COVID-19
Are your groceries dangerous? Facts from a Food Microbiologist

Don Schaffner is a professor of food microbiology at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. He hosts two podcasts called Food Safety Talk and Risky or Not? Here he refutes a widely seen video which urges everyone to go to great lengths to wash their groceries.
Unless you are living under a rock or have already perished from COVID-19, you’ve likely seen a YouTube video making the rounds where a medical doctor (wearing scrubs!) purports to give COVID-19 advice.
I’m not going link to the video, because if you haven’t seen it, consider yourself lucky. First of all, scrubs? Aren’t those meant for being around sick people? Why would you wear something like that in your house. It seems very irresponsible.
I’m a food microbiologist. Would you like me to give you advice on how to care for your sick kids? I don’t think so. Don’t take food safety or microbiology advice from MDs that don’t understand food, science or very much about microbiology.
There are a few things that he gets right, but I’m not going to focus on those. I’m going to spend my time here focusing on the things that he gets partly or completely wrong.
He completely misrepresented the 17 days figure from CDC. This was based on finding viral RNA, not infectious viral particles. The CDC report also does not give the methods used but cites personal communication… impossible to peer review.
Should I keep my groceries in the garage or on the porch for 3 days? This is patently ridiculous. Are you really going to keep your milk, your ice cream, your deli meats outside for three days?
This also has very important food safety implications. This sounds like a recipe for disaster, or at the very least spoiled food.
There is a tiny nugget of truth in this advice, because we know that the virus is slowly inactivated at room temperature, with a half-life of about eight hours.
But this advice presumes that all groceries are contaminated, and the simply touching the groceries will make you sick, neither of which are true.
Do I really need to disinfect all of the individual boxes & baggies everything came in? I also think that this is also advice that does not make scientific sense.
If you are concerned about the outside of food packages being contaminated, I suggest that you wash your hands and or sanitize your hands before you sit down to eat any food that you might’ve taken out of those containers.
And guess what, washing your hands before you eat is a best practice even when we’re not in a pandemic!
Do I really need to scrub all your fruits and veggies with soap before eating? This is the worst advice being given by this irresponsible MD. Soap should *absolutely* not be used to wash food. See my earlier comments: https://twitter.com/bugcounter/status/1242956925525995521…
Soap is not designed for food. As mentioned in the linked thread, soap can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea if ingested. Current recommendations by scientific experts including the FDA, say to wash fresh fruits and vegetables in cold water.
He also seems to have a belief that I find surprisingly common (including among food safety professionals). That is the belief that I referred to as “handwashing is magic”.
Hand washing is not magic, nor does it “sterilize” your hands as claimed in the video. The only way to sterilize your hands would be to plunge them into boiling water, which I don’t recommend for obvious reasons.
We’ve done research on handwashing in my lab. You can count on a hand wash (depending upon your technique), to likely give you somewhere between a 90 a 99% reduction in transient microorganisms on your hands.
A microbiologist would call this a 1-2 logarithm reduction. Let’s contrast that with the sterilization process used for canned foods. That would give you a 99.9999999999 percent reduction. In case you’re counting, there’s 12 nines in that number.
Is washing your hands good? Of course it is. Is it going to sterilize your hands? Absolutely not. But it is a good risk reduction technique. As is the use of hand sanitizer. So do both of those things.
If your hands are getting dry from too much handwashing, be sure to use some moisturizer.
Also re: washing produce, people may wonder about “veggie wash” products. Many of these have not been evaluated for their effect on bacteria and none have been evaluated for their affect on SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent for COVID-19.
Many of veggie washes are likely no more effective than water. On the other hand, if it makes you feel better, and you don’t mind throwing money to the veggie wash company, I say go for it.
Some people are also asking about vinegar for washing fresh produce. Again the research says it’s not much better than plain water. Save the vinegar for oil and vinegar dressing on your salad.
Are reusable bags risky? Many people use reusable bags as a responsible choice. We do this in my family as well. It’s a best practice (even before the times of pandemic) to wash your reusable bags on a regular basis.
While it is theoretically possible that a reusable bag may pick up germs, including coronavirus while in the grocery store, the biggest threat that anyone faces is someone else in the store who has COVID-19.
I would suggest that you keep your grocery bags in the car, so you have them handy the next time you go shopping. If you’re concerned that your bags might have coronavirus on them you can wash them.
You should also wash your hands after you have finished putting all your groceries away. This was also a good advice even before pandemic.
But Dr. Don, what I can do to reduce risk when grocery shopping? Many grocery stores are offering hand sanitizers at the entrance, and are offering to sanitize grocery carts. Both great ideas, and customers should take advantage if available.
My other advice is to make a list, and know what you want, and move quickly and efficiently through the store picking out the items on your list. Practice appropriate social distancing, trying your best to keep 6 feet away from other shoppers.
If there is hand sanitizer available, I also use it when I’m exiting the store, and then I’ll use it again at home once I finished putting all my groceries away and returning my reusable shopping bags to the car.
I’m going to ask you to share this tweet thread. As the video MD said it’s not about popularity. In my case it’s about combating harmful misinformation that overestimates risk, or recommends risky practices to mitigate an already very small risk.
This has been Dr. Don… now signing off. Remember as always, stay home if you can, wash your hands and use hand sanitizer, and take care of those who need it most.
PS, thank to everyone for the Twitter/Facebook love. I’ll do my best to answer questions you have, but right now my days are filled with talking with reporters, and trying to achieve a one log reduction on the concentration of email messages in my inbox.
2025 Federal Election
Conservatives promise to ban firing of Canadian federal workers based on COVID jab status

