If only PZ's kids were still little...

By tsmith on August 17, 2006.

I see he already mentioned this while I was out of town, but I just ran across it: Squid Soap:

More on this and handwashing in general below the fold...

SquidSoap is a fun soap dispenser designed for teaching children healthy hand washing habits.
SquidSoap works by applying a small ink mark on a person's hand when they press the pump to dispense the soap. The ink is designed to wash off after the hands are washed for about15-20 seconds, which is the time recommended by most doctors.

Really clever, actually. There's a little ring of ink on the top of the pump, so kids have to wash long enough to remove the ink--theoretically, cutting down on the "barely get your hands wet" type of handwashing. (And it's not only kids who do this--even adults tend to suck at washing their hands.

There are other products out there also, targeted at getting young kids to wash their hands effectively. One that's nice to use at science fairs (or even in actual scientific research is called GloGerm, a UV-reactive powder (or cream) that can be put on hands prior to handwashing. After washing, hands are put under a blacklight, and kids can see where they missed washing.

I don't know how well any of these work as far as any long-term influence on handwashing behavior, but anything that gets kids interested in and thinking about handwashing is, in my opinion, a good thing. Might have to pick up a few of those for my son's preschool class...

(Image from http://www.squidsoap.com/images/home.jpg and http://www.teachersource.com/catalog/images/glo200.jpg)

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PZ's kids? I'm sure PZ himself would go for that.

Not recommended for children with OCD...

Look what an obsession with handwashing did to Lady Macbeth. "Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!"

(From: The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act V, Scene I)

This is very cool looking... Thanks for the post.

Heh. I blogged about hand-washing quite a while ago and got some good comments on it. Hard to believe people don't go through this simple procedure.

When has P. Z. ever need an excuse to get anything cephalopod related?

Tara

Recently I read about tetanaus being caused by a Clostridium bug.

C difficile is also caused by the same family of bug. (anaerobic, in spore form, forms exotoxins....yes?)

Considering that there is a tetanus vaccine, do you think it is possible to come up with a C Diff vaccine to address the emergence of new and community acquired strains of C Diff?

Would this help someone who has alreday been infected with C Diff?

Does the fact that Clostridium difficile cells are Gram positive, while its spores are Gram negative make things more difficult to come up with a vaccine? Or a treatment?

Sorry- I was just curious and this seemed like a hygeine related thread.

Thank you.

Cool! I ordered a bunch.

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