Nigam and Cutter totally fail to present evidence to justify the claim that “Welsh emergency vehicles examined exhibited an unacceptable level of bacterial contamination”.¹ What is more, a press release from the editorial team to local newspapers led Madeline Brindley of the Western Mail to write, “Dirty ambulances infested with huge amounts of harmful bacteria are carrying seriously ill patients to hospital in Wales, according to a report published today. The new research discovered that even after they have been cleaned, ambulances are still home to “unacceptable” levels of bacteria.”²

The authors make no attempt to quantify levels of bacteria for organisms that are expected to be present in an environment occupied by people. Inevitably, steering wheels will be …