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Flu and Antibacterials, by David in Israel
James
I constantly see recommendations for people to use hand sanitizer especially
every time the flu-de jure becomes a problem. Over my years as a
firefighter/paramedic many of my co-workers used hand sanitizer on a regular
basis, the most frequent
users often ended up with cracked skin and infections or scabs at the corners
of their fingernails. These users even ended up occasionally spreading the
fungus to me and other non antibacterial users due to their compulsive wiping
of antibacterial compounds onto steering wheels and other surfaces.
Your best protection is not to nuke your own protections and hope any bacteria
die, but rather enhance your own systems. Vinegar rubbed onto the hands doesn't
remove your body's protective oils, it also doesn't cause the [drying and]
cracking that alcohol based rubs do. Acidophilus is available in capsule form
which
can be
opened and rubbed onto damp hands, acidophilus is a powerful microscopic security
force that works in symbiosis with your body. I also had a policy of not using
soap but spraying with dilute vinegar after rinsing my hands, sometimes rubbing
in a few drops of olive oil, my hands stayed soft making my wife happy, the
toughened skin stayed tough, and my skin protection layer stayed intact.
Day to day long periods of wearing of latex or nitirile gloves will cause your
hands to crack and dry out. Since you will probably not encounter open puddles
of body fluid by surprise cotton gloves, safety or eye glasses, and a cotton
or better yet a HEPA face mask should help prevent acquiring any airborne hyper-communicative
diseases if you need to go into a public place. Carry nitrile gloves and safety
glasses in case you are called to provide first aid. Be sure to safely remove,
bag, and wash any reusable protection before entering your home or vehicle.
Top attention should be placed on keeping your hands away from your face, especially
the mouth and eyes. When I was a paramedic instructor I had the students hands
dusted with UV-glowing
powder. After class I brought out the black light, nearly everyone's face showed
that they had touched or itched, even knowing that they
would get extra credit for coming up clean.
Unfortunately I never had time to set up a proper scientific study with control
groups, but my experience, and those who followed my advice was generally positive,
most of the antibacterial gel users had hard cracked hands with our resident
black fungus in the cracks and occasional infection at the corners of the nails.
Why didn't the gel users stop? They really believed they were protecting themselves.
As for flu, if you keep yourself properly fed including dark leafy vegetables
and citrus, don't work yourself to exhaustion, keep yourself warm, clean, and
dry and you should be much more resistant, even if this is finally the super
flu that the government has been waiting for all these years. - David in Israel
JWR Adds: I agree that antibacterials are over-used on a
day-to-day basis, but they are appropriate in the short term, when a
true viral killer is stalking the
streets. Many years ago, I heard that mixing 20% (by volume) of aloe vera liquid
with typical methyl alcohol-based antibacterial "hand goop" will prevent
drying
skin. BTW,
I've noticed that some commercial antibacterials are now sold with aloe added,
although I wonder at what ratio.
In addition to disposable gloves, don't overlook the need for glasses with
side protection and disposable booties that can be shed and discarded just
before you get in your car or truck.
Disposable
Tyvek suits are nice, but their use on a daily basis might be prohibitively
expensive
