From the Times...

..."For Many, ‘Washroom’ Seems to Be Just a Name":

The next time a man hands you a hot dog after making a run to the restroom and the concession stand at an Atlanta Braves baseball game, be careful: there is a good chance he did not wash his hands, according to a report released Monday by a group that sends spies into public restrooms in the name of science.

Only about two-thirds of the men observed washed their hands after using the restroom at Turner Field — the lowest rate for any of the locations cited in the observational study and survey on the hand-washing habits of Americans. The study, conducted every few years, was released by the American Society for Microbiology and the American Cleaning Institute at a microbiology conference in Boston.
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People using public restrooms in Chicago and San Francisco were the most frequent hand-washers, according to the observations, with 89 percent of adults washing before exiting.

I'll take some credit for that; I'm pretty religious about washing my hands. But I've always wondered, is it really necessary? After all, how did humans survive for thousands of years before Ivory soap was invented?