Medical Alert - Germs in Ice!

Many folks are becoming very concerned with their health and desperately want to know about the latest virus going around. What happens when you find yourself working in a lab called Allergy & Infectious Diseases? I had visions of little bugs, the ones you can't see crawling over everything.

On my first day at work the secretary transferring to another location asked me to make a list of items, I would need in the office over the next several months. At the supply store, I pointed out to her a mint green soap called Vionex.

Written in large letters on the front of the container was the phase, "Antimicrobial Liquid Soap." What's antimicrobial? The label went on to say this product can't be purchased in a grocery store and clearly stated, "Effective for germ killing."

I figured, "Can't be anything better than that! Better get two just in case." This was not a soap to be taken lightly. Returning to the office and presenting my newfound germ-killing soap to my co-workers, I was then assured safety measure in the lab were in effect at all times.

Later in the day, I walked to Building 31 to grab a bite to eat and observed a cafeteria worker standing on a ladder dumping a large tub of ice into a dispenser. The thought struck me, "how long can germs live in ice?" I assumed cold kills everything. The colder the better! You remember the days when Mom was considered the final authority in the home. When I was a kid she always said, "Wait till the snow comes, it will kill all the germs." Right?

Not true according to one of the doctors at the Allergy and Infectious Diseases lab. In 1972, Dr. Albert Kapikian and his colleagues discovered the Norwalk virus. The virus was named for the location where it was first detected, Norwalk. Ohio.

According to a 1993 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, outbreaks of this virus have been found in many camps, hospitals, nursing homes, schools, institutions, in families and wherever people meet as a group. What does the virus cause? A diarrhea illness, better known as the 24-hour bug or stomach virus.

After talking with Dr. Kapikian about germs and their relationship to ice, I was fascinated to begin my own research. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find out about ice? It's a three-letter word. Not difficult. You would think down through the ages someone would have been curious enough to investigate germs living in ice. Why? For one thing,

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