Germs! (and other scientific superstitions)

May contain nonsense. 

They’re all around you… they’re out to get you… beware the germs! You can’t see them, but they’re lurking in every corner of your house, every space in your world, and they mean you ill – they mean to make you ill. And if you don’t stop them, they’ll kill you and everyone you know! Oh no! The germs are out to get us!

Don’t touch the toilet seat… don’t shake hands… don’t eat out in a restaurant whatever you do, because the germs will find you and then they’ll get you. Be afraid… be terrified… don’t ever leave your home, and even there you aren’t safe as the germs are in every inch of your house! There’s no escape! The germs are coming to get you! 

This is a classic scientific superstition, in that it originated in a genuine scientific development, but now consists mostly of a heady blend of paranoia and mysophobia (fear of infection). Yes, there are micro-organisms in the world that could kill you, but you are exceptionally unlikely to be exposed to most of them, and in point of fact, many of the micro-organisms that could make you ill are already living in your body.

Stand by for your reality check. 

In the nineteenth century, the germ theory was landmark science. Previously, there were all kinds of crazy ideas about where infections came from, including the miasma theory (which held that there was a noxious form of “bad air” that caused disease). But Victorian-era scientists such as Agostino Bassi, John Snow, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch demonstrated and proved that the cause of disease was actually tiny microscopic organisms which they called germs.

The term has stuck, and has in particularly been spread far and wide by the bountiful generosity of the advertising industry, who love to play on the housewife’s fear of infection (“Think of the children!”) to stress how dangerous the household surfaces are, and how vital it is that you defend you and your family against the insidious threat of microscopic germs. 

So where does this all go wrong?

The problem is that while it is correct that many diseases are caused by microscopic organisms, most microscopic organisms you are likely to encounter are harmless in the population sizes we usually experience. The idea people often have in their heads is that when you get out of the shower you are clean and pure without a trace of micro-life upon you. But in fact, every part of your body is a place where bacteria live, and in fact most of these bacteria are utterly benign. (Some, such as the micro-flora in your stomach, may indeed be beneficial). 

Rather than all micro-organisms being hostile to human life – the paranoia fostered by the Madison Avenue germ campaigns – bacteria can be seen (from a certain perspective) as the real inhabitants of our planet. They were here first, there’s way more of them than there will ever be of us and, let’s not forget, we are all essentially built from bacteria (albeit super-powered, highly specialised bacteria): every cell in your body is descended from an ancient form of bacteria, so from a certain perspective we are all colossal colonies of bacteria.

Furthermore, most of the familiar infections we might catch, such as the common cold and influenza (flu) aren’t caused by bacteria at all, but by viruses – tiny replicating packets of genetic material which “borrow” other cells for a while to replicate, and occasionally screw around with the order of things by copying bits of peoples DNA into weird places. As I have mentioned before, viruses copying bits of DNA to different places in our genome may be the chief source of genetic novelty (what I call “the cut-and-paste hypothesis”) since individual mutations by, say, radiation, are almost always fatal. You cannot usually change even one codon in a gene without it causing it to malfunction, and almost always these malfunctions cause death. The Marvel Comics idea of radioactive mutation causing superpowers is another scientific superstition much like the kill-you-dead germs.

You are most likely to have problems with bacterial infection if you get the wrong bacteria into a sensitive place (such as the eye), if you have a cut that gets bacteria into it (always clean your wounds before dressing them!), or if you ingest the wrong bacterium. And note here that being terrified of the dreaded e. coli (escherichia coli) is ridiculous, because there are billions of e. coli living in your stomach right now, preventing the intrusion of other bacteria by taking up the available living space, and even in some cases manufacturing helpful things like vitamin K₂. Food poisoning related to e. coli is caused by variant strains of e. coli which release toxins, but the common or garden e. coli is a friend to humanity, not an enemy. 

What makes the situation worse is that fear of germs causes people to buy anti-bacterial kitchenware or anti-bacterial soaps which are almost entirely unnecessary outside of a medical context. Washing up your cookware with a mild detergent is more than enough to remove any bacteria on them, you don’t need to bring out the big guns. And when you do, what actually happens is the bacteria – plucky little fellows that they are – try to adapt to the new, more hostile conditions, and thus by trying to protect yourself from the evil germs, you end up breeding tougher, hardier strains of bacteria that are far more likely to hurt you!

