Immune System Theory

[Inspector]

hee hee, i find your answer amusing.

I'm glad somebody here has a sense of humor. (ahem, Megan...)

I don't get sick.

Good for you! My point, however, is that any doctor (or cook!) worth his salt will tell you it's a good idea to wash your hands before you handle food, including before you eat it.

Are you really that worried about catching something?

What about what I've said qualifies as "that worried?!?" I said it's a good idea to not eat things off the ground and to wash your hands before you eat. How is this controversial?!?

I eat organic food.

Not a good idea. As David and I said, the stuff tends to be contaminated with E. coli because they use actual poop to fertilize it instead of processed fertilizers. You're basically paying to have food produced in an inefficient and often unsanitary manner for ideological hippie reasons. You're not a hippie, are you? (cue Cartman voice) There are exceptions to this, but for the most part it is a good idea to avoid the "organic" label like the plague.

Doctors probably would recommend washing your hands since they are dealing with sick people in THEIR everyday environment.

Or maybe it has something to do with their knowledge of pathogens and how they work.

[DavidOdden]

My hands go everywhere a normal persons hands would go and it doesn't enter my mind that I could be contaminated by something in my daily environment.

I am not exactly sure where normal people's hands go. Normal people do, on occassion, have to deal with dead animal carcasses, which can harbor some nasty bugs. Do you wash your hands after you spatchcock a chicken? Perhaps if you are personally familiar with the bird, and executed and evicerate it carefully it could be okay. I just don't suggest being casual about the bacteria on chicken bodies: salmonella isn't necessarily fatal, but it's not pleasant.

Recognising that some people are more resistant to disease than others, the major problem with sloppy cleanliness is the possibility that you're spreading disease to others who aren't immune. I don't care if you eat raw chicken straight out the of the bag, but I would prefer to not have you bathing in raw chicken poop and then making me a sandwich. So either wash up first, or don't be giving me a sandwich (especially a chicken sandwich).

One experiment that you can conduct to check the strength of your immune system is to tromp around in dirt that is frequented by animals, where there might be rusty nails. What you want to do is introduce a bit of tetanus bacteria into your system, to see if it causes discomfort.

[Alessa36]

I am not exactly sure where normal people's hands go. Normal people do, on occassion, have to deal with dead animal carcasses, which can harbor some nasty bugs. Do you wash your hands after you spatchcock a chicken? Perhaps if you are personally familiar with the bird, and executed and evicerate it carefully it could be okay. I just don't suggest being casual about the bacteria on chicken bodies: salmonella isn't necessarily fatal, but it's not pleasant.

Recognising that some people are more resistant to disease than others, the major problem with sloppy cleanliness is the possibility that you're spreading disease to others who aren't immune. I don't care if you eat raw chicken straight out the of the bag, but I would prefer to not have you bathing in raw chicken poop and then making me a sandwich. So either wash up first, or don't be giving me a sandwich (especially a chicken sandwich).

One experiment that you can conduct to check the strength of your immune system is to tromp around in dirt that is frequented by animals, where there might be rusty nails. What you want to do is introduce a bit of tetanus bacteria into your system, to see if it causes discomfort.

Show of hands, how many people have to pluck feathers off a chicken they hand picked out of a over crowded feces infested hen house before eating, on a normal day. (silence).

The responsibility of creating a healthy immune system is up to the individual. If I owned a business that practiced "sloppy cleanliness habits", I'm sure my business would suffer, if enough people got sick off my product. Why are you lobbying for all the immune deficient people of the world? If you think Hot Dogs sold on the streets of NY aren't sanitary, don't eat them. If you think organic food is worse then processed foods, then don't eat them. I'd rather eat fruits grown with manure then chemicals. I'd rather eat food that isn't bleached first.

What about Montezumas <sp>revenge? Do mexicans have diarrhea all the time?

[Alessa36]

I'm glad somebody here has a sense of humor. (ahem, Megan...)

Good for you! My point, however, is that any doctor (or cook!) worth his salt will tell you it's a good idea to wash your hands before you handle food, including before you eat it.

What about what I've said qualifies as "that worried?!?" I said it's a good idea to not eat things off the ground and to wash your hands before you eat. How is this controversial?!?

Not a good idea. As David and I said, the stuff tends to be contaminated with E. coli because they use actual poop to fertilize it instead of processed fertilizers. You're basically paying to have food produced in an inefficient and often unsanitary manner for ideological hippie reasons. You're not a hippie, are you? (cue Cartman voice) There are exceptions to this, but for the most part it is a good idea to avoid the "organic" label like the plague.

