Why do people worry so much about germs any more?

I think @Dutchess_III just got moved off the food committee for the next Fluther picnic.

There have been some pretty horrific bacterial outbreaks, so people react with caution. But a little commonsense works well, and antibacterial soap is bad for everyone.

That being said, once something falls onto dirt, it really shouldn’t be eaten unless washed off.

Why not @zenvelo?

Because they can kill
you.

It’s hard to stay calm when the world has flesh eating diseases and Mersa.

You ever play in the mud @stanleybmanly? I played mud volley ball several times. It was a blast. You ever swim in a lake? Primitive camped?
MRSA isn’t found in dirt @filmfann. It’s contracted from other people who already have it. MRSA . Wouldn’t a better plan be to stay away from other people.
All flesh eating diseases are caused by bacteria that is picked up from contact with other humans.

Because more and more of those germs are becoming antibiotic resistant. And there are more types than MRSA now, with more coming along all the time.
Animals get MRSA.
MRSA was found in some seaweed on the Oregon coast some time back.
I got my MRSA infection from a bar of soap!

The moral of that story is don’t use bar soap and don’t eat seaweed. And never touch an animal.

Germs in the mud aren’t so much a worry. But it’s a good idea to keep an eye on a kid rolling his food in the dirt. Cats and dogs shit in the dirt, and we walk that dirt around. I’m not obsessive about this kind of thing, but I would have confiscated the corn and tossed it.

I didn’t hurt him. We knew it wouldn’t. Kids that age just eat dirt sometimes.

I was reading last week on the current little known rampage of intestinal parasites currently loose in the country resulting from the rising glut of feral cats. Did you know that there are better than 200,000 diagnosed cases of toxic plasmosis in this country every year? Get your grandkids in the habit of washing their hands.

@Dutchess_III Because it is dirty. Drop an ear of corn on the lawn, that is one thing, but rolled around in the soil is introducing the consumer to all kinds of organisms from the gut of all kinds of biomes, many of which are incompatible with the biome of a baby.

The soil in your back yard or your local park could pose several kinds of hazard:
chemical contamination, especially heavy metals
harmful bacteria, mostly from sewage or manure
parasites, especially roundworms from pet or wildlife feces
Roundworms
Is this a real question that you want real answers to or do you want to come back to each answer with a “because I said so”?
Edited to add: Every campground I have ever been to is covered in goose poop.

We should be concerned about germs, because being sick is a bother. Dying is downright inconvenience.

All flesh eating diseases are caused by bacteria that is picked up from contact with other humans.

^This is incorrect Dutch. Contact from another person is on the bottom of the list of how it is contracted. It usually happens from bacteria entering a wound.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/problems/medical/flesh-eating-bacteria1.htm

Because people in the USA are getting more and more stupid due to poor education, atrociously stupid corporate media, anti-intellectualism, etc. They are similarly increasingly hyper about all sorts of other non-threats that used to be normal. Kids allowed to wander around, ride bikes with no helmets, armed with fireworks (including bottlerockets and Roman candles) and BB guns and toy guns that were black or chrome, and get in fights without being expelled from school. Almost no security cameras anywhere. Now people are lost and afraid if they have no smart cell phone on them.

@jonsblond I looked at your link. It said, “The bacteria can be passed via person-to-person contact, but is unlikely to develop into flesh-eating bacteria without that open wound.” It didn’t list any other ways you can contract it. I didn’t see a list at all. Did I miss it?

My son has had MRSA twice now. He’s in maintenance at a retirement compound.

@Dutchess_III Wait. Your son has had MRSA twice, yet you don’t care about germs? Really? I’m trying to wrap my head around that.

I wasn’t paranoid about germs when my daughter was a baby. I was never the mom who’d say “Wash your hands before you touch the baby.” I feel that some germs are what make our body stronger. Nevertheless, when my daughter was born, the doctor told me avoid places like shopping malls and avoid other homes where there are children, until she’s around 6 weeks old. I followed his advice and all worked out well. For myself, I don’t use antibacterial soap in the house. Of course if I’m out and that’s all they have, then I use what’s available.

