My daughter learned about bacteria in food from school and cut her already meager diet (picky eater) almost in half. I would post this article on the fridge but she might become completely comatose.
Anyways between “toilet water on your toothbrush” and “fecal aerosol” there must be a sig line in there somewhere.
But surely we’ve all been dealing with this for years?
Doses of household bacteria and ‘germs’ like this are something that the body gets used to on the whole. Could the increased usage of antibactrial washingup liquid, antibacterial sponges, bleach all over the kitchen, etc be causing a too sterile environment, in which children’s immune systems never develop enough to help them avoid problems like asthma?
I agree with you Kanga. I saw an ad the other day on TV about a toothbrush with specially coated bristles to repel such “fecal aerosol” from breeding bacteria on said bristles. Not to mention the introduction of bleach & disinfectants to many household cleaners (e.g. Lysol, Clorox), plus the recent indroduction and subsequent popularity of hand sanitizing gels/wipes. Would there be a threat of us not being exposed to enough germs to keep our immune system up to par, making us more succeptable to colds/flus/etc.?
I think one of the problems with all the antibacterial stuff that is being sold to people, is that a few of the fecal cooties will eventually mutate and become resistant to the antibacterial product - causing the shit to hit the fan big time
Our bodies’ immune systems are set up to deal with regular fecal cooties but may not handle the mutant strains so easily. Sooo, stop spraying antibiotic stuff around the household!
If you think fecal cooties are nasty you should check-out the magnified pictures of the mites that live on everybody’s eyelashes ~shudder~ symbiotic relationships are gross.
Actually, the real danger comes from the fact that you’re artificially speeding up bacterial evolution.
Say you clean (kill) a group of 10 million bacteria, and 50,000 survive it. You feel all warm and cuddly because you killed some Evil Mean Bacteria, but those 50,000 survived because they’re more anti-bacterial resistant than the 9,950,000 that died.
So the next generation of bacteria that comes from them will be more antibiotic resistanct - the next 10 million you kill will yield 3 million survivors, all more antibacterially resistant.
Suddenly places that actually NEED antibacterials (hospitals) find that there are many more bacteria that are resistant to antibacterials than there should be.
And new bacterial infections are more resistant to antibiotics.
So all these soccer moms obsessively cleaning things with fancy new anti-bacterials are going to create some new superbug.
I wouldn’t worry about antibacterial soap and cleaners messing up childrens immune systems.
As my doctor says with a smile on his face “children are nasty dirty little farts that get into anything and everything, they WILL be exposed to germs and bacteria”
He should know…
I try to put the toilet lid down before I flush the toilet to avoid the “fecal aerosol,” but I’m guessing it probably just focuses the aerosol in a narrow band through the air gaps under the lid and seat …
Oh well, it makes me feel like I’m doing something, anyway … every little bit of magic helps.
Last year sometime, a young girl here in Hawaii got a real bad case of infection by necrotic bacteria. I was prepared to get hysterical about such bacteria until the article stated that these bacteria are very common and we are constantly exposed to them … just for some reason, her immune system couldn’t/didn’t fight them off.
So, I guess a little daily dose of fecal aerosol a day, keeps the “e. coli”-osis away …