Neither are doctors immune from falling prey of Germ Madness: far too many medical doctors prescribe antibiotics as a default solution to some vague and general problem, but this has the same effect as the anti-bacterial cookware: it helps breed stronger strains of bacteria who are immune to the antibiotics we have. When your doctor gives you antibiotics for the flu, they are being manifestly incompetent, since influenza is a virus and antibiotics are entirely ineffective against viruses.

So what should you do? 

Firstly, chill out. Yes, bacteria is everywhere, but most bacteria is harmless to you as long as it stays out of your more sensitive areas – most bacteria is not a germ in the sense this term is usually used. Yes, you could die if exposed to, say, bubonic plague, but the odds are vastly in your favour that you will never come with even a thousand miles of bubonic plague, particularly if you live in the US or Europe, unless you happen to fall into a time vortex and get sucked back to the Middle Ages (and if you do, I recommend investing in the heavy plough – I have a hot tip its going to be a hit!)

Secondly, don’t worry too much about getting infections from your immediate environment. Almost all germs – whether we are talking about bacteria or viruses – don’t survive for long outside of a suitable environment. If bacteria dries out, it dies. Viruses are even more fragile – most break down once they get away from the host body. You can catch a cold from another person (say, if they sneeze on you) but you are very unlikely to catch a cold from touching something another person touched, say, a few hours ago. The door handle may well get touched a lot, but overnight any bacteria upon it are quite likely to die, and most of the bacteria that end up on the door handle are harmless while they are just on your skin.

As for the toilet seat, it's actually one of the cleanest places in most buildings.

Thirdly, and most importantly, wash your hands with soap. Regular household soap is one of the most effective things to use against bacteria, because the soap molecules bind tightly to the bacteria allowing it to be washed away by the water – bye bye germs! You don’t need to use anti-bacterial soap, because your goal needn’t be killing the bacteria, just getting it off you; as before, using bigger guns than you need just breeds stronger bacteria. After using the bathroom or before meals are sensible times to wash your hands with soap, but any time after you have had contact with soil or other living things (people, dogs, cats, rabbits etc.) it wouldn’t hurt to wash your hands.

May I also at this point dispel a third scientific superstition (along with “all bacteria is deadly” and “radiation causes superpowers”), which is that urine is infectious. Urine is effectively sterile. You need to wash your hands after peeing because you’ve touched parts of your body which have populations of bacteria you don’t want to spread elsewhere, not because the urine itself is dangerous. 

Let me just reiterate the previous point: washing your hands with water is a refreshing bath for bacteria. You only get the bacteria off you if you use soap. I’ll say this again for maximum overkill: use soap. It works.

We sometimes like to think of superstitions as things from our past history without foundation, like the prohibition on walking under a ladder as unlucky. Except some of these classic superstitions have sensible roots: it really isn’t wise to walk under a ladder when you could walk around it, as the person on the ladder could drop something on you, or the ladder could slip and you could be injured. Garlic might not ward off vampires (although I haven't been able to test this yet), but it is packed full of anti-oxidants which help protect you from damaging free radicals (of the particle kind, not independently minded revolutionaries). In fact, every era has its own superstitions – and because science is the most prevalent and well-established belief system of our day, it is arguably becoming the principle source of modern superstitions. 

Despite the success of science in fuelling the technological development that characterises our era, scientific superstitions – like omni-fatal germs, radioactive superpowers and infectious urine – are all around us, and are generally as ill founded as the most ridiculous superstitions from our past.

Comments

[Matt Mower]

>When your doctor gives you antibiotics for the flu, they are
>being manifestly incompetent, since influenza is a virus and
>antibiotics are entirely ineffective against viruses.

Just want to pick you up on this claim. According to a friend of mine (and assuming I am not misquoting him) the reason a doctor will often prescribe antibiotics for a virus is to suppress everything else the immune system may currently be fighting allowing it to concentrate on the virus.

He's not a doctor, he's a molecular biologist. But (and I do hope I didn't misquote him) he's pretty reliable about this kind of stuff.

M.

[Chris]

Now that is interesting... I wonder if anyone can back that up with something more substantial? Because my side of this argument is quite well documented; this from the Telegraph, for instance.

I'm more inclined to believe that most doctors prescribe antibiotics because they believe it's a good way to fob off a pushy patient, but perhaps I'm too cynical about Doctors. >:)

[Peter Crowther]

Medical joke, passed on to me by a cardiologist...

"A GP*, a surgeon and a microbiologist go to the toilet. The GP washes his hands afterwards. The surgeon washes his hands first. The microbiologist washes his hands in the urine, as it's the cleanest thing in the room."

