Growing bacterial colonies <i>of botulism</i> might be inherently riskier than day-to-day contact with sick people.  Growing bacterial colonies of what&#x27;s on your toothbrush just ain&#x27;t.<p>Growing bacteria in agar is something that was completely de rigueur in elementary school when I was in elementary school in the 1980s.  If this is a high-risk activity, I&#x27;m sure you&#x27;ll have no problem finding some account of it every having done any damage in the conservatively hundreds of thousands of times it was done.