Dear Journalists - You are looking a little jaundiced. Read the articles you are exciting the public with, please.
Dear Journalists - You are looking a little jaundiced. Read the articles you are exciting the public with, please.
That study being touted as how beards are so hygienic and less gross with bacteria? Wrong. The study was done because of ongoing efforts to minimize or eliminate hospital acquired infections. Or at least control them. So it only looked at hospital workers, who are known to be colonized with MRSA at a higher rate than the general population, unless a more recent study has negated that.
The abstract even says, "Overall, colonization is similar in male healthcare workers with and without facial hair; however, certain bacterial species were more prevalent in workers without facial hair."
That's right, your beard is not magic.
But, but, prevalent! Ok, let's look at what they reported:
Table II lists hairy and nekid and p-values. Where were there p of less than 0.05 difference between the two groups?
1. Staph aureus on lip - the general one, which we all have a few of running around on our skin, not the omg we're all gonna die of plague methicillin resistant ones. Nekids had more. (p=0.03) NB: this association did not hold up in Appendix 3.
2. Same thing on cheek. (p=0.02) NB: this association was even stronger in Appendix 3.
3. Methicillin resistant coag-neg Staph on cheek (This is not Staph aureus) - Nekids had more. (p=0.01) NB: this association did not hold up in Appendix 3.
4. Shedding test (for how much bacteria might you be shaking off on people) - methicillin sensitive coag-neg Staph (again, not Staph aureus) - Bearded folks shed more. (p=0.0004) Mind you, they don't even list the antibiotic resistant Staph on the shedding test, so I guess we'll assume nobody shed any (see: eyebrow, raised). NB: this association was even stronger in Appendix 3.
They mention some weaknesses of their study: "Our study has several limitations. Firstly the study was cross-sectional, not randomized, and therefore may have been influenced by unmeasured confounders. We only assessed for HCW colonization and shedding, we did not assess patient outcomes or transmission to patients. We were unable to quantify density of facial hair which could play a role in bacterial colonization. We did not collect details about shaving habits and therefore cannot comment on whether different shaving mechanisms are associated with different colonization rates. Further, it is possible that bacteria residing on hair may be more resistant to sampling by swab, and hence we may have underestimated rates of colonization in HCWs with facial hair. Finally, our study was based in two institutions alone and therefore the bacterial profile we observed may not be representative of other institutions."
Their conclusion: "Our results support standard infection control practices to prevent contamination during the performance of sterile procedures."
In other words, cover your face when you are doing things to patients where you ought to be careful.
So let's go back to the reporting on this paper.
The Oregonian quoted The Independent, which said, "... clean-shaven men are more than three times as likely to be carrying methicillin-resistant staph auerus [sic] (MRSA) on their cheeks as their bearded counterparts."
So, cheeks, not faces, which is important, as your lips are on your face (maybe not in Oregon), generally. The numbers given in the paper were 199 with facial hair (it's 103 in the appendix where they list "full beard"), 209 without facial hair. So, again, a little imprecision. 2.0% of hairy were positive for critters (drops to 1.9 with full beards), 7.2% of nekids, p=0.01 as noted above (goes to p=0.06 with full beards).
I'm not sure what math they used to come up with "... more than three times as likely ..."
Most importantly, those numbers are for coagulase negative Staphylococci, which are very precisely NOT Staph aureus. It's stuff like Staph epidermidis and Staph hemolyticus, if you're interested. And there was no statistically significant difference between the 2 groups for MRSA. I repeat, NO MRSA difference.
Journalists, you are once again full of excrement, even if your beards are not.
That study being touted as how beards are so hygienic and less gross with bacteria? Wrong. The study was done because of ongoing efforts to minimize or eliminate hospital acquired infections. Or at least control them. So it only looked at hospital workers, who are known to be colonized with MRSA at a higher rate than the general population, unless a more recent study has negated that.
The abstract even says, "Overall, colonization is similar in male healthcare workers with and without facial hair; however, certain bacterial species were more prevalent in workers without facial hair."
That's right, your beard is not magic.
But, but, prevalent! Ok, let's look at what they reported:
Table II lists hairy and nekid and p-values. Where were there p of less than 0.05 difference between the two groups?
1. Staph aureus on lip - the general one, which we all have a few of running around on our skin, not the omg we're all gonna die of plague methicillin resistant ones. Nekids had more. (p=0.03) NB: this association did not hold up in Appendix 3.
2. Same thing on cheek. (p=0.02) NB: this association was even stronger in Appendix 3.
3. Methicillin resistant coag-neg Staph on cheek (This is not Staph aureus) - Nekids had more. (p=0.01) NB: this association did not hold up in Appendix 3.
4. Shedding test (for how much bacteria might you be shaking off on people) - methicillin sensitive coag-neg Staph (again, not Staph aureus) - Bearded folks shed more. (p=0.0004) Mind you, they don't even list the antibiotic resistant Staph on the shedding test, so I guess we'll assume nobody shed any (see: eyebrow, raised). NB: this association was even stronger in Appendix 3.
They mention some weaknesses of their study: "Our study has several limitations. Firstly the study was cross-sectional, not randomized, and therefore may have been influenced by unmeasured confounders. We only assessed for HCW colonization and shedding, we did not assess patient outcomes or transmission to patients. We were unable to quantify density of facial hair which could play a role in bacterial colonization. We did not collect details about shaving habits and therefore cannot comment on whether different shaving mechanisms are associated with different colonization rates. Further, it is possible that bacteria residing on hair may be more resistant to sampling by swab, and hence we may have underestimated rates of colonization in HCWs with facial hair. Finally, our study was based in two institutions alone and therefore the bacterial profile we observed may not be representative of other institutions."
Their conclusion: "Our results support standard infection control practices to prevent contamination during the performance of sterile procedures."
In other words, cover your face when you are doing things to patients where you ought to be careful.
So let's go back to the reporting on this paper.
The Oregonian quoted The Independent, which said, "... clean-shaven men are more than three times as likely to be carrying methicillin-resistant staph auerus [sic] (MRSA) on their cheeks as their bearded counterparts."
So, cheeks, not faces, which is important, as your lips are on your face (maybe not in Oregon), generally. The numbers given in the paper were 199 with facial hair (it's 103 in the appendix where they list "full beard"), 209 without facial hair. So, again, a little imprecision. 2.0% of hairy were positive for critters (drops to 1.9 with full beards), 7.2% of nekids, p=0.01 as noted above (goes to p=0.06 with full beards).
I'm not sure what math they used to come up with "... more than three times as likely ..."
Most importantly, those numbers are for coagulase negative Staphylococci, which are very precisely NOT Staph aureus. It's stuff like Staph epidermidis and Staph hemolyticus, if you're interested. And there was no statistically significant difference between the 2 groups for MRSA. I repeat, NO MRSA difference.
Journalists, you are once again full of excrement, even if your beards are not.
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