Granted, there is no substitute for washing your hands when around a sick room—and it doesn't have to be anti-bacterial soap, just a good washing with soap and water will do it. It's the simplest way to keep colds from spreading.

But I was watching a new commercial with incredulity the other night, about antibacterial wipes you can carry around to wipe off doorknobs, shopping cart handles, etc. I noticed several grocery stores, like Shaw's and I think Publix, now have a container of anti-bacterial wet wipes at their door for the convenience of their customers. Give me a break. How many years have people gone around touching shop doors, grocery cart handles, and other stuff handled in public? No epidemic ever started because someone shared the handles of a shopping basket.

Cleanliness is a great, good thing. One only has to look at how mortality rates and tallies of filth-borne diseases like typhoid and dysentery tumbled after water was purified, slaughterhouses were cleaned, outhouses were kept away from water supplies, doctors washed before surgery. But aren't we overprotecting ourselves here? No wonder kids have weird allergies; their immune systems have nothing to do. Not to mention the frightening specter of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. If someone has not been polite enough to clean up after a gob of wet mucus or baby barf on their shopping cart handle, that's one thing, but constantly disinfecting everything from door handles to playground equipment strikes me as overkill.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:46:00 PM

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