It’s OK To Bareback … On The Toilet

by Jonah Shepp

Mona Chalabi presents the evidence against toilet seat covers:

Public health professionals are continually emphasizing that it is virtually impossible to catch an STI from a toilet seat.

It would require the perfect storm of bacteria (i.e. you would have to sit down on the exact place where the virus was deposited, immediately after it was deposited, and it would have to be a super virus that could survive outside the body).

That improbability is highlighted by a blog post on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, which suggests that “if someone has an open, draining wound (MRSA [Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus] positive) and sits on the toilet seat and does not wipe it, someone else can sit on the toilet seat and if they have an open wound contract MRSA, also.” The number of people with open wounds on the part of their bums that hits the seat is likely to be low. And of those people, the number with MRSA-positive wounds will be even lower.

Despite that, demand is high. One U.S. company that sells automatically dispensing toilet seat covers has 2,000 accounts in the Americas and takes in $5 million a year.