In today’s world, paper dollar bills are used to pay for things that we buy. But, when you reach in your wallet for that dollar, do you realize what is on it and how many germs you may be exposing yourself to?
It certainly was not hard to find articles on this topic. Most people don’t comprehend the amount of bacteria and other scary substances that linger on money as it gets passed around. An article by CBS News writes, “The dollar bill is home to thousands of microbes — bacteria, fungi and pathogens that can cause such illnesses as skin infections, stomach ulcers and food poisoning, according to scientists.” This article talks about an unpublished study that examined 80 $1 bills that circulated in February and July 2013 in NYC done by researchers at New York University. This study found around 3,000 different types of bacteria on the dollar bills! It is states that, “They identified DNA from several different sources including E.Coli (food poisoning), bacillus cereus (food-borne illiness) staphylococcus aureus (skin infections) and about half was from human DNA.” If you think about how much the money is circulating, from bathrooms, to households, classrooms, airplanes, and much more, it is not surprising that they discovered live, viable bacteria present on the dollar bills. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, antibiotic resistant bacteria, a bacteria that is transmitted by something as simple as money, was the cause of 23,000 deaths in 2013. Of all the bacteria found on a dollar bill, the most ample amount found is a bacterium that causes acne whereas some other bacteria was linked to “gastric ulcers, pneumonia, food poisoning and staph infections, the scientists said. Some carried genes responsible for antibiotic resistance.”
The transmission of these bacteria through money is almost inevitable due to its demand and what dollar bills are actually made of. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing explains that, “the average $1 bill is made of 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen. It has an estimated lifespan of about 22 months.” The linen and cotton hold in the bacteria and other germs that people unintentionally leave as they pass around money.
As stated before, the transmission of all these gross substances on your dollar bills is inevitable, and there really is nothing that people can do about this problem…except maybe cleaning and using their personal credit cards more often! Maybe now when you’re out at the mall or grocery shopping, you’ll know to try and your hands away from places that bacteria can enter your body, like your eyes, nose and mouth!
I also knew about the fact that bills are extremely dirty, but it sounds scarier than my expectation. I mean I never thought about a money bill has that massive amount of bacteria. However, it is simply impossible to keep money bill clean. So, maybe the best way to avoid hygiene issues would be just washing hands. I also found an interesting article about similar topic. (http://kdvr.com/2014/04/22/gross-just-how-dirty-is-our-money/)
It is quite alarming how many bacteria could exist on such a small sample of dollar bills (n=80). The study in the CBS News article is an observational study, but I feel like this is one of the few cases where it is not a big deal because no causal relationship is being sought after. This study was not interested in what causes the high amounts of bacteria, it was just conducted to bring attention to the fact that there is a disturbingly high amount of bacteria present on the bills we touch daily. It would have been nice to know what the average amount of bacteria on each bill was, rather than the total number. It would have also been nice to have a bigger sample size of bills. Though 80 is a big sample, when you think about how many bills are currently circulating around the country, I would have liked to see a sample at least in the hundreds, if not thousands. The more I thought about this experiment’s findings, the more I began to wonder what was causing such high numbers of bacteria. Was it simply the fact that anything in constant circulation would hold this much bacteria, or was there something about the makeup of the bill (75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen) that caused bacteria to stay trapped? My null hypothesis was that the makeup of the bill had nothing to do with the amount of bacteria on the coins. I searched for a study that measured the bacteria counts on coins, since they are also in constant circulation around the world. This would be a loose way to prove or disprove my hypothesis. If the coins had high levels of bacteria as well, it could be reasonable that the cotton and linen fibers of the bill did not play a significant role in trapping the bacteria. I found this study that examined the bacteria counts of 40 randomly selected coins from predetermined locations in Nairobi, Kenya. The bacteria count on an individual coin ranged from 2,300 to 25,500! The sample design of the observational study seems valid. However, the study was small, and it was conducted in Kenya, rather than the U.S. I have no way of proving or disproving my hypothesis that the makeup of the bill had nothing to do with the high levels of bacteria. For starters, I did not set up my own randomized experiment to control for third variables and make a causal connection. Still, with bacteria counts in the thousands for coins as well, it leads me to believe the constant circulation is more the cause of the high bacteria counts seen on the dollar bills. Still, it would be interesting to see an experiment set up to see how bacteria levels compared between bills and coins that were under similar circulation conditions.
I think you are making a really good point. dollar bills are really dirty and there are many bacteria on them. Each dollar bill may pass through thousands of people, and people put there money any where, under bed, wallet and even inside the pants. There is no way to keep bills clean throughout the whole time. I think the best way to prevent bacteria from bills is to wash hands often. We can’t avoid using dollar bills, even when we are living in the time that we pay by our phone. Here is the source I found about how dirty the dollar bills are: washingtonpost. Interesting post!
I was definitely aware of how dirty money is, but I think people simply accept that concept because money is so essential in our every day lives. i am curious as to why that study was not published. Perhaps the amount of money tested was not large enough or because it is common knowledge already, it didn’t need to be put out there. However, I think the bacteria they found were incredibly important and people should be aware of these dangers. I do agree that there isn’t much we can do about this other than be aware and keep our hands clean after handling money.