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In 2011, a study from the London school
of hygiene and
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revealed that one in six mobile phones
in Britain is
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contaminated with fecal matter – in
other words, they had poop on them.
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What was especially concerning was the
presence of E coli bacteria – a poop-related
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organism that you really don’t want
to be eating.
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Assuming that my fellow Britons don’t have
particularly unusual bathroom
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habits in the grand scheme of things, you
have to wonder why we don’t see an
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epidemic of cell phone poop-related illness
sweeping the modern world.
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Of course harmful bacteria are an unusual
case as they are living organisms.
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But widespread exposure to dubious substances
goes beyond the biological.
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For instance, numerous studies have shown that
many of the bank notes in circulation
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around the world contain traces of cocaine.
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Which, when you’ve got your head round the
disturbing mental image of poop on your cell phone,
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begs the question –
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why aren’t we all going round high as a kite?
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The answer is that it’s not just
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what we can measure that’s important, but
how much we’re exposed to.
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Just because we can measure fecal bacteria
on phones or restricted substances
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on bank notes, doesn’t mean that enough of
the stuff is going to get into our
-
bodies to have an effect.
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So when you come into contact with something
that might be harmful,
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how do you know how much is too much?
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For that, we need to know more about what
happens when different amounts of the
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stuff get into the body.
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That gets us into dose response, and that
is a topic for another risk bites.
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But in the meantime, it’s safe to assume
that there’s an important difference
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between being able to detect something, a
nd that something presenting
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a significant risk.
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That said, you might want to think a little
more carefully about your bathroom
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cellphone habits in future – just in case.
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