RCS said...
Halbert,
I agree with your thoughts on bugs in the dirt.
Concerning "sanitizing" .... medical centers, especially emergency rooms and intensive care units, have been centers for spreading superbugs. Patients who pick up a superbug in the hospital are moved to the ICU and pass it along to other very vulnerable patients in the ICU. Hospitals have become acutely aware of this and have made great efforts to make sure furniture, etc are sanitized.
Personally, when I see "sanitizing" wipes (like in grocery stores) I iuse them. I feel we are way beyond the point where we can toughen our systems by eating bugs in the dirt .... the bugs have evolved and are winning; therefore, we need to kill the critters before they enter our bodies.
It is also interesting that you bring up viruses. Phages are viruses that kill bacteria, and before we had antibiotics they were used to treat bacterial infections. Phage therapy is still practiced in Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, etc. People in the west who are infected with superbugs are now going to these phage clinics for treatment. CDC and others are catching on and are funding phage research; however, beaurcratic red tape being what it is .... well that's a story for another time. For more on Phages:
/en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy
Pretty interesting on the Phages. Pretty disgusting, but apparently effective. Also, another pretty old approach that was set aside, at least in the west, by antibiotics. Other very old approaches which have been set aside but which may indeed have much potential are silver and UV light:
www.ecowatch.com/shu-lam-superbugs-2017264440.html?ref=yfp/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27447106/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27353266I remember when silver oxide ointment was routinely applied to the eyes of infants to protect against the STD pathogens contacted during birth, but I think that was about
replaced by antibiotics by the 1960s or 1970. But I was blow away some years ago when silver coated liner socks and long johns became available 10 or 20 years ago, meant for backpackers. One of the things about
backpacking for more than a day or 2 ( I often went on 1 week trips and once 30 days in the wilderness) that I could never stand was the stench that would soon be all over the group due to impracticality of washing body and clothing frequently enough, or at all in bad weather. To my astonishment, even after a week neither I nor my socks and long johns/underwear had any apparent bad smell at all, at least not noticeable to me. ( and yes, I normally would notice it to the point of being disgusted by myself ). The silver particles embedded in the clothing simply would not allow bugs to grow enough to be a problem, even on my skin, apparently.
Also, I saw this just now:
www.ecowatch.com/shu-lam-superbugs-2017264440.html?ref=yfp