RE: Do you know of any studies outlining the benefit of thermometer sheaths?

jenni99 — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 15:02:37 GMT

It happens in human health care, so while there may not be evidence in animals it would be reasonable to assume there is a risk

There is a well cited article from the 1980s about babies catching salmonella, believed to be from a rectal thermometer,
there is this from 216 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/infection-control-and-hospital-epidemiology/article/abs/reduction-in-the-incidence-of-clostridium-difficileassociated-diarrhea-in-an-acute-care-hospital-and-a-skilled-nursing-facility-following-replacement-of-electronic-thermometers-with-singleuse-disposables/65D7DF361D03A4DE9E0BE38D7303BD0D

This about multi-drug resistant Enterobacter cloacae

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195670199906576

and recently some cases of vancoycin resistant enterococcus from thermometers, one here pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.../

RE: Any studies outlining the benefit of thermometer sheaths?

apache — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 10:09:22 GMT

I agree that I prefer them and they keep things cleaner, but you won't find any evidence. We are talking dog's bumholes here - I suspect if you NEVER cleaned a thermometer and went from bum to bum, absolutely no harm would come of it. It's a heavily contaminated environment, that's very good at containing the good and bad bugs living there.

In your parents/grandparents living memory a doctor would have used the same thermometer under your tongue and up a baby's bum and cleaned it in-between.

Not very green using all those sheaths though.....