However, I think if she dropped food in the dirt, then or now, or I did the same, washing it off wouldn’t even be an option. It would be thrown out.

@Hawaii_Jake It’s a hazard of his job. He didn’t get it from playing in the dirt. It enters an open wound. Sometimes it’s the bacteria that are already present on or in our bodies that develop into MRSA.

The fact one’s son works at a job that puts him in jeopardy of getting a possibly fatal bacterial infection would make any normal person vigilant about avoiding germs and educating others of the risks.

Mud is basically standing water + dirt.

Even if we completely disregard the dirt, there’s standing water which I’m pretty sure is the among the top 3 killers in history.

Don’t eat mud. Teach your kids not to eat mud. That’s hard earned knowledge for the human species.

ETA: The big wiki article on Waterborne diseases

He’s pretty vigilant. For example, he makes sure he’s completely covered when he has to clean out the sewers and stuff.
Part of it is the fact that he’s around older people much of the time. Maybe no one should work in that field? Also, no one should work in hospitals.

I played in the mud all the time as a kid

Beyond germs…..as others said, there can be all kinds of animal crap in that dirt. Or how about bugs? You really want a kid to be eating poop and bugs?
Do you have any pictures of you eating dog poop?

I don’t necessarily want them eating dirt, but I don’t freak out if they do.

@jca That’s actually a custom in my country. When a baby is born, no one should come visit the house until the baby if 6 weeks old, and the baby shouldn’t be carried outside the house, not even on the backyard, until it becomes stronger and more immune to illnesses.

How does it become immune to anything?

@Dutchess_III From the mother’s milk?

Not if she doesn’t have the immunities to.pass on. And what about formula fed kids?

@Dutchess_III I dunno. I just tell you what I’ve heard. I never had a kid on my own.
Isn’t mother’s milk supposed to provide the basic immunity for the child? I mean what’s the point if the milk anyways if not that?

@Sneki2 You are correct. Mother’s milk does provide immunities initially.

To keep the kid alive! It’s called breakfast, lunch and dinner! And a midnight snack.
I need to look more into the immunity thing further. I know about it but I don’t remember the specifics.

OK, I did some refreshing of my memory. From this link.

To recap: They receive what ever immunity they’re going to get before they’re born. Breast feeding just carries it out longer. And it’s mainly immunity to intestinal infection.

“During the last three months of pregnancy, antibodies from the mother are passed to her unborn baby through the placenta.

This type of immunity is called passive immunity, because the baby has been given antibodies rather than making them itself. Antibodies are special proteins that the immune system produces to help protect the body against bacteria and viruses.

The amount and type of antibodies passed to the baby depends on the mother’s immunity. For example, if the mother has had chickenpox, she will have developed immunity against the condition and some of the chickenpox antibodies will be passed to the baby. However, if the mother hasn’t had chickenpox, the baby will not be protected.

Immunity in newborn babies is only temporary and starts to decrease after the first few weeks or months. Breast milk also contains antibodies, which means that babies who are breastfed have passive immunity for longer. The thick, yellowish milk (colostrum) produced for the first few days following birth is particularly rich in antibodies.”

So at the time you start taking the baby outside, at 6 weeks, the immunity as actually starting to weaken, not getting stronger.

And what point are we trying to make now?

relevant

@Dutchess_III: Then the baby is getting shots (vaccinations) which help fight disease:

https://www.health.ny.gov/publications/2378.pdf

Oh, good grief. Obviously breast milk is not the only source. Babies get a rather dilute exposure to various pathogens in the family home, being exposed to family members, things that are brought into the house, etc, otherwise all the babies that were formula fed would be dead. Over exposing babies to the masses of pathogens out in the world when they’re newborns is dangerous because they can’t build up the antibodies that quickly. Cuz, you know, they’re newborn.

As to your original Q, in about the last quarter century, there has been an explosion of resistant bacteria that are transferred so many ways, very often through feces. You stated that your grandson was eating the dirt “at the lake”, which one could suppose was not his own backyard (where the danger is lessened because of familiarity with the animals that produce the feces there). “At the lake” dirt could be rampant with the bacteria from all sorts of critters.

