Very good advice. One way to time 15 seconds is to sing the alphabet song when you wash your hands. It takes almost exactly 15 seconds!

I wash my hands often throughout the day, I find it is the best and safest way to prevent infections.

But my own list looks a bit different than the nurse's recommendation. Of course before a meal and after the bathroom, but my own main emphasis is on every single time I come home from outside (other than my own backyard) and having touched public items in public places and especially every time after I touched money.

But if I were to wash my hands at home every time after I touched an animal, I'd be stuck to the sink, probably with my cats watching, LOL!

I talked to my doctor yesterday about this very thing. She prefers soap and water when available. Good hand washing, as Debra outlines, removes most everything. Hand sanitizers are a good alternative when water is not available, but since they do not remove the bacteria, viruses, or other nasties, you are depending on them to kill them.

Do the manufacturers have studies to support that they kill all "germs"? The label only says "sanitize". There are no claims that the "germs" they kill include the swine flu virus, for example.

Please wash your hands after handling any raw food, not just meat. Much of our raw food has been contaminated with feces. Wash your food and then wash your hands before eating.

Soap and water work fine. I make my own hand sanitizer for when I am not near a sink. I use 2 parts 99.9% rubbing alcohol to 1 part aloe vera gel, with a squirt of glycerin and a little vitamin E to moisturize (alcohol can be drying),and a couple drops of tea tree oil to boost the efficacy, and mix well. You could add other essential oils for fragrance if you want (and if you do not react to them) Hand sanitizer must be at least 60% alcohol to work, so most liquor would not be strong enough. If you can find one though, that would be a more natural alternative to the the rubbing alcohol. Rubbing alcohol works fine for me though (and I have incredibly sensitive skin) and it is cheap and easy to find. The alcohol is the key ingredient that makes it effective - you could even use it alone - the other ingredients just make it a little nicer to use.

Hi - we often have our grandkids out in public with us, in stores etc, or children's fun places, and when done, want to be sure their hands are clean after touching public surfaces. There are often no bathrooms available - and even if there are, public bathrooms are terrible to take kids into for any reason, frankly. Some of them are just disgusting. So we decided that carrying the alcohol based Purell gel or similar product for them to "wash" their hands with, and then, use a Lansinoh baby wipe after that to cleanse the hand sanitizer off their hands is better than not doing anything at all. EVERY hand wipe product and baby wipe product seems to have propylene glycol in them - no good answer to that one. Even our health food store has wipes that have chemicals in them...and have no idea if they are safe or not. Unfortuntely, this health food store is NOT one that carries SAFE products - one HAS to read the labels.

Does anyone know of handwipes, or any handwashing gels, that are safe for children?? Even as an adult I worry about using this stuff - but a sink and clean soap out of a dispenser are NOT always available when out and people all around are coughing, sneezing, and really should be HOME til they are better. :( We ALWAYS come directly in after being out shopping, running errands etc, and wash all our hands very thoroughly with soap and water. Thansks for the alphabet song to sing to get the 15 seconds of washing in - great for the grandkids! They are, fortunately, well trained to get hand wipes or washing hands before they eat anything - but that is not the only time I worry about what they have on their hands!

Thanks for any help with this! Aloha, Les from Hawaii