Can a Military be dissassembled?

I know that spyderco kitchen knives are dishwasher safe. The spyderco help desk taught me that.

For years people have been using knives in a variety of situations where they contact blood. They wash em and use em again. No problem. If you do the math on the risk, you're more likely to cut yourself with the knife and get an infection from dirt than you are ever likely to get a blood born pathogenic disease from blood residue on your blade.

Don't forget that a lot of hospital cleaning procedures have no place in the real world. Ironically, the biggest source of contamination in hospitals is workers refusing to properly wash their hands after and before patient care and to use gloves. This is something you too should do at home. Wash your hands before eating or touching your nose, eyes or mouth. No need to bleach clean your tools and countertops like they do in hospitals.
 
Brownshoe, some statictics.....

Nearly 4 million people are infected with hep. C in the USA, this disease is UNCURABLE. 10-12 Million People have a lesser Form of Hepatitus (A and B)

Over 2 Million People have HIV/AIDS in the USA.

So taking the statistics 5% of the people you meet are going to have a bloodbourne pathogen, evem more in my line of work because I don;t see them till they are sick.

Yes the risk is low, but your cavalier attitude is why these disese's are so widly spread. Your choice to Protect yourself and YOUR Family since hepatitus usually infects a whole family group if the not diagnosed right away.

Have a nice Life.... but try to imagine it with your wife or daughter having to grow up with Hep "C".... I believe the spirt of this thread as I have said before is he used his knife to rescue someone and got thier blood on it, someone he doesn't know and will probably never meet again except on the desolate side of the highway.
 
What about isopropyl alcohol for decontamation, the kind sold in drugstores?
There's ordinary rubbing alcohol at 50% and 70% alcohol, the rest being water, and then there's 99% alcohol.
Any good?
 
My neighbor has aids, I have a coworker with aids, I have three friends with Heptatis C and two coworkers. I am very well aware of the methods of transmission for these diseases. One is fully asymptomatic for hepatitus C, three has no trace of the disease after treatment and one is severly ill. Hepatitus C is not a death sentence. So I do know something about these diseases and their transmission. Heptatus C can be transmitted through casual blood exposure, but the odds are low, and if you wash things off, non-existent. It still requires some method of ingestion. Aids cannot be transmitted that easily and is not viable outside the organism for any appreciable time if you were as smart as you think you are, you'd know that. You're aids comment shows that you are just trying to scare.

You can use alcohol, hospitals do it.

If you get your knife real bloody, so is your hand. Wash your hands as soon as possible. Wash your knife next. Usually the EMT has something that can help. Put your knife in your pocket, wash it better at home. Wash your hands again. Wash your bloody clothes. You'll live.

Proud to be human.
 
brownshoe, live your life anyway you want... that is your right. But to tell people untruths about proper techniques for decontamination and laugh them off is irresponsible.

yes your friend may not show signs of Hep C, but he is still a carrier and can infect others....

About the Alcohol as a Sterilization Agent, here is some info...

Alcohol as a skin disinfectant
The goal prior to surgery is to rapidly kill bacteria at the site of the planned incision. Alcohols are well-suited for this. After application, their antibacterial effects result in falling bacterial counts that can last up to several hours.

The committee noted several sources that support the use of alcohol as a skin disinfectant:

Research has shown that a one-minute alcohol immersion or scrub is as effective as a four- to seven-minute scrub with Chlorhexidine or Iodophors.


An article by Cunliffe-Beamer cited in the Guide supports alcohol for rodent skin disinfection prior to surgery.


The World Health Organization has designated alcohol "the gold standard against which all other skin disinfectants should be measured.
For these reasons, the Council accepts alcohol as a skin disinfectant for rodent survival surgery.

Instrument sterilization
Prior to surgery, instruments should be rid of all forms of microorganisms to prevent postoperative wound infections. But this is sometimes difficult due to the grooves on instruments that can trap protein-rich material.

According to APIC (Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology), ethyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol are not effective in sterilizing instruments because they lack sporicidal activity and can't penetrate protein-rich materials. Isopropyl alcohol also lacks the ability to kill hydrophilic viruses. For these reasons, alcohol is classified as an intermediate level disinfectant.
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Brownshoe,

No offense brother, but why the bad attitude? If someone wants to soak their germ infested knife for 20 mins because that is the proper amount of time that will definately kill off all bacteria then hell, why not? Westicle seems to know what he is talking about so I don't understand the competition (if that is the right word) between you two.

I am around blood and puke and germs and who knows what every three days and when the Medic Truck needs cleaned out, we use a solution of bleach and water to kill off the "germs". I can't see why this wouldn't work for cleaning a knife. Soak it, dry it, lube it up and put it back into duty. Nuf said.
 
One of my pet peeves is germaphobia. Most people don't realize that your immune system protects you quite well and there are germs that can kill you all around, but you don't die or even get sick. In the germaphobia arena, I've seen medical personnel wait before giving mouth to mouth due to fear of TB, only because the person was a mental patient. You know, mental patients have a higher incidence of TB.

I also know from experience that bleach, even 10% bleach is not good for all knife materials.
 
Originally posted by brownshoe
One of my pet peeves is germaphobia. Most people don't realize that your immune system protects you quite well and there are germs that can kill you all around, but you don't die or even get sick. In the germaphobia arena, I've seen medical personnel wait before giving mouth to mouth due to fear of TB, only because the person was a mental patient. You know, mental patients have a higher incidence of TB.

I also know from experience that bleach, even 10% bleach is not good for all knife materials.
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What a load of crap.... "waiting to give CPR", that is one of the biggest loads of crap I have seen. It is called a pocket mask and it protects you from transfer of fluid by using the one way valve and a small filter.

