Everything Great is *Nixbased

After reading The Germiest Places in America and the recommendations it gives I started to picture a world full of Howard Hughes clones using antibacterial soap and wipes for everything they touch. Yes some of the recommendations are good such as wiping down equipment at the gym and cleaning the remote in a hotel room before using it but in general the article capitalizes on the fear of the cowardly society we seem to have become. Society in general lives in fear, we are too careful. Our bodies were designed to “take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’”. Not to mention not all bacteria are bad. Here’s a quote from the above mentioned article “Tubs typically had more than 100,000 bacteria per square inch!”, sounds bad doesn’t it? What they don’t mention is when the tubs tested were last cleaned, what jobs the users of the tested tubs held and what bacteria were found. They also mention E. coli, what they fail to mention is that the most common “bad” E. coli strain is E. coli O157:H7. Other forms of E.coli are found in our intestines and other areas of our body and actually help us live healthy lives.

We develop the antibodies of our acquired immune system as we’re exposed to bacteria and viruses, if we constantly try to use antibacterial products in excess it stands to reason that we aren’t helping our immune system to strengthen it’s self. I’m not saying their isn’t a time and place for proper hygiene, that’s a given but it seems that some people go overboard. Instead of pushing the whole fear aspect and telling people to use antibacterial products on everything why don’t these authors write more articles teaching people to eat more proabotic and prebiotic rich foods?

Most, if not all of the places listed in the above article are ones the average person should know can carry mass amounts of germs so I don’t even really see the need for such an article though, anywhere mass amounts of people come in contact with or that’s used to clean something which was once dirty is going to collect undesirable organisms/microorganisms fast…is that really hard enough to understand that we need a 10 page article on it?