Microbes- Our Friends or Our Enemies?

Kim Amer is associate professor at DePaul University’s School of Nursing and on a recent visit to her daughter’s middle school she noticed something very important to most people. She caught a few girls leaving the restroom without washing their hands. She told them to come back and wash their hands but to no avail because the students rolled their eyes and kept on strolling.  With the growing numbers of antibiotic-resistant germs and high rates of hospital-acquired infections (watch for hospital faucets), Amer states that the U.S needs to do a better job of educating all people, including health care providers, about the importance of good hygiene.

Now I totally agree with Kim Amer that washing hands is a practice of good hygiene and everyone should do it. In fact she states, “A recent World Health Organization publication delineates how many epidemic diseases can be prevented simply by using good hand hygiene.” Like I said I agree that washing hands is important and it could definitely help eliminate germs. That is until I read an article of microbes being our “Old Friends” by Christopher Lowry. An observation was done and it concluded that allergic diseases were less common in children from larger families compared to children in families with only one child. They assumed it was because of increased exposure to infectious agents through their siblings. Now this is not saying washing hands can actually be less infectious than washing hands, but it is saying microbes can actually be a deterrent for diseases.

http://www.123rf.com/clipart-vector/microbes.html

Kim Amer discusses that developing countries simply lack resources to practice the high level of hygiene expected in the United States. The result in developing countries discussed in the article says that there is a higher rate of illness and death.  Developed countries, she states have the resources to educate and enforce better resources. I agree that developed countries have the resources to educate people on good hygiene. But what I don’t agree with is the fact that the result of poor hygiene in developing countries is a higher rate of death and illness. Of course poor hygiene can result in illness and even death but I don’t believe that poor hygiene alone is the main factor in higher rates of illness and death in developing countries. Are their other factors below the surface?  Can it be the fact that developed countries have more resources to deter death defying microbes? Or those developing countries are exposed to illness in their native land by trees or other wildlife?

I agree that hygiene is important as discussed in the article. But with all these experiments and research going on about how microbes can really be helping us, it can get a little confusing.  I guess microbes will be considered friends to some and enemies to others. As of now I’m kind of in the middle, even though I’m still definitely washing my hands after every bathroom use. I know microbes can be harmful but we also need them to survive. So is washing your hands after every object you touch good? Or is letting your kids come in contact with mud really bad?

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/27/are-americans-too-obsessed-with-cleanliness/just-wash-your-hands

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/27/are-americans-too-obsessed-with-cleanliness/some-microbes-may-be-our-old-friends