The "medical" people you have dealt with are obviously negligent in thier duties if they did not start venting immediatly.... our criteria is Cspine/Airway/Breathing/Circulation. Its is the most basic technique.

You still have not given a good reason besides your obvious disregard for basic clinical disinfection procedures why it is bad to neutralize any blood born pathogens on your knife after it having been exposed to someone elses bodily fluids ?

I also know from experience that bleach, even 10% bleach is not good for all knife materials.
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Then Use Germicide, it is non corrosive but still performs the same function.... as said before barbers use it on thier scissors and stuff and that is a lot less of a steel then spyderco uses. Your soak time may be longer then with bleach so make sure to follow directions.

Again I must say your continued displeasure that people want to protect themselves and thier families thru a common and easily done procedure of decontamination just baffles me.
 
It's all good advice.

I put my knives in the dishwsasher all of the time. Do we recommend it, no. it's excessive heat and moisture, but I still do it.

Rust occurs when the chlorine ion attacks the carbon matrix. Salt water has cholorine (NaCl), bleach contains chlorine, swimming pools contain chlorine. If you use Chlorine, rinse it off with fresh water to remove the chlorine. Alcohol is ok. heck, even Listerine kills germs.

No sense in exposing yourself to a possible germ you might be sorry for.

sal
 
My original problem was with the 20 minute soak in 10 % bleach that Mr. Westicle suggested. That can immediately damage some knife materials and regular continued use will damage a lot of materials.

I never said don't use germicide, alcahol, etc.. I just said that in most situations where you get a little blood on your knife, you can wash the thing off.

You however have continuted to perpetuate the myth that aids can be spread through surface contamination. This isn't true. When my neighbor with aids eats and drinks at my house, I know that I don't have to bleach treat his silverware and dishes...Do you?

Maybe some of your misconceptions are a symptom of part of the problem Canada is having with transmission of the readily transferrable disease SARS. The medical workers of Canada have a three times higher incidence of SARS infection than in Hong Kong or Beijing.
 
Originally posted by brownshoe
My original problem was with the 20 minute soak in 10 % bleach that Mr. Westicle suggested. That can immediately damage some knife materials and regular continued use will damage a lot of materials.

I never said don't use germicide, alcahol, etc.. I just said that in most situations where you get a little blood on your knife, you can wash the thing off.

You however have continuted to perpetuate the myth that aids can be spread through surface contamination. This isn't true. When my neighbor with aids eats and drinks at my house, I know that I don't have to bleach treat his silverware and dishes...Do you?

Maybe some of your misconceptions are a symptom of part of the problem Canada is having with transmission of the readily transferrable disease SARS. The medical workers of Canada have a three times higher incidence of SARS infection than in Hong Kong or Beijing.
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I am not saying you have to wash saliva off you knife or other materials... but if your aids infected friend puked blood on your table what would you do then ?

Yes SARS is a much bigger problem up here then in the USA as we have a more stronger strain of it then our southern numbers.... reason more health care workers where infected in Canada then HK is easy, we didn't believe SARS was in Canada or could not believe that it had a fatality rate as it did.

Very Little Info about SARS was made public in HK or China until after it infected the continental North America. Only then did our health care workers take further measures of containment..... this could actually have some context in this thread in regards to the decontamination of knives after getting blood on them also.

"if only he was aware of bloodborn pathogens he may have taken the steps to properly disinfect his knife, now his whole family has contracted Hep "C".... what a shame"

So yes the the ignorence of canadian health care workers did spread sars, but after they where educated on how to control it and combat it the cases have all but dried up with no new cases reported in the Last 25 days.

Hopefully I have saved one person the misery of having a disease that is easily preventable thru proper decontamination..... "if it saves just one life"
 
Just like to add....

if your EDC is so valuable to you that you don;t want to disinfect it from blood born pathogens then I recommend you get a different knife.

also not ragging on the dishwasher, but it does not get hot enough, long enough to kill all bloodborn pathogens.
 
Originally posted by brownshoe
You however have continuted to perpetuate the myth that aids can be spread through surface contamination. This isn't true. When my neighbor with aids eats and drinks at my house, I know that I don't have to bleach treat his silverware and dishes...Do you?
Click to expand...

Here is the issue that caused me to post the question in the first place. Knives are sharp! If one is accidentally cut with a knife that has any contaminant on it, then that contaminant can be introduced to the person's system. That is why EVERYTHING that comes in contact with unknown body fluids should be properly cleaned.

Paranoia is a concept that is being used in this thread irresponsibly. Paranoia is not the same as caution. Latex gloves are used whenever first responders handle any patient, regardless of wether that person is bleeding. Properly cleaning a knife, or any tool, is the same level of safety protocol as the gloves.

Such protocols are what help prevent the spread of a disease, and allow first responders to work with persons of unknown health. Without such cautions, there would be fewer rescue and medical personel left to treat those in need.
 
Mr. Westicle, make it clear, do you or do you not believe aids can be spread through surface contact? Because if you do, you're ignorant of the disease. Fresh blood spatter through the eyeballs can expose you to aids, but not much else has come past my desk.
 
The HIV virus can live on surfaces out side the body for approx. 15 min. or so. Fortunately it is not as tough as the Hepatitis virus, which can live on surfaces for as long as 2 weeks.
Decontamination makes sense, up to a point.People make mistakes all the time. If you are going to make a mistake, make it on the side of caution.
Brownshoe's anti-AIDS-discrimination position not withstanding. People with this same position turned AIDS into a political football and prevented a quarantine when a quarantine was still possible. As a result, many needless deaths occurred. This is not a civil rights problem, this is a public health issue.
Westicle you are correct to decontaminate. I am told that a short immersion in boiling water is an effective decontamination agent. Air under pressure to dry out all those haed-to-get areas and then a good lube should take care of it.
 
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