FOX NEWS-ATLANTA "Hotel Dirty Little Secrets"

[lulybellsea]

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=3FDCB083B2B7725C20C81436A972335E?contentId=4838888&version=6&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

Click above to watch this video! If the link doesn't work, do a search for "Fox News Dirty Hotel Glasses". The news team put hidden cameras in 5 hotels which showed that the glasses in the rooms are not replaced. Rather the housekeeper rinsed the glasses and dried them with dirty towels. In one case, she wore yellow gloves to clean the toilet, then wearing the same gloves, washed the glasses in the dirty sink. It's gross and disgusting. I am almost certain that cruise ships do replace the drinking glasses in the rooms. However, after watching this video, I think we'll pack our own plastic glasses just to be on the safe side. And, the following article is from the American Medical Assocation.

Dirty hotel rooms?

 

The American Medical Association House of Delegates recently had their annual meeting in Chicago, and a surprising topic came up on the agenda: dirty hotel glasses.

 

UPI reporter Ed Susman covered the issue in the story below. Let me know if you think the flap is legit or an over-reaction:

ED SUSMAN

CHICAGO, June 25 (UPI) -- The cleanliness of drinking glasses in hotel rooms grabbed the attention of the American Medical Association House of Delegates as it debated whether the organization needs to take action to ensure clean cups.

Even as the delegates met at Chicago's grand Hilton Hoteland Towers, the Illinois delegation said that its observations of the sanitization of drinking glasses in "upscale" hotels in the state left something to be desired.

"We brought this forward because we were thinking of the health of delegates," said Jane Jackman, a Springfield, Ill., family practitioner.

In their resolution, discussed before a special pubic health committee of the AMA policy-making House of Delegates, several speakers decried bringing up the topic because it wasn't the type of issue that the AMA should be spending time discussing -- and there was virtually nothing that could be done about it.

"This type of sanitation problem is beyond what we can do in public health," said Mary Gayle Armstrong, a family practice doctor in Madison, Miss.

The resolution claimed that in some unnamed hotels, cleaning crews collect cups and glasses, place them in the bathroom sink and let the hot water run while the housekeeper performs other duties. After the bathroom sink hot water treatment, the items are dried with a towel from the room even before fresh towels are brought in.

"This practice does not meet public health standards of washing, sanitizing and drying used drinking glasses and cups before making them available for reuse," the resolution claimed. "When contacted regarding this practice, the state and certain county public health departments in Illinois have not taken any further action on their part. This practice constitutes a genuine and potentially serious public health problem."

The resolution would require AMA "to contact the public health departments of each state and express the concern of physicians for the risks associated with failure to properly clean and sanitize glasses and cups in hotel rooms to the health of the public."

"When I was a public health inspector, that type of activity did come under my purview," said Mario Motta, a cardiologist in Salem, Mass. "That was 20 years ago, but inspectors have that type of authority."

"We can say, 'That's disgusting. That shouldn't happen. I don't want it happening,'" said Dave Cundiff of Olympia, Wash., who is secretary of the American Association of Public Health Physicians.

The public health committee, headed by Elizabeth Kanof, a Raleigh, N.C., dermatologist, will deliberate over the testimony and issue a recommendation to the entire House of Delegates. Kanof and her fellow doctors could agree to accept the resolution, could decide not to recommend it or could refer it to committee for further study.

[WinnieinWA]

This was already posted a while back. Disgusting.:eek:

[SheilaNC]

Although I agree with the serious nature of this issue, how is this related to cruises? Suggest you take this discussion to the Floataway Lounge if you wish it to continue. Thanks

[Silvery Seas Cruiser]

There are glasses in the bathroom and by the ice bucket on a cruise ship. I really haven't noticed how they are cleaned. Are they changed daily? I don't know. I plan to look on my upcoming January cruise. I'm going to look at the steward's cleaning carts each day to see if there are clean glasses on it.

 

But even so what I am going to do is bring paper cups from now on, both on cruises and for land-based vacations.

[blindrid]

This has been excruciatingly posted here before. Fox stations always copy each other (or just run each others stories). Needless to say, let this post go.

[GORDONCHICK]

Although I agree with the serious nature of this issue, how is this related to cruises? Suggest you take this discussion to the Floataway Lounge if you wish it to continue. Thanks

 

Don't most of us have to travel to the port and stay in hotels?

[cruise_lover]

This has been posted several times before and it just as disgusting now as it was the first time. And if you knew what went on behind the kitchen door in restaurants you would never eat out again.

 

Just rinse your glasses and cups out in scalding hot water before using them and you should be all right.