The fist bump is rapidly becoming the greeting of choice for those wary of germs and the risk of contagion from shaking hands in traditional fashion.
Researchers actually say that bumping fists only spreads about one-twentieth the amount of germs that are spread during handshakes, The Washington Post reported. The fist bump bests even the high-five, they add.
“There are alternatives to handshakes,” David Whitworth of Aberystwyth University in Wales, told The Post. “You see them on telly all the time — the fist bump and high-five and all that.”
The American Journal of Infection Control is publishing the research on Monday.
“It’s a novel study,” said Mary Lou Manning, president-elect of the Association for Professions in Infection Control and Epidemiology, in The Post report.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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