Or maybe it has something to do with their knowledge of pathogens and how they work.

The questioned posed at the beginning of this thread was basically, could someone create a strong immune system by not be overly sanitized, and maybe even coming into contact with some "weak" germs? They questioned whether being overly cautious and maintaining such a "clean system" would put them at a disadvantage when contacting a germ ?

Your answers inspector, usually more definitive, were casual and more suggestive, leading me to believe that you are not truly convinced either way, other than the organic hippie aspect of lettuce. (prefer cheesy poofs)

Any opinion on Salmon... Farm raised vs wild

[DavidOdden]

Show of hands, how many people have to pluck feathers off a chicken they hand picked out of a over crowded feces infested hen house before eating, on a normal day. (silence).

It sounds to me as though you're arguing against yourself, which BTW is fine with me. Or maybe you're simply unaware of the extent to which grocery store chickens are systematically contaminated with a rich variety of bacteria, which may make you very sick or kill you. I don't care if you want to ingest campylobacter, salmonella, listeria, staph. I just want you to not feed me your diseased food. If you keep to yourself, it's no skin off my nose how you die.

Why are you lobbying for all the immune deficient people of the world?

I'm not: I'm simply reminding you that you only have the right to practice tribalist sanitation practices on yourself, and you may not inflict your germs on others. If you keep to yourself, there's no problem, for me. The problem would be only for you, and I'm betting that you won't really be so cavalier about communicable diseases if we're talking about meningitis, cholera, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, ebola, whooping cough, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, legionellosis, hepatitis, chicken pox, or hoof 'n mouth.

If you think Hot Dogs sold on the streets of NY aren't sanitary, don't eat them.

Well, I do think they are generally sanitary, which is why I want to make sure that you stay away from anyplace that I might be, in case you come in contact with hot dogs that I might accidentally purchase. And really, I don't even object to you making and selling bacteria-contaminated foods, I just want you to label it as such -- "Alessa's Salmonella Dogs -- Now, Two Ways to Get Serious Digestive Upset".

If you think organic food is worse then processed foods, then don't eat them. I'd rather eat fruits grown with manure then chemicals. I'd rather eat food that isn't bleached first.

Whatever: I'd suggest you ask Anna Gimmestad or Kyle Allgood their opinions, though they are dead. I prefer to eat food that isn't laden with biological poisons. All I really ask is that you keep your fecal-spattered lettuce to yourself.

What about Montezumas <sp>revenge? Do mexicans have diarrhea all the time?

I dunno about Mexico. I do know Africa. I wouldn't say all the time, but definitely they are much more diseased, on a chronic basis, than the western world.

Any opinion on Salmon... Farm raised vs wild

I have a hard time distinguishing ranched and wild salmon, keeping species constant. Taste-wise, it's a wash. I know that farmed salmon are more "ecologically correct" than wild salmon, but I think that's not in and of itself a valid reason to switch to farmed. Farmed is cheaper, plus the wild stuff is just not going to exist forever, so there has to be some alternative source.

[Alessa36]

maybe you're simply unaware of the extent to which grocery store chickens are systematically contaminated with a rich variety of bacteria, which may make you very sick or kill you. I don't care if you want to ingest campylobacter, salmonella, listeria, staph. I just want you to not feed me your diseased food. If you keep to yourself, it's no skin off my nose how you die.I'm not: I'm simply reminding you that you only have the right to practice tribalist sanitation practices on yourself, and you may not inflict your germs on others. If you keep to yourself, there's no problem, for me.

I said in a normal day most people are not handling raw chicken and adding on, if they do, They COOK it. If I go to the mall and buy a pretzel at the kiosk, I don't wash my hands before i eat it. How am I contaminating the world by that practice or lack of? You act like i am yelling fire in a crowded theatre because i eat a pretzel that way. I don't eat raw chicken but I do eat sushi. If I get sick, I would handle it accordingly. I don't and I haven't. I have confidence it my health level and I am not threatened by my environment. If I were you, <coughhowardhughescough>and I thought eating chicken or eggs at a restaurant were a direct threat to my health, I would stop doing that.

Most people if they do get poisioning have flu like symptoms that last about a week, sometimes hardly noticible at all and rarely needing antibiotics. Serious outbreaks are rare. When they occur, the very young, the very old, and those with immune system weaknesses have the most severe and life-threatening cases. Perhaps Anna and Kyle should have taken acidiphilus.

