Resuable grocery bag carried nasty norovirus, scientists say

pMSNBC ^ | 5/9/12 | JoNel Aleccia

[AT7Saluki]

Oregon public health officials have traced a nasty outbreak of norovirus infections in a group of soccer players to an unlikely source: a reusable grocery bag contaminated with what some experts are calling “the perfect pathogens.”

The incident is raising questions, once again, about the cleanliness of the portable shopping bags that many consumers use to avoid the paper vs. plastic impact on the environment.

“We wash our clothes when they’re dirty; we should wash our bags, too,” said Kimberly K. Repp, an epidemiologist with the Washington County Department of Health and Human Services in Hillsboro, Ore. Her work is published this week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

[onedoug]

...we should wash our bags, too,” said Kimberly K. Repp, an epidemiologist....

WASH YOUR HANDS!!!! Frequently.

[Vaquero]

I only use the throw away plastic free ones...

I throw them away if they held chicken or other meat...etc.

those used to hold dry goods I reuse them for everything under the sun.

[punditwannabe]

Excuse me? You’re KILLING trees to get those bags!
Most of the “eco-bags” are plasticized, they’re a lot more sturdy than the plastic grocery bags, people will surely disgard them one day (probably after they have the Norovirus) and then how long will they take to disintegrate?? No one has pointed that out yet.

[edcoil]

They stopped it because the environmentalist complained they were killing trees.

[muir_redwoods]

I would happily use medium weigh denim bags with denim handles for groceries. Plastic and paper bags tear easily; denim bags would be as tough as a pair of Wranglers. it would be easy to wash these as well..

[Vendome]

Okay San Jose, San Francisco, et all. WTF where you thinking when you passed these idiotic ordinances.

You thought it would be a win-win which ever option the consumer chose?

Buy bags for your groceries @ 10 cent per and the city gets a new form of revenue.

Don’t buy a bag and Mother Gaia is saved?

You never considered the health implications which was just one the many reasons to use a disposable bag.

E-coli, Staph, Salmonella, Noro Virus, Cholera(Yep, it can happen)

prevention of those diseases was one the many wonders of plastic bag and you will see more outbreaks of diseases when people eat food contaminated by a bag that has been reused one to many times with no thought of hygienic.

Imagine a party where 200 people enjoy a barbecue of contaminated food from an unhygienic bag.

Now imagine those same people take home leftovers and Voila!

[Jeff Chandler]

traced a nasty outbreak of norovirus infections in a group of soccer players to an unlikely source: a reusable grocery bag

Not unlikely at all.

[Trod Upon]

There's a reason we call them dirty hippies.

[faucetman]

YES!!! Let's return to paper bags. They have so many uses. When I was a poor kid, all my book covers were made from paper grocery bags. They don't strangle turtles. They don't blow away. TREES ARE A RENEWABLE RESOURSE. Paper bags are eco friendly.

Exactly, what's not to love about paper bags.

[faucetman]

RESOURCE

[ridesthemiles]

First the house cats have to play with them until bored.

[ridesthemiles]

Anyone who bakes cookies at home knows that cooling them right out of the pan on opened paper grocery bags makes them better. Soaks up the butter—crisps up the cookie. Especially Toll House cookies.

[punditwannabe]

OMG you’re right, I never thought about that stinky conveyor belt the stuff goes on! EEWWWW

[hinckley buzzard]

Stupid people should meditate on some other "disposable" commodities and decide if they want to re-use them.(You can fill in the blanks with your imaginations.)

[hinckley buzzard]

There is indeed an island of plastic floating in the mid-Pacific. IDK How much is grocery bags though. Probably not much. What did you tell these people to try to dissuade them?

[allmost]

It is.

[Aunt Polgara]

>>>OMG you’re right, I never thought about that stinky conveyor belt the stuff goes on! EEWWWW<<

It’s not just the conveyor belt. No matter how clean YOUR bags are, the clerk who packed your bags has been handling dirty bags all day before he/she got to yours.

[lightman]

The greenies should be so proud that their reusable bags might also reduce some of their vilified “surplus population”.

[skeeter]

Well, I could have told them that while 11lb parts of garbarge per square kilometer squared (at worst) certainly isn’t a good thing it isn’t an ‘island’, but instead I told them to actually research the subject rather than take the word of student environmentalists taking signatures outside the Apple Store.

[woodbutcher1963]

Last year we had a semi formal company party at the local country club in Nashua,NH. Two days later 1/3 of us were out sick for two days with the norovirus. Think of the revenue lost because a dozen straight commission commodity traders missed two days of work. The NH board of health closed the place and they cleaned the facility for three days. We tried to get some type of compensation for our companies lost revenue. They would not even offer us a free golf outing. Obviously, we will never go back.