organization SAFE CARE CAMPAIGN, based here in Atlanta works with hundreds of hospitals to get that simple word out because in the end, when it’s you or you family at risk, it matters in a big way. It does; it really matters.
deuce 40
September 2nd, 2009
5:14 pm
Can we sell these health care things like foodstamps? I need some new rims for my hoopty, dog.
Firemouse
September 2nd, 2009
6:11 pm
So we wash our hands in the mall rest room, and “dry” (or is that “less wet”?) them under the tepid air coming out of the machine. Then we go to leave the rest room and we’re back to square one…
There’s the door handle which we need to open, the same one touched by the significant fraction of the population that don’t wash their hands after using a public restroom. The sign on the electric drier smugly informs us we’re not killing trees and making waste, but that means we don’t have a piece of paper towel to open the door with. And if we do have a piece of paper towel, most of the time there is not a waste bin within reach, so we get to be the ones who look like inconsiderate slobs and just drop the paper towel behind the door.
I’d like to see public hand-washing campaigns understand that the entire sequence has to be considered. And that goes double for hospital campaigns that let every single person signing in at the emergency room (or anywhere else a patient or their caregiver needs to sign something) use the same pen.
jconservative
September 2nd, 2009
7:16 pm
Those of you who are Catholic will get this. With the flu threat out there I suggested to our Deacon that we dispense with holding hands in prayer & dispense with “passing the peace”. All I got was a cold stare.
jt
September 2nd, 2009
8:25 pm
For you nanny-state cravers out there-
Using the same logic that a LAW requires you to “buckle-up” in automobiles,
a LAW should require you to wash your hands.
When is this gonna happen?
Tank
September 2nd, 2009
9:20 pm
Chirp…………..Chirp…………….Chirp………………Chirp…………….Chirp……………
Goony Y.
September 2nd, 2009
10:53 pm
Cynthia Girl, I have been stirring up so much day and night on Mo’s blog that I could criticize you that much tonight. Sorry, girl. I’ll be hitting you back up later, OK? Kisses.
Mac
September 3rd, 2009
8:02 am
Build your immune system … eat more dirt.
Turd Ferguson
September 3rd, 2009
8:09 am
Oh the Humanity. All this hysteria reminds me of the Japanese running to and fro as GodZilla approached Tokyo.
AGGGGHHHHHH…run for the hills!!
What They Are Saying: 09.03.09 | AnnotatedOpinions.com
September 3rd, 2009
8:15 am
[...] Elmo is right: Wash your hands! [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] [...]
Ivan
September 3rd, 2009
8:24 am
I was almost expecting Ms. Tucker to claim Swine Flu was a GOP propaganda ploy influenced by the insurance agencies and Glenn Beck to undermine Obama. What was I thinking?
Maggie Brown
September 5th, 2009
9:16 pm
Cynthia – you got 2 of the 3 keys to illnes prevention. The other is keeping germs from your face. It does not help to wash your hands and then touch a doorknob (getting germs on your palm) and then touch your face. You can wash your hands 50 times a day but you can’t wash it after everything you touch. I learned this from my daughters Germy Wormy video. Add to the list – don’t touch them palm of your hand to your face!