I am probably the healthiest person you will ever meet so I don't know why you would say to keep away from you I won't be the person in the cubicle next to you sneezing all over everything, thats for sure.

Kufa, I think you're on a good track

[DavidOdden]

If I go to the mall and buy a pretzel at the kiosk, I don't wash my hands before i eat it.

I guess the problem is you do not understand my words. Let me try this again. I don't care if you pick your butt and then eat a pretzel. I do care if you pick your butt and serve me a pretzel, without first autoclaving your hands. Case closed on that matter.

I don't eat raw chicken but I do eat sushi.

Why don't you eat raw chicken? Is your immune system so compromised that you can't fight off a little salmonella? Are you afraid of hepatitis, plague, cholera, etc? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, you know.

BTW, you're illustrating the "epidemiological free-rider" problem. A large part of the reason why you can get away with your filthy habits is that you're a sort of isolated case. When 1 person in 10,000 has poor hygiene, they are not likely to get sick because in the environment, there is relatively little occurrence of cholera -- AFAIK for many decades, cholera has been a foreign import. That is because generally, we kill those damn germs by washing our hands, cleaning the bathroom, washing the cutting board after spatchcocking the chicken, and so on. This horrible hygiene habit that the rest of us engage in has made it possible for you to live a health life and not take what would otherwise be the ordinary precautions required to stop the spread of deadly germs. This has led to many people believing that germs are actually not dangerous, or that it can't happen to them, or things like that. As long as you're just 1 person out of 10,000 acting this way, the chances of spreading killer diseases is low enough to be disregarded. But when you get 1 out of 1000 acting like you, of 1 out of 100, or 10% of the population acting as though germs are our friends, then your assumption isn't valid.

From a selfish POV, I'd say that your best course of action is to continue as you have done, and pray that not many people get on board the "Germs love us, don't wash them away" train.

[Alessa36]

I guess the problem is you do not understand my words. Let me try this again. I don't care if you pick your butt and then eat a pretzel. I do care if you pick your butt and serve me a pretzel, without first autoclaving your hands. Case closed on that matter.

This horrible hygiene habit that the rest of us engage in has made it possible for you to live a health life and not take what would otherwise be the ordinary precautions required to stop the spread of deadly germs.

"Germs love us, don't wash them away" train.

I do understand, however, someone picking their butt and eating or serving food is an exaggeration of the scenario. I meant if I wake up, go the gym , shower and go to the mall, I don't feel a need to wash my hands again before i eat a pretzel. If you were in this same scenario, what would you do? (neither one of us is serving anything in our daily lives so don't create a drummed up situation)

You sound prejudice against people who eat organic food and arbitrarily call them germ lovers and hippies in a derrogatory way. Remember...the question posed by kufa ?

I doubt what I do with chicken in my kitchen is affected by you washing your hands in your house? A strong immune system is the best prevention against germs. ( goggle it and see for yourself)

[kufa]

I have to make a note of irony: just a few days after posting this topic, I am getting sick.

[Inspector]

I meant if I wake up, go the gym , shower and go to the mall, I don't feel a need to wash my hands again before i eat a pretzel.

I don't know if you noticed this, but pretzels come with a piece of tissue paper so that you don't have to touch them.

If you were in this same scenario, what would you do? (neither one of us is serving anything in our daily lives so don't create a drummed up situation)

First, I wash my hands when I leave the gym. Mostly because of people like YOU who get the gym equipment so unsanitary in the first place. Second, I would use the tissue paper as intended so that I don't have to touch the pretzel.

You sound prejudice against people who eat organic food and arbitrarily call them germ lovers and hippies in a derrogatory way.

It isn't arbitrary. That food is hippie food. I really urge you to re-examine its supposed superiority.

I doubt what I do with chicken in my kitchen is affected by you washing your hands in your house?

Sure, if you stay in your kitchen. But you don't. You go out into the world with that cavalier attitude of yours, touching things like the typhoid mary that you are.

( goggle it and see for yourself)

Also, while you're at it google the healing power of pyramids.

[Alessa36]

I don't know if you noticed this, but pretzels come with a piece of tissue paper so that you don't have to touch them.

First, I wash my hands when I leave the gym. Mostly because of people like YOU who get the gym equipment so unsanitary in the first place. Second, I would use the tissue paper as intended so that I don't have to touch the pretzel.

