I worked in surgery for 17 yr's. I don't think you have anything to worry about. Get yourself a pair of heavey dishwashing glove's and gather them up and put them in a largeziplock bag and take them home and put them in container of bleach, and if you have a large enough pressure cooker you can re-sterillize them yourself. As for germ's, ordinairy soap will kill most viruse's, Aids is killed by exposure to air. It's a invitro virus, Also, remember some of the older surgical instrument's were made of silver, we even used gold needle's. Kelly's, and Pickup's and large forcep's we used to pitch when they would no longer hold a needle for suturing. We used to routinely pick thru them and take them home for the tackle box. I used to sell them to a guy who did taxidermy, and another who liked them for making trout fly's. They are handy for alot of use's. As was posted in a previous thread. Most hospital's do engrave their name or initials. Hemostat's and pickup's when bought new had incredible price's. most of the stuff from the early 80 had carbon steel insert's in the jaw's. And by law, The JCAH, Joint Commission American Hospital's required that all instrument's be dated.
Some stuff we just steam autoclaved, other more delicate instrument's were gas autoclaved with Ethylene Oxide, and is a carcinogenic substance. I alway's found a variety of uses for the old outdate stuff, As for the germ's and viral infection's, you have a better chance of catching hepititis from picking up the occasional turtle.
If your still that germ worried, pack a gallon of bleach with you and pour it or spray them before you pick them up. Alot of the general public's fear's about disease's are unfounded and supported by ignorance. Also, people using all the newer anti-microbial soap's thinking they are really helping themselve's and their familie's, Are only creating a larger problem by creating more highly resistent strains of bacteria's and disease's, that's the same thing that the over usage of antibiotic's has done.
The lowlife cockroache(sp.) has not changed in over 120 million years, he's just become more resillient to our pesticide's and learned to be more adaptive to the most destructive creature on this planet...... Human's........lol... i suppose enuff said....