* Family doctor, for the foreign** readers.

** *** Using what still appears to be the standard English view of "foreign" ;-).

*** Yes, like Pratchett, I do use footnotes to footnotes.

[Matt Mower]

Chris I don't think the two views are incompatible and I think there is a strong case that antibiotics are overprescribed. For example someone *with a healthy immune system* should be able to fight a cold as well as other common infections. I would guess the principle is more aimed at more serious viruses. For his part my GP does not seem to default to antibiotics.

Anyway I wonder whether the problem isn't worse in cattle than humans since so many cattle (or so I hear) are routinely fed antibiotics.

It's an interesting topic for debate. Makes me wish I was better informed ;-)

[Matt Mower]

Since I recently began watching TV again I have been exposed to ads again and noticed one of these antibacterial kitchen cleaner ads.

I thought it was interesting that they setup the fear with "just one bacteria can breed into millions" and then go on to say how they kill 99% of bacteria.

Which leaves 1%, one presumes this is more than a single bacterium. Which will breed into millions. So you're no better off than you were to begin with.

Even by their own logic they are a waste of time ;-)

[zenBen]

Many anti-biotics are becoming ineffective because the spread was not initially wide enough - i.e. they were given to Westerners, not the rest of the world.

Other scientific superstitions - food spoilage bacteria can harm you in small doses, so throw out anything from the fridge past its BBE date!

No. Wash it, it will be fine (clean with lemon juice if you're really worried). Food left at room temperature will be where the pathogenic stuff grows, and you can't see it as easily...

[dj i/o]

As I mentioned before briefly, I have obsessive compulsive disorder, which is manifested primarily by a fear of germs/infection and my compulsions are handwashing/use of alcohol based hand sanitizer.
I do not consider my OCD debilitating. I have managed to keep it under control and I am not one of the seriously ill people you see on TV who wash their hands 15 hours a day or can't leave the house, etc.

I will give you a brief glimpse of my routine and what life is like for me, how I rationalize things, and also the compulsions that I admit are irrational but am currently unable to control.

I first started noticing my hand OCD when I was about 10 years old. I didn't like when other people would use my NES controller, and get it greasy. I couldn't stand it. So I would always wash it off afterwards, and eventually forbade anyone from using MY controller. This eventually evolved into ...

A fear of pathogens, viruses and bacteria that may make me sick, give me a cold, flu, hepatitis, etc. My primary aversions or things I consider dirty are: Doorknobs and money. Or anything else in public that I know is touched by a lot of people, i.e. the ATM pad, shopping cart, etc.

Things were a lot worse about 8 years ago, before I had discovered alcohol based hand sanitizer. At this point, going out in public was starting to become debilitating for me. I would have to go to the bathroom to wash my hands every time I went out to eat. I would even wash my hands after pumping gas. This started to add up to a lot of hours wasted. I still consider these compulsions rational, as touching a public place -- doorknob, restaurant menu, gas station pump, etc, gives me a high likelihood of getting pathogens on my hands, which could later be carried onto my personal belongings, clothing, inside of my car, and subsequently ingested into my body.

My saving grace happened about 7 years ago when I met my current girlfriend. A paramedic, she had been enjoying the wonders of alcohol based hand sanitizer for some time at that point. I was apprehensive about using it at first, because I was worried it would leave an undesirable residue on my hands. But after trying it for a few times, I realized that the residue wasn't too bad, and I would be able to cope with this much better than wasting time going to the bathroom all the time.
Ever since then, I have carried a 2.5oz bottle of hand sanitizer with me everywhere I go in public. Every day. It's not too expensive because you can buy 40 oz refills for $5, which I use to refill my 2.5oz containers which I usually keep until they break.. Which can be a year or two.

So, this has been an excellent coping mechanism for me, even though it is still considered out of the norm. I really don't care. It's much better than being addicted to cigarettes or something like that. At least it's a healthy habit.

Now, where some of the irrational annoyances come into play is primarily while I am at work. My desk and computer is like a "safe zone", where my hands must be clean before I can touch the computer, or my personal devices such as ipod, PSP, etc. So.. Use hand sanitizer to clean up before using these things, right? Not as easy as that. Remember how my OCD started off as not liking grease on my NES controller?
That slowly shifted into currently, not liking my hands to be sticky or have any sort of soap residue on them. I realize this is irrational, but I simply cannot stand the feeling.

