[OT] Germ Rant

"---MIKE---" wrote in message
...
I have had success for many years by refusing to shake hands with anyone
during the cold and flu seasons. The less contact with other people the
better.


My late mom used to claim that you could get awful germs from supermarket
trolley handles. I have no reason to disbelieve her. Everyone who has
"anything" is touching them, so when I come home after shopping I scrub my
hands with anti-bac stuff. Seems to work for me.

Tweed

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:48:48 +0000, Christina Websell wrote:


"---MIKE---" wrote in message
... I have had
success for many years by refusing to shake hands with anyone during the
cold and flu seasons. The less contact with other people the better.


My late mom used to claim that you could get awful germs from supermarket
trolley handles. I have no reason to disbelieve her. Everyone who has
"anything" is touching them, so when I come home after shopping I scrub my
hands with anti-bac stuff. Seems to work for me.

Tweed


The local Albertson's store has a display of Clorox wipes right where the
carts are kept. They have an open sample and invite patrons to use it on
the cart handles. Good marketing! MLB

---MIKE--- wrote:
I have had success for many years by refusing to shake hands with
anyone during the cold and flu seasons. The less contact with other
people the better.

The only time I had flu, as oppossed to a bad cold, was 32 years ago. That
was the one and only time I had a flu vacination.
--
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy & Bagheera)
Cats leave pawprints on your heart
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk

"Christina Websell" wrote in message
...

"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
Maybe it's just because I'm fighting off this grunge that has taken
possession of my lungs, sinuses and ears and won't vacate the premises no
matter what I've done, but I've become very attuned to TV commercials
advertising germ killing products (Lysol, Purell, etc.). I just watched
three in a row.

First of all, germs evolve just like any other animal or organism, they
just
do so millions of times faster since their reproductive cycles are so
short.
Purell just announced that it kills 99.9% of germs on your hands. Think
about it, what happens to the other .1%? *THOSE* are the germs who have
survived in the fight for survival of the fittest. They are the ones who
have not only been allowed to live and breed but have been selected by
*US*
to pass their hardiness and ability to survive germ destroying substances
on
to the next "generation" of germs.

When we get so compulsive, here in the US, with everything being "clean
and
sanitized", what we're really doing is helping to breed the next
unstoppable
pandemic! Is the risk really worth it just to avoid a few days or weeks
of
illness?

I've always been of the philosophy that my children needed to eat a
little
dirt in order for their immune systems to learn how to handle the stress.
They were never kept from animals because of a few sneezes or sniffles,
their bottles were never sterilized, I never freaked out if they ate a
grasshopper or picked up and ate some dropped food off the floor. The
result is that they are the most remarkably healthy adults I have ever
known
in my lifetime. Neither have ever been hospitalized or even had an
illness
serious enough to send them to their beds for more than a day.

Thankfully, they've learned these lessons well and are treating their own
children the same way, but I'm afraid that in the face of the rest of our
nation's germ-a-phobia this is just a drop in the ocean to counteract our
selective breeding of germicide-resistant organisms.

/rant

I totally agree with you. Our immune systems cannot develop unless they
are challenged. There were never all these children with asthma here
before we were told to clean our houses so much with anti-bac stuff and
make them pristine.
All my life I have been confronted with "germs" from chicken poo, horse
poo, dog poo, you name it. I ate earth and worms as a small child and my
immune system is fine. The only allergy I still have is to crab -
although I am going to try it soon and see what happens. I outgrew the
strawberry allergy and the other shellfish too. I tried scallops for the
first time a while back. They were yuummmy but the next day I was swollen
up with hives.

Tweed


If you plan to try crab, after the reaction to scallops, please make sure
you have an epi pen and an informed friend with you, OK?

Jo

Adrian wrote:

The only time I had flu, as oppossed to
a bad cold, was 32 years ago. That
was the one and only time I had a flu
vaccination.

