Are purses impure?

WASHINGTON POST
The Fear -- Ladies, watch where you put your purses -- no, not because of theft, but because of the nasty bacteria that could give you hepatitis and other diseases. That's the gist of a new e-mail getting wide circulation this month. Delete it as junk? Not so fast, according to Snopes.com, a Web site that vets urban legends. There's a germ of truth here.
The hype -- The e-mail describes a TV news report about a study out of the University of Arizona. "A health team went to a local mall and took samples," states the e-mail. "The purses were swabbed with cotton swabs along the entire bottom of the purses and placed into special containers." One in four purses had traces of the E. coli bacterium, which can be a source of illness; other tests found hepatitis and other bugs.
To avoid illness, the e-mail advises, "women should DAILY wipe their purses (particularly the bottom) with a disinfectant wipe and ... be extremely careful where you sit your purse. Most important, do NOT place your purse on a table (anywhere) where you will eat or on a kitchen counter and do not put it anywhere close to a toilet" because "the spray goes a distance that is unrecognizable to the human eye."
The reality -- You may not want to view your toothbrush or your telephone under the microscope, either. "I am not surprised that women's purses -- and probably shoes and other items around us -- can be contaminated with organisms," said Shmuel Shoham, an infectious disease specialist at Washington Hospital Center. "But to make the leap from the presence of those organisms to ... disease is a big leap."
Washing your hands regularly is key to avoiding illness, Shoham advised. But unless you have a compromised immune system, he said, wiping your purse down daily with antimicrobial preparations is probably overkill.
Find it -- Read the e-mail and Snopes.com's report at www.snopes.com/medical/disease/purse.asp.