I'm Just Sayin'

A few years ago, I began to notice a very distinct trend start to develop. "Hypercleaness"...that's the most accurate description I can come up with.  Although I didn't recognize  it at the time, I now have realized  that the producers of sanitizing agents...soaps, disinfectants etc, either set this trend into motion or they recognized the trend in it's very early stages and jumped in with both feet with maximum exploitation as the goal. We are cleaning, washing, wiping, sanitizing and  disinfecting our bodies and everything we touch or think we might touch. We go looking for germs to kill. We have become paranoid about germs.

This didn't then and doesn't now seem like a very smart policy to me. I recall less sterile times. I'm a baby boomer and I remember washing before meals and after using the restroom...that's about the extent of the average anti-germ program of the 50's, 60's and 70's....maybe part of the 80's. Somewhere, about  the middle or late 80's, germs, the topic of germs, the push towards supercleaness  seemed to spring into the awareness in our population. "It" had started..our brainwahing had begun. News reports began telling us all the places to look for germs and how to kill them. Books were written, talk shows were all over the germ invasion  topic. We were bombarded with commercials. "Get those germs before they take you and your family down", we were told.

I have never been comfortable with this  "supercleaness"..now turned "hypercleaness". Our bodies have systems to fight germs. We have natural defenses. If we take away the things, the germs, that these defenses were meant to combat, why will we need the defenses any longer? Well guess what....reports are now beginning to surface that support my position about this matter. I started noticing a few magazine reports about two years ago. Now I am seeing article after article expounding the theory that we have damaged our defense system, our immune system... we have "de-evolved" our immune system.

In the Oct. 29, 2007 issue of "Newsweek" magazine, an article titled "CAUTION: KILLING GERMS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH" addresses this problem. We have done an enormous amount of damage to ourselves. In fact, we are now making ourselves very susceptible to some infections that are very effective and very swift killers.

A few minutes ago, I received the next issue of "Newsweek" (Nov. 5) and  you guessed it..another article. This article , "FEAR AND ALLERGIES IN THE LUNCHROOM" describes another effect of this supercleaness obsession. They term it the"hygiene hypothesis". Much of the bacteria we have in and on us is very beneficial. Our immune system was, and I do mean WAS programmed to respond to dangerous intruders. With very few dangerous intruders, the immune system has been deprogrammed and now responds to intruders who should be allowed to be in or on us. Research has shown that kids who grow up on farms and who are in constant contact with dirt and animals, are less likely to develop allergies and asthma. Our immune systems need to be stimulated to fight ....that's their jobs..that's why they exist. This is a startling statistic...between 1997 and 2005, the number of children under 5 with peanut allergies doubled.

This topic is too broad and complex to give  adequate information about in my little old blog post. This is just an alert. The next time you see one of those researchers or doctors or book writers on a talk show with encouragement to be hyper-active with  your  efforts to find a kill every damn germ you can... turn them off. Do a little research, read a couple of articles...you will soon see how wrong we have been about germs. This is a quote from the Oct. 29 issue of "Newsweek". "Microbes synthesize vitamins and regulate immune systems and even serotonin levels. Germs, it seems, can make you happy."

Think about it.