I am pretty cavalier by a lot of standards, but I would certainly be concerned by that.

And, just FYI, in the circumstances where something nasty needs an open wound, “open wound” describes any compromise in skin integrity, even a paper cut that is not readily visible.

No particular point @janbb. It’s just where the discussion lead.

I forget…don’t they ger their first vaccinations at 3 months @jca? I’ll go look at your link.

2 months.

Hepatitis B vaccine at birth.

Right.

Soil related bacterial and fungal infections

I contracted a lung disease when I lived on a farm. It happened when I cleaned our garage and shed. I was told I most likely had lung cancer until my second biopsy confirmed it was histoplasmosis. I contracted it by inhaling dirt contaminated with either bird or bat droppings. My right lung is scarred for life and I live with breathing issues.

Obviously because they care about their own health and because they, themselves, are the ones who will have to pay the medical bills if they got sick due to their own carelessness. Purposely contracting yourself with germs isn’t the only way to boost your immune system and it isn’t without risk.

I never wash my hands. Last night I ate pizza that had been sitting under my bed for ten hours.

I have been sick about 4 times in the last decade. Really, I have gone for years without getting the common cold.

But I also drink a lot. So it is being a dirty person that has helped prime my immune system. Or I drink so much nothing can survive in my blood.

I don’t worry about getting dirty (mud) I do have some concern about germs though. Germs that can make me sick. If you are playing in the mud and get a puncture wound I do recommend you worry about tetanus if you haven’t been properly vaccinated. Tetanus cases still happen and it awful.

I don’t use antibacterial soap, washing your hands with regular soap is just as good. If someone is obviously sick, I don’t want to catch it. That’s something I avoid if I can. I either steer clear of them, or, if I must be around them I’m more careful to wash my hands if I touched them, or touched something they touched, or I avoid touching my face if I don’t have a sink around.

I don’t share drinks, because people really do catch illness and herpes from glasses and mugs. No thank you.

When polio used to circle through communities sometimes children were kept at home, not playing with other children. Not a bad idea. There is no benefit I can see from having polio.

The health organizations use quarantine for a reason. Some illness are contagious, and not good to contract, because they are so dangerous. TB, smallpox (eliminated from the earth by vaccine) polio, hep c, to bane a few, and then there are others we like to avoid, but most people come through ok.

Using good rules about cross contamination in the kitchen isn’t ridiculous either. People really do get food poisoning because they are clueless about the dangers of bacterias in raw meats.

In every day situations I’m not germaphobic. If I had kids I wouldn’t be too obsessed about it, because I know kids are knocking into each other all the time, there’s not much you can do. I would tell my kids not to share food, drink, hairbrush, and make-up.

Use this as a teaching moment. “No dear, we don’t eat food that has dirt on it.”

There is also Tetanus bacteria in the soil, as well as human, household pet and livestock fecal material.
Dirt, feces and manure carry the Tetanus spores that are highly resistant to heat and chemical killing. if you’re going to eat dirt at least have your tetanus vaccine up to date.

Anthrax too! In some soils where animals graze. Very rare in the USA, but higher occcurences in other countries. Not that I worry about it.

Some fears about germs are leftover from the “old country” where conditions are different than America. They might have made sense there. My husband won’t drink directly from the tap. It’s leftover from growing up in Mexico. Cooking pork all the way through is leftover from when people became very sick from trichinosis in raw pork (still a concern in many countries, but extremely rare in America).

Cultures that used “clean” practices for surgery before there was even an understanding of germs are heralded as being brilliant before their time.

A healthy fear of germs is a good thing. It’s when it gets neurotic that it’s too far.

@JLeslie Yes, and, way back when, butchers doubled as midwives because they knew anatomy. Of course they failed to wash their hands after hacking up meat carcasses and so infected and killed countless women with hideous bacterial infections while delivering their infants. Ugh, the suffering must have been beyond scope.

I’m thinking about parasites (worms) that humans can get by mouth from the dirt. There are parasites animals get that are passed to other animals and humans in the dirt.

Oh well.