Are cleaning products making us germaphobic and helping create germ-resistant superbugs?

[Delta4Embassy]

Thinking of what people do with each other when they have sex (will spare more sensitive readers the details) are overly afraid fo germs that we buy cleaning products to kill 99.99% of them, carry alocohl-based gels in purses, use too many antibacterial handwashes, bodywashes, and other products?

Without some exposure to germs, the next time someone sneezes or coughs on you you're gonna fall over dead. And if swapping spit with your lover doesn't kill you (to say nothing of the more exotic activities,) then what possible harm is anything that probably came from your body anyway going to do to you?

When baking goodies for other people, I'm as fastidious as they come. But when making my own food I never wash my hands or pay any mind to hygiene at all. Figure at worst I'm moving a germ I already had from one place to another place. But that we're encountering problems with drug-resistant superbugs already, usually blamed on our excessive use of cleaning products, are also being negatively impacted by all the cleaning product commercials?

Isn't there a case to be made bannning such commercials and advertisements?

 

[Auld Phart]

Thinking of what people do with each other when they have sex (will spare more sensitive readers the details) are overly afraid fo germs that we buy cleaning products to kill 99.99% of them, carry alocohl-based gels in purses, use too many antibacterial handwashes, bodywashes, and other products?

Without some exposure to germs, the next time someone sneezes or coughs on you you're gonna fall over dead. And if swapping spit with your lover doesn't kill you (to say nothing of the more exotic activities,) then what possible harm is anything that probably came from your body anyway going to do to you?

When baking goodies for other people, I'm as fastidious as they come. But when making my own food I never wash my hands or pay any mind to hygiene at all. Figure at worst I'm moving a germ I already had from one place to another place. But that we're encountering problems with drug-resistant superbugs already, usually blamed on our excessive use of cleaning products, are also being negatively impacted by all the cleaning product commercials?

Isn't there a case to be made bannning such commercials and advertisements?

You do have a point.

 

[Roadrunner]

Thinking of what people do with each other when they have sex (will spare more sensitive readers the details) are overly afraid fo germs that we buy cleaning products to kill 99.99% of them, carry alocohl-based gels in purses, use too many antibacterial handwashes, bodywashes, and other products?

Without some exposure to germs, the next time someone sneezes or coughs on you you're gonna fall over dead. And if swapping spit with your lover doesn't kill you (to say nothing of the more exotic activities,) then what possible harm is anything that probably came from your body anyway going to do to you?

When baking goodies for other people, I'm as fastidious as they come. But when making my own food I never wash my hands or pay any mind to hygiene at all. Figure at worst I'm moving a germ I already had from one place to another place. But that we're encountering problems with drug-resistant superbugs already, usually blamed on our excessive use of cleaning products, are also being negatively impacted by all the cleaning product commercials?

Isn't there a case to be made bannning such commercials and advertisements?

Rather than ban preventive agents, I'd rather see the filthy shot.

Try to take away my Germ X, and we have problems.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Thinking of what people do with each other when they have sex (will spare more sensitive readers the details) are overly afraid fo germs that we buy cleaning products to kill 99.99% of them, carry alocohl-based gels in purses, use too many antibacterial handwashes, bodywashes, and other products?

Without some exposure to germs, the next time someone sneezes or coughs on you you're gonna fall over dead. And if swapping spit with your lover doesn't kill you (to say nothing of the more exotic activities,) then what possible harm is anything that probably came from your body anyway going to do to you?

When baking goodies for other people, I'm as fastidious as they come. But when making my own food I never wash my hands or pay any mind to hygiene at all. Figure at worst I'm moving a germ I already had from one place to another place. But that we're encountering problems with drug-resistant superbugs already, usually blamed on our excessive use of cleaning products, are also being negatively impacted by all the cleaning product commercials?

Isn't there a case to be made bannning such commercials and advertisements?

Rather than ban preventive agents, I'd rather see the filthy shot.

Try to take away my Germ X, and we have problems.

Not proposing we ban the cleaning agents themselves, sometimes things really are dirty that they need to be sanitized. But simply eliminating the scare tactic commercials making people unduely fearful that they overuse such products.

 

[Roadrunner]

Thinking of what people do with each other when they have sex (will spare more sensitive readers the details) are overly afraid fo germs that we buy cleaning products to kill 99.99% of them, carry alocohl-based gels in purses, use too many antibacterial handwashes, bodywashes, and other products?