It isn't arbitrary. That food is hippie food. I really urge you to re-examine its supposed superiority.

Sure, if you stay in your kitchen. But you don't. You go out into the world with that cavalier attitude of yours, touching things like the typhoid mary that you are.

Also, while you're at it google the healing power of pyramids.

Define Hippie food. You must have me confused by your assumptions, with a category that I don't belong in.

Mod's note: Created a split-thread on "Organic Food". - sN

Edited February 14, 2007 by softwareNerd
Added note about split-thread

[Inspector]

I'd like to preface this by saying I'm not saying this applies directly or in the same degree as in the original context, so don't have a fit... but...

"By the time the military acted to overthrow the Allende government, prices had soared more than 1,000% in two years and were climbing at the rate of 3% a day at the very end. The national treasury was practically empty." The socialist government had seized a number of American-owned industrial firms. The new military government invited the American managements to come back. Most of them accepted.

Among them was the Dow Chemical Company, which owned a plastics plant in Chile. Bob G. Caldwell, Dow's director of operations for South America, came with a technical team to inspect the remains of their plant. "'What we found was unbelievable to us,' he recalls. 'The plant was still operable, but in another six months we wouldn't have had any plant at all. They never checked anything. We found valves that hadn't been maintained leaking corrosive chemicals that would have eventually eaten away practically everything.'...Worse yet, the highly inflammable chemicals handled at the plant were in imminent danger of blowing up. 'Safety went to pot,' Mr. Caldwell says. 'The fire-sprinkler system was disconnected and the valves taken away for some other use outside. Then they were smoking in the most dangerous areas. They told us, "You didn't have any fires while you were here before, so it must not be as dangerous as you said."'"

I submit that the mentality represented by this last sentence, a mentality capable of functioning in this manner, is the loathsomely evil root of all human evils.

What you have here is basically the smoker at the chemical plant, stating "there haven't been any fires, so it must not be as dangerous as you said;" "I never wear my seatbelt and I'm still alive so it must not be as bad of an idea as you say;" "I haven't gotten sick yet eating food off the floor and not washing my hands before I eat, so it must not be as bad of an idea as you say."

Listen, the science of pathology has a good understanding of what causes illness and of how best to prevent it. With most pathogens, there is a certain "critical mass" of organisms you must be exposed to in order to get sick, assuming that your immune system is functioning at 100%, all of the time. It's not like you're absolutely guaranteeing illness by not washing your hands... but what it does do is take a completely unnecessary risk. I have never seen any even remotely scientific claim that we would be healthier living like the mexicans do, even if the ones that survive end up more resistant to diarrhea-causing pathogens. I have never seen a doctor or scientist say that you'd be more healthy overall not washing your hands before eating and eating food off the floor; in fact every one has said the exact opposite.

There is no reason I have ever observed to doubt microbiological science. I've never seen a political agenda or motivation, unlike some other sciences. And the advice of cleanliness predates the left's attacks on science by some decades. I do know that the rise of hygiene and the western medicine that recommends it coincided with the doubling and redoubling of lifespans. I have also seen studies which show a causal relationship between the two.

On the other hand, the idea of the opposite camp, that "western medicine is evil and wrong and so is its idea of hygiene," and that "we need to be more in touch with nature, including pathogens," has leftist political motivation written all over it. I would ask if the same people advocating it here had been taken in by environmentalism to some degree, but I see from the split thread that the answer is "yes."

Frankly, I'm appalled that this conversation is even taking place; that I have to tell someone who isn't a very young child such basic ideas of hygiene. Or maybe it's not that, since I've come to expect that sort of thing from the filthy slobs that make up our society, but that I would have to instruct such a basic fact on an Objectivist board? And furthermore, to be mocked as some sort of hypochondriac-OCD-type for advocating uncontroversial and basic hygiene? That blows my mind. What's next; do I have to tell you people to refrigerate your food? That fire is hot?

I mean if you want to have a cavalier attitude toward pathogens and hygiene, that's mostly your business, just like if you want to never wear your seatbelt. (I still have more of a problem with it, since you become a vector for spreading those pathogens) But to actually try to rationalize your behavior by claiming that somehow, in defiance of medical science, that what you do is the better idea.... wow. Just, wow. I sincerely hope that nobody reading this is taking you seriously.

