The Arizona Department of Health Services is not so sure a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association is correct. It claimed shaking hands can be more hazardous to your health than smoking.
Dr. Joeli Weiss of DHS says comparing the two is really not fair.
“If you wash with hands and soap, and you don’t touch your mouth, you don’t touch your eyes or your nose, we can really prevent the spread of illness, unlike with smoking where there’s really not that many prevention measures you can do,” Weiss said.
Weiss says when it comes to halting the spread of pathogens between people, the old-fashioned ways like washing your hands are best, but those ever-present hand sanitizer stations are better than nothing.