Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: Muslim couple denied Swiss citizenship over no handshake [View all]marble falls
(57,081 posts)culture. I don't try to make anyone touch me if they don't want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handshake
Handshakes are known to spread a number of microbial pathogens. Certain diseases such as scabies are known to spread the most through direct skin-to-skin contact. A medical study has found that fist bumps and high fives spread fewer germs than handshakes.[1][2]
In light of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the dean of medicine at the University of Calgary, Tomas Feasby, suggested that fist bumps may be a "nice replacement of the handshake" in an effort to prevent transmission of the virus.[3]
Following a 2010 study that showed that only about 40% of doctors and other health care providers complied with hand hygiene rules in hospitals, Mark Sklansky, a doctor at UCLA hospital, decided to test a "a handshake-free zone" as a method for limiting the spread of germs and reducing the transmission of disease.[17] However, UCLA didnt allow the ban of the handshakes outright, but they rather suggested other options like fist bumping, smiling, bowing, waving, and non-contact Namaste gestures.
This stupidity is international, it seems. From further down:
In June 2016, an Algerian woman married to a Frenchman took part in a naturalization ceremony (cérémonie daccueil dans la citoyenneté française[25]) in the Département where the couple lives. She refused to give a handshake to the prefect and to a local representative and claimed her religious faith would ban her from touching foreign men. Thereupon, she did not receive the French nationality. On 20 April 2017, Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve signed a decree approving that decision.[26] The Algerian woman filed a suit. On 11 April 2018, the Conseil d'État approved the decree.[27]