Wafer Reduces Germ Risk in Communion
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
Published: May 27, 1995
WASHINGTON, May 26— Dipping a wafer into the communion cup does not abolish the risk of infection to the communicant, but it is safer than sipping wine from a common cup, according to a study reported at a scientific meeting here this week.
Anne LaGrange Loving, a professor of microbiology at Felician College in Lodi, N.J., undertook the study because of widespread concern about the potential hazards from sipping communal wine. The topic has been the subject of religious debate and scientific investigation for more than a century.
Most wine used for communion is fortified with a higher alcohol content than table wine to kill microbes, and ministers use other measures, too, to reduce the risk, Ms. Loving said in an interview. But studies by other researchers have shown that microbes can survive in communion cups.
Although no illness has been documented, the current concern is that sipping wine from a communion cup could be hazardous for those with cancer or AIDS because they have impaired immune systems, Ms. Loving said. For that reason, the alternative of dipping wafers into the wine, either by the communicant or the minister, has become popular among many denominations, she said.
H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, is not believed to be passed through drinking or eating.
Although scientific and religious articles have described dipping the wafer into the wine as "completely safe," such statements were based on assumption, not on laboratory tests, Ms. Loving said in reporting her findings to the American Society for Microbiology.
So Ms. Loving solicited 45 volunteers from the faculty, staff and administration at Felician and had them dip wafers into wine in two simulated communion services. They purposely did not wash their hands first, since many parishioners are likely to touch their noses, ears and mouths during a worship service and the minister may touch the lips and tongues of parishioners during communion.
Participants were told to shake the hands of 3 to 10 people to replicate the exchange of microbes that would normally occur during the service before communion. Fingertips, wine and wafers were then tested for bacterial growth.
All wafer cultures grew bacteria. Most were the harmless ones that are normally present on skin, although some were fecal organisms like E. coli, Ms. Loving said. The potential disease-causing microbes are thought to survive for only a short time in the wine and were not recovered from the wine in any sample.
Seven individuals inadvertently dipped their fingertips into the wine, but no bacteria grew in the laboratory from the wine samples.
Microbes were transferred from one person to another, via wafer, in 12 cases. Among them was staph aureus, which can cause a wide variety of problems from boils to food poisoning.
In earlier studies, dregs of communion wine have grown organisms like Mycobacterium avium, one of many microbes that can cause devastating illnesses for people infected with H.I.V. But in this study, no organisms grew from the dregs.
When the results were compared with those from earlier studies involving sipping, the greatest risk was sipping from a common cup, followed by dipping the wafer by the minister and then dipping by the parishioner, Ms. Loving said.
Full details will be published in the Journal of Environmental Health in July.