Handwashing stories are among the hardy perennials of medical journalism, as handwashing is among the leading exhortations of infectious disease specialists: It’s not done enough, it’s not done correctly. I understand the importance of handwashing — I learned about Ignaz Semmelweis from a children’s TV show back when I was a child — but I can’t help feeling that some of the handwashing messages involve a bit of victim-blaming.

Then along comes Joe Smith, a lawyer and sometime state politician in Oregon. In 2012, he gave a TEDx talk about how to dry your hands after washing them in a public washroom using only one paper towel, even the flimsy recycled kind, thus saving millions of pounds of paper towel a year. Continue reading →