CuppaJoe
Moderator Emeritus
Better them than your skin.
Let Me make One Thing Perfectly Clear...
- Thread starter haha
- Start date
Better them than your skin.kumquat
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Orchidflower
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
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I think everyone should send their old, dirty money my way. Just trying to help, folks.
SciFiFan53
Dryer sheet aficionado
I have also read some of the same studies - one in particular about how your keyboard and the paper money actually are home to more pathogens than the toilet seat. I also saw a "scientific" test on one of the cable pseudo-science shows where they tested the myth about storing your toothbrush in the same vicinity as your toilet (ie - same room) will lead to fecal bacteria on your toothbrush. Come to think of it - may have been MythBusters. Anyway, they did the test and it turns out that you will have the bacteria on your toothbrush no matter WHERE you store it. They had a toothbrush stored in a separate room, inside a sealed container - and it still showed some contamination.
I've also seen the same studies that say we are being too careful now - and losing some of our resistance. Since we live in China right now, I can honestly say that we are certainly not in that situation!! The discussion about the handles on the shopping carts makes me think of the carts here. Usually the babies here don't wear diapers - their pants have a slit in them for them to use (parents just pull the pants apart and whistle!). You see them all the time sitting in the shopping carts top "seat" with their bare backsides on the cart. Really gets you into the habit of not touching your face and washing your hands alot!!!
I've also seen the same studies that say we are being too careful now - and losing some of our resistance. Since we live in China right now, I can honestly say that we are certainly not in that situation!! The discussion about the handles on the shopping carts makes me think of the carts here. Usually the babies here don't wear diapers - their pants have a slit in them for them to use (parents just pull the pants apart and whistle!). You see them all the time sitting in the shopping carts top "seat" with their bare backsides on the cart. Really gets you into the habit of not touching your face and washing your hands alot!!!
When we'd go to sea on a submarine, the hatches would slam shut and over 100 people would start inhaling (and smelling) everything that the other crewmembers experienced.
And if you think a toilet flush spews a few feces, just wait until one of your shipmates [-]stupidly[/-] [-]absent-mindedly[/-] accidentally opens a toilet flushing valve while the tank's contents are pressurized to over 100 PSI for blowing overboard. Even if it was just for a couple of seconds, they'd [-]catch a lot of sh!t[/-] not be able to contain the casualty. As almost everyone's noses could quickly tell, the submarine's highly efficient ventilation system would immediately whisk the particulate plume throughout the spaces within minutes.
Even without incidents like that, the week after the hatches went shut almost every one of the crew would suffer from some sort of rotavirus. (We knew it was an upper respiratory infection, but the corpsman didn't have the budget or the equipment to determine exactly what caused it.) Within the week, however, that would clear up.
After day 10 or so, nearly the entire crew would be healthy. From then on, with very rare exceptions there would be no colds, coughs, flu, or other respiratory infections. No alcohol or cigarettes, either (as far as we could tell) but plenty of chewing tobacco. This despite working 18-hour days with chronic fatigue and no sunshine (except for the periscope operators). During 90-day patrols you'd almost never see even a sniffle for well over two months.
But if we did even a personnel transfer, let alone bringing aboard more riders or pulling into port, then everyone would get another respiratory infection within the week. And if we went back out to sea then within another week everyone would be healthy again.
Admittedly we were among America's healthiest demographic, plus we were repeatedly inoculated for hepatitis & tetanus and tested for tuberculosis. Annual flu shots were mandatory, not optional.
But the immune system can only do its job if it has something to do its job to. Chronic exposure to contaminants and diseases appears to lead to a stronger immune system and, overall, a healthier body. If the body doesn't have a chance to learn how to cope with it, then it can be quickly overwhelmed and defeated. Look at what the original Americans and the Europeans did to each other with syphilis and measles.
So if your family & friends give you sh!t in more than merely the metaphorical sense, they're just doing it with your best immune-system health in mind.
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lets-retire
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
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Back in the day when the DW and I had little money, we would often forget to put dinner in the fridge after eating. In the morning we would find the food and, not having enough money to throw it away, put it in the fridge and have it for dinner that night. We didn't get sick from it, but when we moved to Turkey it helped. We would eat on the local economy often. Everyone we knew got food poisoning at least once while we were there, except us. We blamed it on our eating marginal food before we left the US. Every time we move someplace new within a few weeks we get a new cold. I write it up to a new strain that we haven't been exposed to before.
Currently I deal with people from strange and foreign lands and rarely get sick. The wife on the other hand is sick more than me. The kid is like me and rarely is ill. He has missed one day of school out of 6 years due to getting the flu. His first year was not lived in the healthiest of conditions and he was taken from his parents by the state's social services.
Currently I deal with people from strange and foreign lands and rarely get sick. The wife on the other hand is sick more than me. The kid is like me and rarely is ill. He has missed one day of school out of 6 years due to getting the flu. His first year was not lived in the healthiest of conditions and he was taken from his parents by the state's social services.
Presumably I do.
Although considering this thread topic and some of those underways I might mean both...
You lurked for nearly two years and then decloaked just to ask that question!?!
bbbamI
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
SciFiFan53
Dryer sheet aficionado
As for me, not being of the female gender, being a Yankee, and I'm WAY too young to remember anyone wearing gloves.... ;^) There are many people here in China that wear white gloves (presumably to keep from getting "dirty"). You should see the gloves after awhile - really nasty looking. Unless you constantly changed and bleached them, I'm not sure how good they are at blocking germs. Maybe they just serve as a good reminder not to touch your face with your hands.
