If you are around my age, you probably remember being taught by your mom how to lay down a barrier of toilet paper on a public toilet to avoid catching “VD,” the generic term back then for what we now call “sexually transmitted diseases.” Mom was mostly right, you cannot catch the vast majority of STDs from a toilet seat, but there are some diseases you can. Let’s explore the truth.
“Theoretically, yes, you can catch diseases from the toilet seat, but the risk is vanishingly low,” says Jill Roberts, a professor of public health and microbiology at the University of South Florida.
Take STDs. Most of the bacteria and viruses that can cause them, from gonorrhea to chlamydia, cannot survive for long outside of an organism’s body, let alone on a cold, hard surface like a toilet seat.
That’s why it’s thought that the majority of STDs can only be transmitted via direct contact of the genitalia and exchange of bodily fluids. One would have to be unlucky enough to transfer someone else’s fresh bodily fluids immediately from the seat to the genitalia, either by hand or toilet paper, to be at risk, says Roberts.
Similarly, Roberts says you’re unlikely to catch a bloodborne disease from a toilet seat either. For a start, she thinks you’d see – and avoid – somebody’s blood if it was on the toilet seat. In any case, it would not easily transmit bloodborne pathogens in the absence of sexual activity or injection with contaminated needles, she says.
Is There Anything You Can Get?
There are some exceptions to longer-lived sexually transmitted diseases, though. Human papilloma viruses (HPV), which cause genital warts, can stick around for up to a week on surfaces, although it depends on several factors. “These viruses are very small and have very stable protein shells that give them a longer ‘shelf life’ in the environment,” says Karen Duus, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Touro University in Nevada.
HPV tends to be resistant to hand sanitizers and requires a concentration of 10% bleach to destroy that tough, protective protein shell, says Duus. Still, these viruses can only make their way into your body if the skin barrier of your genital area is compromised, says Duus, with a rash or a wound, while you’re sitting on the toilet. As such, HPV is typically only transmitted via sexual skin-to-skin contact, such as oral, anal, and vaginal sex.
Similarly, in theory, someone with genital herpes who is having a flare-up could shed virus onto a toilet seat, and subsequent users might be at risk if they have broken skin or if they’re immunosuppressed, says Daniel Atkinson, a clinical lead for the online healthcare service company Treated.com in the United States. But it’s unlikely, says Atkinson.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line (pun definitely intended) is it’s highly unlikely you will catch anything from sitting on a toilet seat. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t pick up something nasty from a public restroom – it’s just that your bum is not the root of the problem. The greatest risk of disease transmission from a public potty comes from your hands touching the toilet seat and becoming contaminated with bacteria or viruses from small particles of your or other people’s bodily substances, says Roberts, and then you touching your face and mouth with these soiled hands. “The threat is not to your rear end, it is to your mouth from your hands,” says Roberts.
While STDs are unlikely to be living on a toilet seat, the specks of feces dappled across a toilet seat can contain pathogens such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Shigella, Staphylococcus, or Streptococcus. When ingested, they can lead to gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Still, the actual risk of getting sick this way might be low. “The bathroom isn’t contaminated with faeces from the dark ages – it is cleaned regularly,” says Roberts. She says that when her microbiology students swab the surfaces of different environments for microbes, the amount they find in the computer lab is unspeakable in comparison to that of toilet stalls.
“In the United States, home restrooms are far germier than public restrooms that we studied at a university,” says Charles Gerba, a professor of virology at the University of Arizona. “It’s [arguably] safer to use a toilet in the public restroom than at home in most places.”
