More than one in 10 people's hands are so contaminated with faecal organisms that the levels of bacteria detected were equal to what you would expect to find in a dirty toilet bowl, a new study suggests.
Out of the samples taken, 11% of hands, 8% of bank cards and 6% of bank notes showed this form of gross contamination, the study found.
In Britain, one in 10 bank cards (10%) and one in seven notes (14%) were found to be contaminated with some faecal organisms, the research, carried out at Queen Mary, University of London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, showed. More than a quarter (26%) of hands sampled showed traces of faecal contamination including bacteria such as E.coli, the study found.
The 272 participants who took part in the scientific study were also asked to fill out a questionnaire with the results revealing only 39% of respondents washed their hands before eating. The vast majority (91%) of respondents also stated that they washed their hands after using the toilet, although the levels of faecal organisms contaminating the cards and currency suggested otherwise, researchers said.
you should have shamed her into washing her hands!
I keep a load of antibacterial hand gel handy, and wash my hands before food or water.
I sometimes let customers use our staff loo, if they have little children who can't hold it.. Most don't wash their hands even though I showed them where the sink is 
so I hand them the hand gel as they come out 
