Treacherous Toilets

Unless you’re bringing a fork and knife to the bathroom, there’s no reason to fear sharing a toilet with sixteen of your closest friends.

“There’s nothing you can get off a toilet seat, unless you ate off of it,” Harvard University Health Services (UHS) Chief of Medicine Soheyla D. Gharib writes in an e-mail.

“Most disease transmission occurs by mucus membrane to mucus membrane contact, coughing, food handling by people with infections such as hepatitis, sharing utensils, or sharing needles,” writes Gharib.

Popular Science Magazine seconds Gharib, confirming that illnesses like influenza and strep throat can’t make the leap from the seat to your immune system.

Your germ-phobe mom wasn’t totally wrong, though.

The New York University Medical Center’s website lists “toilet seats” among the risk factors for pediculosis pubis, commonly known as pubic lice.

Don’t let this news get you crabby—preventing a parasite paradise is easy. Make sure that your toilet seat is Harvard-Yale tailgate-dry before covering it with a toilet seat cover. Afterwards, wash your hands with soap and water. Simple, right?

Maybe not. A 2005 study by the American Society for Microbiology found that while 91 percent of American adults claim they scrub their hands post-loo, researchers in four cities discovered that a mere 83 percent actually washed.

So quit worrying about your toilet and take a tip from gross-out king Howard Stern. Even he, a man who farts into his microphone, refuses to shake hands.