People ask me what I do for a living, and part of that responsibility includes obtaining, maintaining, and retaining biohazardous organisms used by the Nevada System of Higher Education in microbiology courses. Now, every single one of these has a cure, and most of them cause nothing more dangerous than a transient bout of diarrhea in a healthy individual, but the names scare some people, or at least the thought of catching a disease. I think that people who know what I do may think twice before shaking my hand or eating with me for fear of catching a bug.
Often they suggest or inquire as to the frequency of handwashing. Many of those also express the hope that I use antibacterial soap, not realizing that in truth the phenomenon of handwashing is the key factor. Most soaps act in removing foreign objects through saponification. This means that detergent soaps contain both a hydrophilic (like water) and hydrophobic (like hydrocarbon) character, allowing them to dissolve most substances from the skin, regardless of their absolute chemical structure. The dirty little secret is that most bacteria, being simply free-living cells, when exposed to a detergent, immediately lyse and spill their contents because their cell membrane dissolves in the hydrophobic fraction of the soap.
The antibiotics added to soap add very little added benefit. What bacteria don't immediately lyse often slide off the skin in the water, their attachments to the skin being dissolved by the same phenomenon. Moreover, if you use hot water, many bacteria cannot grow at high temperatures and die under prolonged exposure. While there are exceptions to both of these cases, only in the case of endospore bacilli or species that possess cell walls, would any other type of treatment be necessary, assuming they remain clung to the skin following a thorough washing. The antibacterial treatments put into soap, usually disinfectant in nature, have little added benefit on bacteria. Most soaps contrary to popular belief contain no antibiotics, and so the spread of antibiotic resistance is mitigated, but the use of such soaps will select for species that can withstand minor exposure to disinfectants. Not all bacilli are equally susceptible.
Periodic exposure to bacteria is not bad for you. Irregular challenges to the immune system ensure that the system continually refreshes its cells, those challenges necessitating and initiating a surge in front line defense. Even an antibody-mediated defense (triggered only after 7-10 days of being "sick") such as when one catches a "cold", is good for the body, putting scores of antibodies into the blood which, although specific to a singular invader, also help scour other opportunistic infections from the system and precur invasion by more virulent strains. Since starting to work in this capacity, I have not yet been sick beyond slight stomach nausea.
For those who worry about whether or not I wash my hands or may carry some scary strain, I tell you I fear the bathroom handles more. After watching scores of students exit the lavatory after eliminating without having made even a pretense at washing their hands, I worry more about exposure there. The recent Las Vegas endoscopy center scare in which patients assumed no risk during routine screenings highlights this risk. I do not know what organisms students may putatively carry, but I know the exact strain and lot number of everything with which I work, and so if I catch something, it's probably a bacterium.
I worked for a brief period in a clinical reference laboratory. Despite the care and attention to detail I paid when working with human samples, I once watched another researcher who possessed a PhD work with almost wanton nonchalance in the workspace next to my own. All of her samples were human blood, and the test in question was for Human Herpes VIII, which you can only catch if you have HIV. So, every one of her samples was potentially HIV positive, and I thought that warranted more caution.
The endoscopy scare will not end easily. For some of these people the problem will not show up for years (hepatitis or HIV), and so they might for many years constitute a mobil incubation chamber capable of infecting others with whom they come in contact despite not showing any signs. By contrast, I know what I work with, and I know how to deal with it. I know nothing of random strangers nearby who knowingly or not carry any number of pathogenic flora that might make a quantum leap from that host to a new one in myself.
I have long maintained a healthy fear of doctors. As a graduate student, I taught presumptive pre-med majors their biochemistry lab, and I would trust none of those students as my primary care physician, or in any other healthcare capacity.
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