28.feb.07
KLTV 7 News
http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6152338
So far we've met eight East Texas women who say they take their purses everywhere.
They agreed to let us take a culture swab of the outsides, which were sent to the microbiology lab at UT Health Center at Tyler.
Dr. Richard Wallace who specializes in infectious diseases was quoted as saying, "The technician that prepared these plates said she'd never cleaned her purse. And she took one look at them and said she wanted to go home and clean her purse."
Consistently found on most of the purses is bacteria categorized as gram negative rods.
Gram negative rods or GNR's can be found in feces, in bathrooms or kitchens not cleaned so well, they can even be picked up from our pets.
Forms of GNR's you've probably heard of include salmonella, shigella, and e-coli.
Jessica Joyner and her friend, Rebecca Lane, had their purses tested. Jessica's also had gram negative rods and a dangerous skin organism called staph aureus.
"In the right setting [staph aureus] is quite capable of causing skin boils, local infections and rarely much more serious diseases, largely in people who are in the hospital," says Dr. Wallace.