Welcome to Gaia! ::

Taken from: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/08/11/2009-08-11_flipflops_are_a_magnet_for_dangerous_deadly_bac.html


The flip-flop is the preferred summer shoe for many New Yorkers. But on city streets, the flimsy footwear can be deadly.

That film of grime that coats your feet at the end of a day of flopping around town is some dangerous dirt.

Lab tests of two reporters' flip-flops, worn for four days, revealed a potentially deadly germ - Staphylococcus aureus - lurking on the rubber.

If it seeps into a cut on your foot - an entirely common summer affliction - the bacteria can enter the bloodstream and, if left untreated, kill you.

"It can make you pretty sick if it got into a wound and into your blood, where it could attack any of your internal organs," says Dennis Kinney, Ph.D., the manager of the microbiology lab at EMSL Analytical. "If you didn't treat it with antibiotics, you could die from it."

Kinney's team at EMSL tested two pairs of flip-flops we wore throughout the city for four days each.

The sandals took a trip on the F, A, C, G, 2 and 3 trains, went on walks through Prospect Park, out to bars in the West Village, to a Cyclones baseball game in Coney Island and rode the Cyclone. Twice. They even waded through a murky public restroom at the Coney Island subway station.

The results? Pretty heinous.

The $3.50 flip-flops harbored approximately 18,100 bacteria of the five most prevalent varieties found. (Unsurprisingly, the pair that made the trip to Coney Island and stopped off in the public restroom had roughly 13,900 more bacteria.)

And that's what accumulated in just four days.

"If you wear shoes for three months, 93% have fecal bacteria and 20% have E. coli," says Dr. Charles P. Gerba, professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona.

While some of the bacteria found were common, non-disease-causing staphylococci, more dangerous offenders lurked underfoot.

Aerococcus viridans and Rothia mucilaginosa, bacteria that normally reside in the mouth, were present.

"It's not a good sign," says Kinney. "It means that people are spitting. If someone were sick and spitting on the ground, you could pick something up."

Not to mention the worst offender, Staph aureus. Worst-case scenario: It enters your bloodstream, goes untreated and you die. But even mere contact with the skin can yield nasty results.

"Staph aureus can be pretty dangerous," says Kinney. "This strain isn't methicillin-resistant (MRSA), but it is Staph aureus, and it can still cause infections - typically boils and skin infections."

Still not convinced, flip-flop lovers? Here's a compelling argument for putting on a pair of shoes:

"There's more bacteria in the city," says Dr. Philip M. Tierno Jr., the director of clinical microbiology and immunology at New York University's Langone Medical Center. "There's garbage and rat-doo. This city is strewn with rats, and rats are harbingers of all sorts of germs. The same is true with cockroaches. It is all potentially harmful."



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/08/11/2009-08-11_flipflops_are_a_magnet_for_dangerous_deadly_bac.html#ixzz0Nutp2HRh

I don't wear them either, but only because I don't like thong style shoes. I don't like having anything between my toes like that.

I've walked on the ground with or without slippers with open wounds, though I don't live in a city. Just about anywhere should still be pretty Germ +. They should also mention that if you have a kick a** immune system like mine, you can't be affected at all. smile

omg my daughter was playing near my flip flops.

*Takes flip-flops off*

I don't check this subforum a whole lot since I'm not a teenager. But I wear flip flops all the time, or if not, then some kind of open toed sandal. I don't really like the way socks and shoes feel and only wear them once in a while. But I'm in Florida and nearly everyone here wears flip flops, year round much of the time too. In fact I'm guilty of walking outside with bare feet, but I don't usually go much farther than my driveway area. I don't think I'm going to stop wearing flip flops, I don't think my city is as dirty as New York. I was actually pretty disgusted when I visited New York last summer, it was so gross! I felt dirty just breathing the air in the subway station. Nasty. And while I wasn't wearing flip flops, I was wearing sandals. Ones that I still wear pretty frequently. x_x I think the next time I go there, I will be wearing socks and shoes.