You Asked: Should I Use a Toilet Seat Cover?

Some people hover. Some build a nest of toilet paper. And some reach for those hard-to-keep-centered, always-getting-splashed-by-the-prematurely-auto-flushing-toilet seat covers. If you’re in the latter camp, you’ve probably wondered whether the extra effort is really protecting you from something. The answer is yes—though probably not the thing you’re worried about. “In terms of preventing illness and transmission of infectious disease, there’s no real evidence that toilet-seat covers do that,” says Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Schaffner says he understands the intuitive appeal of covering a public toilet seat with paper before sitting down. But toilet seat covers—as well as toilet paper—are porous, meaning they contain holes large enough for microscopic organisms to slip through. “If you’re using several layers, that may provide a little more protection,” says Philip Tierno, a professor of microbiology and pathology at the New York University School of Medicine. “But unless a toilet seat is overtly dirty, meaning there is liquid or particulate matter visible on the seat, it’s rare that you could catch something.” Both he and Schaffner say there’s not much evidence that public toilet seats are rife with illness-causing germs. In fact, research shows that the average cell phone is coated with roughly ten ti...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthytime public health Source Type: news