Jessica, I would ask that you don't think of use of cleaning products as a bad thing. It's about common sense use of these products, including antibacterial cleaners and disinfectants. They products play a role in everyday hygiene routines -- they aren't the only means of infection control.
Please note the front page story on MSNBC right now: Soap up! The 12 germiest places in your life
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Sante Fe, NM: When did research like this start? And when do you think research and public opinion on germs will align, if ever?
Jessica Snyder Sachs: Research on good germs? Over 150 years ago, Pasteur predicted that animals, including humans, could not survive without their beneficial microbes. Many scoffed at him at the time.
Over the last 15 years, Jeffrey Gordon, at Washington University in St. Louis, has been working with germ-free mice to study the varied activities of our intestinal bacteria.
More recently—in just the last five years--immunologists such as Harvard's Dale Umetsu have started deciphering exactly how harmless bacteria CALM the immune system.
Unfortunately, it's taken the terrible crises of deadly, unstoppable infections to wake up the medical community, both in hospitals and out. Doctors are starting to realize that the body's good bacteria have always been our best defense against disease and that antibiotics should NOT be used with a "what can it hurt?" attitude.
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Agoura Hills, CA: If hand sanitizer and antibiotics are causing all these problems, how did they become so commonplace to begin with?
Discuss