Your stink could indeed cause a disaster. Perhaps you heard Norman Swan's question on a recent Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) podcast about whether farts would spread germs - or even the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Yes, the farts, the natural gas emissions that come from everyone else's except your own. Is there any scientific rationale to even accept this claim about farts? Here's what experts say!
Can Farts Really Spread Germs?
IFL Science said a windy nurse asked an odd question to this Australian doctor in 2001.
Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki told listeners to his science phone-in radio show in Brisbane that the nurse asked whether she was infecting the operating room she worked in by farting silently in the sterile area during procedures. "I realized that I didn't know, but I was determined to find out."
He reached out to his microbiologist friend in Canberra to make the study. They did the experiment by merely removing the trousers and farting directly into a Petri dish.
Luke Tennent, his microbiologist friend, asked one of his coworkers to quietly fart one out at a Petri dish from 5 centimeters (2 inches) away. The colleague repeated the procedure while fully dressed - nothing between his anus and the dish but those 5 centimeters of air.
Following the participant's completion of their task in the Petri dishes, they were left overnight to be examined later. The next morning, visible lumps of two bacteria varieties had sprouted in the Petri dish that had received the fart from the exposed anus. According to the journal BMJ, they are normally only present in the stomach and on the scalp.
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Meanwhile, no bacteria sprouted from the flatulence that had to pass through the fabric before reaching the dish.
He explained that, while this might sound disgusting or disturbing, the bacteria splattered on the dish were harmless and comparable to the "friendly" bacteria found in yogurt. That's not to say you can consider one as a Yakult replacement in the store.
The simple experiment provided Kruszelnicki with a scientific response to the nurse's query. He concluded in his study, titled "Hot air?" that people should not fart naked around food.
Can Farts Also Omit COVID-19?
Meanwhile, another Australian doctor has issued a public health warning about a potential association between farts and coronavirus infection transmission. If the doctors spoke of using masks to deter the infection from spreading across the country, they also said that farting without wearing clothes could lead to the disease's spread.
In a Twitter thread, Dr. Andrew Tagg said that farts include aerosol particles that can potentially spread and function as a carrier of disease like poop.
What has all this farting talk got to do with the coronavirus?
— Andrew Tagg (@andrewjtagg) April 6, 2020
Well, SARS-CoV-2 can be detected in faeces and has been detected in an asymptomatic individual up to 17 days post-exposure.https://t.co/6IflYTLFWr pic.twitter.com/XuYCmYoEQ7
The doctor cited several studies in his thread. He noted that farts could fuel germ formation, allowing them to travel long distances or even disperse viruses over longer distances. There was no definitive evidence of viral development.
As dangerous as it might sound, there is currently no reported evidence about whether flatulence alone poses a risk of transmission. Still, it is unlikely to be a major route of transmission in a dressed individual.
The researcher also indicates that the clothes we wear may keep us safe from bacteria and warn people against farting bare-bottomed. Pants and underwear may help reduce the chance of transmission by preventing farts.
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