From LifeSiteNews
The Conservative platform also vows that the party will oppose mandatory digital ID systems and a central bank digital currency if elected.
Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party’s 2025 election platform includes a promise to “ban” the firing of any federal worker based “solely” on whether or not they chose to get the COVID shots.
On page 23 of the “Canada First – For A Change” plan, which was released on Tuesday, the promise to protect un-jabbed federal workers is mentioned under “Protect Personal Autonomy, Privacy, and Data Security.”
It promises that a Conservative government will “Ban the dismissal of federal workers based solely on COVID vaccine status.”
The Conservative Party also promises to “Oppose any move toward mandatory digital ID systems” as well as “Prohibit the Bank of Canada from developing or implementing a central bank digital currency.”
In October 2021, the Liberal government of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced unprecedented COVID-19 jab mandates for all federal workers and those in the transportation sector. The government also announced that the unjabbed would no longer be able to travel by air, boat, or train, both domestically and internationally.
This policy resulted in thousands losing their jobs or being placed on leave for non-compliance. It also trapped “unvaccinated” Canadians in the country.
COVID jab mandates, which also came from provincial governments with the support of the federal government, split Canadian society. The shots have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects, such as death, including in children.
Many recent rulings have gone in favor of those who chose not to get the shots and were fired as a result, such as an arbitrator ruling that one of the nation’s leading hospitals in Ontario must compensate 82 healthcare workers terminated after refusing to get the jabs.
Beyond health concerns, many Canadians, especially Catholics, opposed the injections on moral grounds because of their link to fetal cell lines derived from the tissue of aborted babies.
COVID-19
RFK Jr. Launches Long-Awaited Offensive Against COVID-19 mRNA Shots

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
As millions of Americans anxiously await action from the new HHS leadership against the COVID-19 mRNA injections—injected into over 9 million children this year—Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has finally gone publicly on the offensive:
Let’s go over each key point made by RFK Jr.:
The recommendation for children was always dubious. It was dubious because kids had almost no risk for COVID-19. Certain kids that had very profound morbidities may have a slight risk. Most kids don’t.
In the largest review to date on myocarditis following SARS-CoV-2 infection vs. COVID-19 vaccination, Mead et al found that vaccine-induced myocarditis is not only significantly more common but also more severe—particularly in children and young males. Our findings make clear that the risks of the shots overwhelmingly outweigh any theoretical benefit:
The OpenSAFELY study included more than 1 million adolescents and children and found that myocarditis was documented ONLY in COVID-19 vaccinated groups and NOT after COVID-19 infection. There were NO COVID-19-related deaths in any group. A&E attendance and unplanned hospitalization were higher after first vaccination compared to unvaccinated groups:
So why are we giving this to tens of millions of kids when the vaccine itself does have profound risk? We’ve seen huge associations of myocarditis and pericarditis with strokes, with other injuries, with neurological injuries.
The two largest COVID-19 vaccine safety studies ever conducted, involving 99 million (Faksova et al) and 85 million people (Raheleh et al), confirm RFK Jr.’s concerns, documenting significantly increased risks of serious adverse events following vaccination, including:
- Myocarditis (+510% after second dose)
- Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (+278% after first dose)
- Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis (+223% after first dose)
- Guillain-Barré Syndrome (+149% after first dose)
- Heart Attack (+286% after second dose)
- Stroke (+240% after first dose)
- Coronary Artery Disease (+244% after second dose)
- Cardiac Arrhythmia (+199% after first dose)
And this was clear even in the clinical data that came out of Pfizer. There were actually more deaths. There were about 23% more deaths in the vaccine group than the placebo group. We need to ask questions and we need to consult with parents.
Actually, according to the Pfizer’s clinical trial data, there were 43% more deaths in the vaccine group compared to the placebo group when post-unblinding deaths are included:
We need to give people informed consent, and we shouldn’t be making recommendations that are not good for the population.
Public acknowledgment of the grave harms of COVID-19 vaccines signals that real action is right around the corner. However, we must hope that action is taken for ALL age groups, as no one is spared from their life-reducing effects:
Alessandria et al (n=290,727, age > 10 years): People vaccinated with 2 doses lost 37% of life expectancy compared to the unvaccinated population during follow-up.
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
Please consider following both the McCullough Foundation and my personal account on X (formerly Twitter) for further content.
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