Personally, I think that is silly and a bit paranoid to say the least. There are so many people with the "The sky is falling" attitude. You shouldn't feel guilty, Mary. All my garlic is heirloom, grown organically, and is carefully checked before shipping.
If you have any concerns at all, this is what I would do. When you are ready for planting, go ahead and divide the bulb into cloves. Mix up a solution of 1 tbls. baking soda and 1 tbls. liquid seaweed in 1 gal. of water. Soak those cloves in this solution for 12-16 hours. Follow this with a 5-10 min. soak in rubbing alcohol. Plant soon after or put the cloves on a brown paper sack and allow to dry. Plant as soon as you can though. IF you had to do one or the other soak, do the alcohol soak. Some people like to rinse their cloves after the alcohol soak, but that's not necessary.
I have done the above and find that the plants "appear" to grow better and the bulbs are a little larger than planting them untreated.
The seaweed is simply a stimulant/fertilizer for root growth so this kind of gives your garlic a "jump-start" in their growth.