The crux is now that my use of hand sanitizer, while keeping my (at least partially rational) germ-OCD at bay, has exacerbated my (admittedly irrational) dislike for having sticky hands.

The problem is that for whatever reason, the combination of crap water pressure in my office, combined with whatever kind of soap they use in the dispenser, means that in order to rinse my hands of soap well enough, it takes about 2 minutes of leaving my hands under the sink. Which can add up to lots of time washing hands at work. Wasted work hours.
Even still, after rinsing hands for 2 minutes, if I use hand sanitizer later on at my desk, it mixes with the small bit of soap residue, and makes my hands sticky.
Some days, I am able to successfully ignore it. Other days, it is mildly annoying. Other days, less frequently, it drives me crazy.

Fortunately, I have come up with yet another method for coping... Using hand sanitizer instead of soap in the bathroom. This has only been about the last 2 months. I brought an 8oz bottle of hand sanitizer and set it in the bathroom at work, I have been using that instead of soap, and it has been fantastic! It not only leaves less residue on my hands, I don't have to wash my hands as long. Gone down from 2 minutes each to about 45 seconds probably.

Coincidentally, I have read the articles about how "the average computer keyboard has more germs than ...", or "the average office desk has more germs ...", etc. But those little blurbs don't really bother me. I don't touch those things until my hands are clean, and I don't have to share a keyboard with anyone else. And the keyboard has never made me sick, so I don't clean it or my desk all the time. My desk is actually one of the sloppier ones at my office. Same with my house, my girlfriend is more of the neat freak, while I am the slob. I've also heard that antibacterial soap can breed harsher strains of bacteria, so I do not usually purchase those products.

I also usually only bathe about twice a weak. Perhaps ironically, bodily dirtiness does not bother me (hey, it's not going to make me sick), only hand dirtiness does.

So !! I'm not really sure how irrational this all sounds, as it seems completely normal to me. But I wanted to give this perspective to anyone interested.

-Scott

[Sirc]

Oh snap. Haha, I'm the same. Well, except bodily dirtiness does bother me. But yeah, I remember not liking anyone to touch my controller. But it's not that I couldn't stand it getting dirty/greasy/gunky. As long as it's my hands that got it that way, it's fine. But if it's someone else's gunk? No way! This isn't a problem anymore now that I don't have any friends ;)

And crap, money. Get it away from me!
Actually, hell, just being out and about for a while and my hands will eventually get cold, clammy, and feel dirty. And then it gets uncomfortable since I keep thinking I can't touch my eyes/face. It's funny too, since my hands get that way when I play, but in that situation, I don't mind at all. They don't feel dirty to me there. It's only when I'm outside.

I also remember a couple years using those hand sanitizers back when I was a kid. I also disliked the sticky hands feeling :)

The problem is, unlike you, I don't like going to the bathroom when I'm out because errrghh, few things are as disgusting as public bathrooms. The stink. The piss all over the floor. The unflushed toilets. The penis graffiti.

"The problem is that for whatever reason, the combination of crap water pressure in my office, combined with whatever kind of soap they use in the dispenser, means that in order to rinse my hands of soap well enough, it takes about 2 minutes of leaving my hands under the sink."

Maybe they have soft water in your office, whereas you're used to hard water? Let me tell you, soft water really sucks. It's like water that fails at being water. Sometimes it won't wash off soap at all no matter how long you leave your hands under the sink.

[Chris]

Peter: I love going crazy with footnotes - the Discworld Noir manual was a joy to write. :)

Matt: I never understood if they meant 99% of germs that are present or 99% of bacterial *species*. It's kind of a key distinction! :)

Scott: thanks for this account. It's fascinating to me - I just couldn't live like this, yet to you this is now fairly normal and apparently not debilitating in any way. I hope you enjoyed this piece of nonsense; it was quite good fun to write. ;)

zenBen: "Other scientific superstitions - food spoilage bacteria can harm you in small doses, so throw out anything from the fridge past its BBE date! No. Wash it, it will be fine (clean with lemon juice if you're really worried). Food left at room temperature will be where the pathogenic stuff grows, and you can't see it as easily..."

Nice - thanks for adding this! Anyone have any more?

[dj i/o]

I, Scott, am AKA dj i/o. Typepad failed yet again and marked me as anonymous! Argh!

