Senator Fights for Restaurant Employees' Rights to Not Wash Their Hands

A senator from North Carolina is totally cool with restaurant employees not washing their hands after they use the restrooms because, capitalism. According to the District Sentinel, Republican senator Thomas Tillis declared at the Bipartisan Policy Center Monday that businesses should be allowed to opt out of washing their hands "as long as customers are made aware of the situation" through "proper disclosure, through advertising...or whatever else." The senator argues that after word spread that employees do not wash their hands, the free market would take care of eliminating the business.

Tillis appears to have forgotten the number of people that could be negatively affected by that decision through illnesses before any sort of economics could gain enough power to come into play. Daily Kos points out that to Tillis, making sure that businesses are free "to operate under any conditions they'd like" is more important than public health and safety.

A report from the CDC reveals that the "spread of germs from the hands of food workers to food" is the largest cause of food contamination by restaurant workers. Proper hand washing helps reduce the spread of germs from hands to food and from food to other people. It's so important that if inspectors catch employees not washing their hands well, the restaurant could be shut down.