I know some people who won’t lick the flaps of envelopes for fear of germs.  It seems a little crazy to me, but they’re out there, and given the rise of MRSA and other nasty treatment-resistant diseases and infections, those nuts seem slightly less nutty.  So, it begs the question, given how often the average Netflix DVD gets manhandled, just how clean are those DVDs when they arrive to you?  Well, if you want to believe lab testing done at the University of Texas Health Science Center of Tyler, they’re as clean as your washed hands.

KLTV took six sealed Netflix envelopes with six different DVDs inside, where they were swapped and examined by Dr. Richard Wallace, board certified infectious disease specialist.  While there were some things prevalent in the swabs, Dr. Wallace said, “They were fairly clean.  If I took my fingers and laid them on the top of the plates, this is what you’d grow.”

So, germophobes, don’t worry.  Your Netflix DVDs are as clean as you are, if not cleaner.  Given that 2 million DVDs pass through one of 58 distribution center on their way to the hands of one of 11 million customers, that’s pretty remarkable.  Kudos to Netflix.

Tags: Netflix, germs, sickness, germ swabbing Netflix DVDs, how dirty are Netflix DVDs, germophobes, cleanliness, germs in the mail

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