Okay, lets say a person who has AIDS works at a fast food joint. They have a cut on their finger so a drop or two of their blood drips on the sandwhich they’re making for you.
Which you eat.:eek:
Now what?
Would a few drops of AIDS infected blood be enough to infect someone? How about a teaspoon? A tablespoon? A 12 ounce bottle full?
How much infected blood would a person have to injest to catch the disease?
WAG here, but I would think that one molecule of HIV infected blood, if transfused/injected into another person would do the trick. Since most people don’t eat sandwiches with their genitals, you’ll be okay. In addition, food safety laws make food preparers wear plastic gloves (to prevent things like snot and other icky stuf that gets on their hands from getting in your food).
Someone will be along soon with hard numbers, I’m sure, but the scenario you propose is not realistic. The amount of virus required for a productive infection is small, but it’s more than one virus.
The law also says we’re suppose to drive the speed limit. Doesn’t happen.
I’ve been to ooddles of places where the preparers weren’t wearing gloves. My oldes son is in culinary school and he said there isn’t a chef on the planet who would insult himself by wearing gloves. Gross, yes, but reality. Which is why I’m concerned about blood from cuts, hangnails, etc.
Part of my question entails this: What is the difference between injesting a small amount of blood through the stomach, and have a tainted bodily fluid enter through the genitals?
If you were to swallow “a drop or two” of HIV-infected blood, your stomach would kill the virus before it could infect you. In general, HIV is really fragile and doesn’t survive very long outside of someone’s body and wouldn’t be able to survive at all in your stomach. You might be able to catch HIV by getting infected blood in your mouth if the membranes in your mouth weren’t intact, but even then your chances of avoiding it would be pretty good, especially if it was mixed with food. In order to catch it orally you’d just about have to be french-kissing someone with bleeding gums or something extreme like that. HIV is not very good at getting into people’s bodies through intact skin or mucous membranes. It mostly spreads through anal sex, which damages the membranes, sex among people with other venereal diseases that create openings, and blood injection. I think your chances of getting hepatitis or salmonella from a restaurant worker are much higher than your (nearly nonexistent) chances of getting AIDS.