What Kinds Of Bacteria Get On At The Same Subway Stop As You?

Now you don’t have to wonder what exactly you’re touching — or avoiding — on the subway because there’s a comprehensive map of almost every type of species (of bacteria, food remnants, and other organic material) there, and it’s conveniently organized by train station.

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College spent 18 months collecting, documenting, and testing DNA samples from across New York City’s 466 open subway stations. The results are startling: as reported in the Wall Street Journal, scientists discovered 15,152 different species, “most of them harmless or unidentified,” nearly half of them bacteria, and 67 of those bacteria species linked to disease and infections such as staph and food poisoning:

In 18 months of scouring the entire system, [Dr. Christopher Mason] has found germs that can cause bubonic plague uptown, meningitis in midtown, stomach trouble in the financial district and antibiotic-resistant infections throughout the boroughs.

Frequently, he and his team also found bacteria that keep the city livable, by sopping up hazardous chemicals or digesting toxic waste. They could even track the trail of bacteria created by the city’s taste for pizza—identifying microbes associated with cheese and sausage at scores of subway stops.

Naturally, what some people find fascinating, MTA and city health department officials don’t, as noted in The New York Times:

“As the study clearly indicates, microbes were found at levels that pose absolutely no danger to human life and health,” Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said in an email. And the city’s health department called the study “deeply flawed” and misleading.

Dr. Mason responded by saying he and his team had simply presented their complete results.

“For us to not report the fragments of anthrax and plague in the context of a full analysis would have been irresponsible,” he said. “Our findings indicate a normal, healthy microbiome, and we welcome others to review the publicly available data and run the same analysis.”

Harmless or not, the long lists are enough to make you queasy, and Brooklyn stations didn’t get off with shorter lists compared to their Manhattan subway counterparts.

South Slope stations are apparently incredibly varied in their bacteria-collection, although it seems that people in our neighborhood often have respiratory problems, and those who use the 7th Avenue F/G stop are really into cheese:

F/G line

• 4th Avenue/9th Street: diarrhea, antibiotic resistance, radiation resistance, toxic cleanup, respiratory ailments

• 7th Avenue: sunscreen, food poisoning, staph infections, radiation resistance, toxic cleanup, urinary-tract infections, Italian cheese, mozzarella cheese, antibiotic resistance, respiratory ailments

• 15th Street/Prospect Park: sunscreen, respiratory ailments, urinary-tract infections, heart-valve infections, medical-device infections, radiation resistance, oil cleanup, toxic cleanup

R line

• 4th Avenue/9th Street: urinary-tract infections, radiation resistance, toxic cleanup, respiratory ailments, food poisoning

• Prospect Avenue: radiation resistance, toxic cleanup, respiratory ailments, oil cleanup

• 25th Street: radiation resistance, toxic cleanup, respiratory ailments, sunscreen, urinary-tract infections, Italian cheese, antibiotic resistance