First, are you seriously suggesting that they were popular for the reasons that you personally prefer them?

Second, even if it did cause an outbreak what does that tell us about how endemic hepatitis was already? Is that not an issue already that it was all around us such that simply changing the habits of our shopping bags could cause this problem? It sounds like there is a deeper issue that needs to be addressed.

I'm sympathetic to your particular issues and I hope that there is an acceptable middleground for people with your situation but these seem like some serious edge cases to me. That is not to say that I expect you to have to suffer because you are an "edge case", but I don't see why we can't essentially ban something that is a problem overall while still finding a way to protect your health needs.