That may have been possible 32 years ago but not now. The flu vaccine
contains a dead virus that is incapable of giving anyone the flu. I
have had flu shots for the last 25 years and have never gotten sick from
them.


---MIKE---
In the White Mountains of New Hampshire
(44° 15' N - Elevation 1580')

"jofirey" wrote in message
...



If you plan to try crab, after the reaction to scallops, please make sure
you have an epi pen and an informed friend with you, OK?

Aww, guess this puts it out then. I don't have an epi pen and I can't
imagine that a friend would come round just to monitor me eating some crab!
I can live without it. I just want to be able to eat it if I want to, if
that makes sense. I might just try a tiny bit..I might have outgrown the
allergy, I did with prawns and shrimps - but obviously not scallops.
Perhaps because I had never had them before?

Tweed

Christina Websell wrote:
"---MIKE---" wrote in message
...
I have had success for many years by refusing to shake hands with
anyone during the cold and flu seasons. The less contact with other
people the better.


My late mom used to claim that you could get awful germs from
supermarket trolley handles. I have no reason to disbelieve her.
Everyone who has "anything" is touching them, so when I come home
after shopping I scrub my hands with anti-bac stuff. Seems to work
for me.

Tweed

Don't know about over there but in most major grocery stores here there are
"wipes" available where the carts/trollies are stored so you can wipe down
the handle before using it. I also never put anything in that "child seat"
in the front of the cart unless it's well wrapped in heavy plastic (such as
the 6 packs of Ensure nutitional drink I bought for my dad, which I removed
from the plastic wrap before storing in the refrigerator). There's nothing
quite so off-putting as the idea of setting food items where a child with a
leaking/loose diaper may have been sitting.

Jill

Christina Websell wrote:

If you plan to try crab, after the reaction to scallops, please make sure
you have an epi pen and an informed friend with you, OK?

Aww, guess this puts it out then. I don't have an epi pen and I can't
imagine that a friend would come round just to monitor me eating some crab!
I can live without it. I just want to be able to eat it if I want to, if
that makes sense. I might just try a tiny bit..I might have outgrown the
allergy, I did with prawns and shrimps - but obviously not scallops.
Perhaps because I had never had them before?

Actually, I think allergies tend to get worse with *more* exposures, for
the same reason that you become immune to a virus once you've had it. Your
body is primed to respond the next time, because of the previous exposure.
But in the case of allergies, the response is way over the top, and for
some people, does much more harm than good. In fact, it often does no good
at all, since the object your body is fighting isn't harmful to begin with.

If you had hives in response to your first exposure to scallops, I would
definitely avoid them from now on. Next time could trigger a much bigger
reaction.

As for the crab, maybe you could have a little picnic in the waiting
area of your local emergency room? (I'm half kidding. It sounds silly,
but on the other hand, if you really want to try, what safer place could
you do it in, given that you don't have an epi pen or a friend who would
watch you?) Where I live, I could go sit in the ER waiting room and no one
would bat an eye at me. For all they know, I'm waiting to see a doctor,
or I'm waiting for a friend to give them a ride home, or whatever.

On the other hand, there are so many sick people in the ER, you'd
probably end up catching something. Maybe you should just invite a
friend to lunch and have crab for both of you.

Joyce
--
To send email to this address, remove the triple-X from my user name.

Adrian wrote:
---MIKE--- wrote:
I have had success for many years by refusing to shake hands with
anyone during the cold and flu seasons. The less contact with other
people the better.

The only time I had flu, as oppossed to a bad cold, was 32 years ago.
That was the one and only time I had a flu vacination.

The thing about flu vaccinations - there isn't a universal vaccine.
Different types of flu crop up every year. There's no one vaccine that
wards off all of them.

Jill

CatNipped wrote:
I've always been of the philosophy that my children needed to eat a little
dirt in order for their immune systems to learn how to handle the stress.

Agreed!

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
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