[Maarten]

Inspector,

seeing how I was the person you were arguing with, I would appreciate it if you didn't misrepresent my position by conflating the positions of other people in this thread with mine. I am not defending the behavior of anyone else in this thread, I am just explaining my own views on the subject. I challenge you to find a statement I made that says this (statement bolded by me):

I suggest it is you who give it another read. The position I am arguing against is: not washing one's hands before eating, and also eating food off the floor as a deliberate effort to expose oneself to more germs because this will supposedly "exercise" you immune system and make you less sick overall.

To say that anything less than this (deliberately exposing oneself to filth) is being "overly sensitive about hygiene" (his exact words) is definitely a "warped idea of what 'overly sensitive about hygiene' means." (my exact words)

Have another look.

The only position you were arguing against was mine and I never expounded the views you attributed to me in the bolded statement. Either you should retract that post, or explain to me how what you said properly characterizes what I said.

[Inspector]

I challenge you to find a statement I made that says this (statement bolded by me):

Okay...

Getting some germs into your system once in a while serves the exact same purpose vaccination does.

(the implication being that you recommend deliberately getting some germs into your system once in a while; indiscriminately without knowing exactly what germs those are because you're recommending not washing your hands and just letting whatever gets in get in)

There's a difference between never washing yourself and only doing it when you have a good reason to. Unless you live in a very dirty house, I don't see any reason why you should wash your hands before dinner if you haven't done anything particularly unhygienic beforehand.

Being overly sensitive about hygiene doesn't really help your health...

(the implication being that my position - wash your hands before you eat or handle food, don't eat food off the floor, and don't deliberately expose yourself to pathogens outside of a vaccination - constitutes "being overly sensitive about hygiene.")

I do notice that you didn't say anything about eating food that falls on the floor, but I was not addressing you alone; I was addressing the thread as a whole. I disagree that the only position I was arguing against was yours. I am arguing against not washing one's hands before eating, eating food off the floor, and also the idea that one should deliberately expose oneself to pathogens outside of a scientifically controlled environment. If you are only for some of those things, then by all means you can make that clear.

[Maarten]

(the implication being that you recommend deliberately getting some germs into your system once in a while; indiscriminately without knowing exactly what germs those are because you're recommending not washing your hands and just letting whatever gets in get in)

I never advocated actively going out of your way to get germs into your system, which is what your statement amounts to with the deliberate comment. When choosing to perform any particular action, I want a good reason before I do it. If not washing my hands before dinner carries no significant costs in my context, then why should I do it? I most certainly do not recommend deliberately infecting yourself with Ebola so that your immune system can exercise, but then I never said that in my posts. I just know that because of how the immune system works it's no big deal if you get some bacteria into your system on a regular basis. So, if doing this doesn't hurt you in any significant way, why go out of your way to prevent these bacteria from entering your body? They'll just die at the gates of the city, so to speak, or fighting in the streets.

If there is a particular reason to believe that a very nasty type of bacterium is around, then I would say that you should take extra precautions. That's why people cook chicken before they eat it. They have good reason not to want to get infected by Salmonella, because you definitely notice that (as far as I know, anyway). Being infected by most powerful germs is something that happens so rarely you might as well get hit by lightning. The main difference is that in the vast majority of cases, even if your immune system can't handle it, you can go to a doctor and they can cure it for you.

Saying that you should always wash your hands because germs in general are dangerous is just not true. The vast majority of germs are quite harmless for a healthy adult body.

[Inspector]

I never advocated actively going out of your way to get germs into your system, which is what your statement amounts to with the deliberate comment.

If the choice is available to sanitize your hands (at the completely insignificant cost of standing up and doing it), and eating with unsanitized hands constitutes exposure, then how is recommending that one deliberately not sanitize one's hands not deliberately exposing oneself to pathogens?

Deliberate: 1. carefully weighed or considered; studied; intentional

As opposed to not washing out of laziness or business, you are suggesting doing so out of principle, as a intentional act.

Do you disagree that eating with unsanitized hands constitutes exposure to whatever pathogens are on your hands? Generally, the skin keeps pathogens out; they have to enter through a break in the skin or an orifice such as the mouth.

If not washing my hands before dinner carries no significant costs in my context, then why should I do it?

If you don't consider the advice of the entirety of reputable hygiene science to be a good reason, then I doubt I can convince you. Just keep driving around with your seatbelt off and smoking near those chemicals that have never exploded before.

Edited February 17, 2007 by Inspector