Without some exposure to germs, the next time someone sneezes or coughs on you you're gonna fall over dead. And if swapping spit with your lover doesn't kill you (to say nothing of the more exotic activities,) then what possible harm is anything that probably came from your body anyway going to do to you?

When baking goodies for other people, I'm as fastidious as they come. But when making my own food I never wash my hands or pay any mind to hygiene at all. Figure at worst I'm moving a germ I already had from one place to another place. But that we're encountering problems with drug-resistant superbugs already, usually blamed on our excessive use of cleaning products, are also being negatively impacted by all the cleaning product commercials?

Isn't there a case to be made bannning such commercials and advertisements?

Rather than ban preventive agents, I'd rather see the filthy shot.

Try to take away my Germ X, and we have problems.

Not proposing we ban the cleaning agents themselves, sometimes things really are dirty that they need to be sanitized. But simply eliminating the scare tactic commercials making people unduely fearful that they overuse such products.

Ah, commercials.

Well, there is a free speech issue there, but I think most prescription med commercials should be banned, and some that promote the idea that a spray or a magic mop can replace real cleaning certainly push the truth a bit.

Part of the price we pay for freedom I guess, like having to hear about "Cait".

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Thinking of what people do with each other when they have sex (will spare more sensitive readers the details) are overly afraid fo germs that we buy cleaning products to kill 99.99% of them, carry alocohl-based gels in purses, use too many antibacterial handwashes, bodywashes, and other products?

Without some exposure to germs, the next time someone sneezes or coughs on you you're gonna fall over dead. And if swapping spit with your lover doesn't kill you (to say nothing of the more exotic activities,) then what possible harm is anything that probably came from your body anyway going to do to you?

When baking goodies for other people, I'm as fastidious as they come. But when making my own food I never wash my hands or pay any mind to hygiene at all. Figure at worst I'm moving a germ I already had from one place to another place. But that we're encountering problems with drug-resistant superbugs already, usually blamed on our excessive use of cleaning products, are also being negatively impacted by all the cleaning product commercials?

Isn't there a case to be made bannning such commercials and advertisements?

Rather than ban preventive agents, I'd rather see the filthy shot.

Try to take away my Germ X, and we have problems.

Not proposing we ban the cleaning agents themselves, sometimes things really are dirty that they need to be sanitized. But simply eliminating the scare tactic commercials making people unduely fearful that they overuse such products.

Ah, commercials.

Well, there is a free speech issue there, but I think most prescription med commercials should be banned, and some that promote the idea that a spray or a magic mop can replace real cleaning certainly push the truth a bit.

Part of the price we pay for freedom I guess, like having to hear about "Cait".

We banned tobacco ads on tv because it's a public health risk. And surely the same logic applies to creating drug-resistant superbugs from overusing antibiotics and germacides.

 

[Auld Phart]

How long do you think it would take for a study to prove it?

Put the government in charge, and by the time it was finished, we'd have to live in bubbles to survive.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

How long do you think it would take for a study to prove it?

Put the government in charge, and by the time it was finished, we'd have to live in bubbles to survive.

Pretty sure those studies were done years ago, why we're talking about it.

 

[Alystyr]

Without some exposure to germs, the next time someone sneezes or coughs on you you're gonna fall over dead.

That's pretty close to the truth. Exposure builds a stronger immune system. In most cases, if a germ is encountered and the host survives, the host's immune system will be better prepared for the next time it happens. It's how vaccines are supposed to work, but that's a debate for another time.
I've always thought that Mankind, as a whole, is actually becoming weaker immunity-wise. Overuse of antibiotics, extremely safe food, ultra-sanitary living conditions are all playing parts in this decline. I'm not saying that we should give up modern amenities and all live in squalor, but protecting someone from any conceivable exposure will tend to do more harm than good in the long run.
If a modern, relatively healthy urban human could be somehow be transported back to even 1900, in all likelihood, they'd be dead within a month. Go back even farther, and that estimate would get much smaller.

 

[waltky]

'Superbugs' Threatening Global Malaria Control...

Study: 'Superbugs' Threatening Global Malaria Control
February 01, 2017 | Malaria-resistant "superbugs" are emerging in Southeast Asia, threatening worldwide control efforts, according to the authors of a new study.

