Brenda Young wrote:
>   
>
> Some traditional anthropologists are of the opinion that Paleo life must 
> have been unpleasant and short because of all the nasty infectious 
> organisms that would have co-existed with man in the wild. I think it is 
> more likely that modern life is unpleasant and short because we kill our 
> immune systems by living in a sterile world. It seems logical to me that 
> the immune system is like any other system in the body... use it or lose 
> it. A lot of our modern problems, allergies, autoimmune disease, 
> susceptibility to infection, antibiotic resistant super-bacteria, etc. 
> could be symptoms of this.
>    
>   Boy, do I agree with THAT, William!!  
I wrote that, not William. :D
> "Use it or lose it", yes indeed!!  "They" try to convince us to use their nasty vaccines using the theory that if we're exposed to a bit of something, it will "cure" us.  Well, OK, I happen to apply that theory to the bugs, bacteria, etc., that Lysol, et al, tries to tell us will make us sick or kill us.  Pfffft.  There have been MANY a time where I've handled the raw chicken, etc., for my dogs and been in a hurry and just quickly swiped the juice off my hands on a towel.  No handwashing in hot water and chemicals while singing Happy Birthday, lol.  And anti-bacterial products do not darken the doors of my house.  Hubby and I do not catch every bug that comes down the pike like the rest of our "clean" friends do, so anecdotally this approach works for us.  And shouldn't all you people who eat raw meat be dead by now???  Hehehe.
>    
>   Love,
>   Bren, on a soap box when it comes to this subject ;)
>   
Right. The entire concept of vaccination depends on the idea that an 
immune system exposed to small amounts of infection will "learn to 
defend itself." It follows that an immune system not exposed to any 
quantity of infection will not learn anything. Who wants to have a dumb 
immune system??

As far as the antibacterials go, I heard a news report several years ago 
in which a couple of doctors attacked the entire idea of antibacterial 
soap saying that it was a farce perpetrated on the American consumer. To 
paraphrase, they said that antibacterial soap only works if you clean 
*everything* at a certain temperature for a certain minimum amount of 
time. They also said that, in fact, if you used antibacterial soap in 
any other way you were only killing the weakest of the germs and 
assuring that the nastiest critters thrived. They further admonished the 
viewers to avoid all antibacterial products and reserve their use for 
places where they were really necessary, like hospitals.
>    
>   PS  Last night, my hubby and a friend of ours was asking me how spinach and onions are getting the ecoli.  I read something about that a while back, but forgot exactly what the deal was.  If it's appropriate subject matter for this list, could someone re-inform me???  Seems to me that the farmers were using some kind of animal matter (in chemical form??) for pest-control, or something like that.  ?????  
>   
I live and work very near to the part of Santa Barbara County, CA, where 
the infected spinach was found. Others have mentioned the various 
explanations that have been given. Personally, I don't worry about it 
very much. The news reports always say that the persons most endangered 
by this sort of contamination are small children, the elderly, and those 
with compromised immune systems due to disease. Since everyone in my 
household is young and healthy, and there are no children, I don't give 
it a second thought. I can deal with some "flu like symptoms" if I have to.