Sirc - Thanks for responding. I'm glad I'm not the only "only a game" reader who is a total freak. I don't mind public restrooms because I try to minimize contact with public surfaces as much as possible. Of course I turn off the water and open the door with a paper towel when I am done. If the dispenser is one that does not allow me to get the paper towels without touching, I first prepare by "queuing" up the paper towels before I leave. If they are out of paper towels, as a last resort I will use toilet paper although only after first unrolling a bit of it to make sure I get clean sheets. :)
And I also, hardly ever touch my face. Not even just my mouth, but not my eyes, cheeks, or anything. Only if my hands are clean. Mostly just to wash it in the shower.

Chris:
"I never understood if they meant 99% of germs that are present or 99% of bacterial *species*. "

I'd be interested to know the distinction!

[zenBen]

""I never understood if they meant 99% of germs that are present or 99% of bacterial *species*. "

I'd be interested to know the distinction!"

Its gotta be 99% of bacteria present, a bleach manufacturer is never going to obtain samples of all known bacteria to test that it can kill them!

Another one - milk is dangerous if unpasturised. Actually, this one is a half-truth. Many friends of mine from rural Ireland were, or knew, dairy farmers when growing up. They would drink fresh milk (as in, straight out of the cow). The stuff contained not just cow bacteria, but ticks, dirt, etc. These people were all invariably as healthy as bejaysus (hehehe). A lot of physical exercise didn't hurt, but the point was that growing up on a diet of this stuff actually improved their immune systems. The catch is probably that you have to grow up on it.

[Peter Crowther]

I'm glad I'm not the only "only a game" reader who is a total freak

You're one of the sane ones, I suspect...

They would drink fresh milk (as in, straight out of the cow).

We had unpasteurised (but bottled) milk for years. Tastes great, don't recall any significant difference in the family illness rate.

[Chris]

zenBen: "but the point was that growing up on a diet of this stuff actually improved their immune systems. The catch is probably that you have to grow up on it."

Yeah, it's a classic fallacy that the best thing to do for your kids is protect them from exposure to foreign organisms - ironically, that seems to be the road to immune deficiencies and allergies. The healthiest children are those that can take the onslaught of the 'real' world - ticks and all! ;)

"Its gotta be 99% of bacteria present, a bleach manufacturer is never going to obtain samples of all known bacteria to test that it can kill them!"

Agreed, but we can't deny that the claim is a little ambiguous. ;) And as Peter says, if it only gets rid of 99 out of 100 bacterial cells what you're really conducting is a selective breeding programme to produce stronger, more bleach-resistant bacteria! Madness!

dj i/o: It wasn't Typepad that put you in as Anon - your comment came up as having a blank name field, and I conventionally replace all unnamed entries with "Anon". However, since you have expressly asked to be identified as dj i/o here, I have used the magic of the internet to transform your earlier comment to being labelled dj i/o. Ta da! :)

dj i/o/sirc: It's interesting to read your experiences with mild mysophobia here, since as mentioned before this is supposedly related to the Rational temperament, and since I just can't help but express this side of myself most of the people who come here tend to express Rational too.

But as Peter says, all the regulars here are freaks of some colour or another. The sanest might be zenBen, and I'm not too sure about him to be honest. >:)

Best wishes to you all!

[zenBen]

"The sanest might be zenBen, and I'm not too sure about him to be honest. >:)"

Why pick on me? If I wasn't sane, wouldn't I want to not join a club that doesn't know if it wouldn't want me as a member?

[dj i/o]

Sirc - I meant to reply about soft water earlier and I forgot.. My office is only about 8 miles from my house and I am pretty sure they are coming from the same reservoir. They are both hard water. The problem at the office is that they have "water saving" faucets that intentionally give you very little water pressure. It doesn't fool me though! It just means I need to run the water longer to get the same rinsing power that could be accomplished in 1/3 the time on a regular faucet.

Also, I am familiar with that "soft water" feeling of not rinsing off the soap. The water at my girlfriend's parents' house is like that... Drove me crazy the first couple of times we visited there! But fortunately they started putting hand sanitizer at all the sinks, and that is actually when I discovered that hand sanitizer works as a great low-residue alternative to soap. And remembering that is how I came up with the idea to use it to wash at work.

Chris -
"And as Peter says, if it only gets rid of 99 out of 100 bacterial cells what you're really conducting is a selective breeding programme to produce stronger, more bleach-resistant bacteria! Madness!"

Do you think that my use of hand sanitizer is doing the same thing? Also, what is the difference between killing the germs with alcohol based sanitizer, and anti-bacterial soap? Why is the anti-bacterial soap "worse"?