I've read this explanation before. I've also read the half-dozen or so peer-reviewed studies on the safety of wood boards vs. plastic ones.
Being peer-reviewed, unfortunately, no longer means anything. There are enough desperate pseudo-scientists out there willing to agree to anything in return for the guarantee of an equally favorable review on their own papers. These days, it's necessary to know the source and the source of the funding of any published research.
However, some things are well-established facts. All woods are composed primarily of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Lignin is made up of mostly coniferyl alcohol and, in hardwoods, sinapyl alcohol. Any form of alcohol is an effective antimicrobial. Coniferyl alcohol, being abundantly available, is used as the basis of a number of effective insecticides, as well. That would indicate substantially more killing power than is needed to eliminate most bacteria.
One of the few studies to examine this question that
wasn't funded by the oil industry, directly or indirectly, was the one by the U.C Davis Food Safety Laboratory, which concluded that "disease bacteria such as these (Salmonella and e. Coli) were not recoverable from wooden surfaces in a short time after they were applied, unless very large numbers (of bacteria) were used." In other words, something was killing them without human intervention.
It went on further to state that "New plastic surfaces allowed the bacteria to persist, but were easily cleaned and disinfected. However, wooden boards that had been used and had many knife cuts acted
almost the same as new wood, whereas
plastic surfaces that were knife-scarred were impossible to clean and disinfect".
In addition, although state and local health regulations may impose stricter guidelines than the Federal standards (so, don't assume the Federal standards will protect you, entirely), "the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Meat and Poultry Inspection Manual (official regulations) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's 1999 Food Code (recommended regulations for restaurants and retail food sales in the various states of the U.S.)
permit use of cutting boards made of maple or similar close-grained hardwood.
They do not specifically authorize acceptable plastic materials, nor do they specify how plastic surfaces must be maintained."
A separate study (Kass, P.H., et al., Disease determinants of sporadic salmonellosis in four northern California counties: a case control study of older children and adults. Ann. Epidemiol. 2:683-696, 1992.), found that "those (home cooks) using
wooden cutting boards in their home kitchens were less than
half as likely as average to contract salmonellosis, those using
synthetic (plastic or glass) cutting boards were about
twice as likely as average to contract salmonellosis; and the effect of cleaning the board regularly after preparing meat on it was not statistically significant".
You can read the rest
here, if you like. Emphasis added above, to make it easier to read.
I should probably mention that I use both wood and plastic. I'm not anti-plastic, just pro-facts.