Researchers reporting in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases found that a lineage of the P. falciparum parasite, which causes the most dangerous form of malaria, is now becoming resistant to the most effective malaria drug, and the resistance is spreading. Artemisinin and combination therapies including artemisinin are considered the best possible treatment for malaria. The authors warned that resistance to the drug, and its widely used partner drug, piperaquine, was rapidly spreading throughout western Cambodia, southern Laos and northeastern Thailand.

A government health worker takes a blood sample from a woman to be tested for malaria in Ta Gay Laung village hall in Hpa-An district in Kayin state, southeastern Myanmar​

The researchers, from Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Thailand, said a global health emergency could occur if multi-drug-resistant parasites spread through India to sub-Saharan Africa. Oxford University professor Nicholas White, a co-author of the study, said public health officials were losing "a dangerous race to eliminate artemisinin-resistant falciparum malaria before widespread resistance to partner antimalarials makes that impossible."

Global perspective urged

White added that unless resistance was tackled from a global public health emergency perspective, "the consequences of [drug] resistance spreading further ... could be grave." In the Lancet article, researchers reported examining blood samples from patients with so-called uncomplicated malaria from a number of sites in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. They found a single mutant parasite lineage replacing parasites containing less resistant mutations in three of the four countries. "Superbugs," they noted, have evolved to contain multiple factors that make them "fitter and more transmissible."

Two children stricken with malaria rest at the local hospital in the small village of Walikale, Congo.​

Drug-resistant strains of malaria have spread before from Asia into Africa, killing millions, according to the authors. They called for public health officials to work with policy, research and funding partners to respond to the current threat in Asia "to avoid history repeating itself." Mike Turner, the head of infection and immunology at Wellcome Trust in Britain, which funded the study, predicted that the number of deaths from drug-resistant malaria "will increase to millions of people every year by 2050" if nothing is done to address the current threat. According to the World Health Organization, there were 212 million cases of malaria globally in 2015, resulting in 429,000 deaths. Most of the victims were children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Study: 'Superbugs' Threatening Global Malaria Control

See also:

British Scientists: Drug-resistant Malaria Cases ‘A Warning For Africa’
February 01, 2017 — Four British citizens who caught malaria while travelling in Africa have shown apparent resistance to the main drug used to treat the disease, according to researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Scientists say the discovery should act as a warning for Africa, where the drug has played a key role in sharply reducing mortality rates from malaria.

The four travellers were treated with a drug called Artemether-Lumefantrine after returning to Britain from different parts of Africa within a five-month period, showing symptoms of malaria. The cases alerted scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, led by Dr. Colin Sutherland. “This drug is normally expected to cure someone after a three-day course and they are sent home once their blood films show that there is [are] virtually no parasites left. And in each case, these patients seemed to have a clear blood film, or very close to a clear blood film, and were sent home with an apparent clean bill of health, only to return three to seven weeks later,” said Dr. Sutherland.

The drug is part of a treatment known as Artemisinin Combination Therapy or A-C-T, widely used across Africa, where most malaria cases and deaths occur. These are among the first cases of apparent reduced susceptibility to the treatment. “If it is under threat from resistance, and we have not absolutely ascertained that is the case but we suspect it is, [it's] certainly time now to look very carefully at that. If it is under threat, then that is a serious issue and we need to take steps,” said Dr. Sutherland.

Such steps might involve using other drugs alongside A-C-T. But such a change of strategy takes time, said Sutherland. “Of course a lot of malaria is in the countryside, it is in district hospitals and bush clinics. You can not just say, ‘Let us try a different drug,’ if it is not available at the time. So that requires planning and forethought,” he said.

Resistance to A-C-T drugs is an ongoing problem in parts of Southeast Asia. But the resistance shown by the malaria parasites in these four cases is unrelated, Sutherland said. “Whatever it is that is happening in Africa, these four patients do not represent the kind of resistance that has become really a quite serious problem in Southeast Asia,” said Dr. Sutherland.

Chinese scientist Professor Youyou Tu won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery of Artemisinin as a treatment for malaria. Its widespread use has contributed to a 30 percent fall in malaria deaths worldwide between 2010 and 2015. Scientists say the latest cases of apparent resistance are a warning, and should be investigated further.

British Scientists: Drug-resistant Malaria Cases ‘A Warning For Africa’