Got Cooties?

It's been about a month since Kyli was born...now a chunky five pound ham.  I visit her almost every day and have gotten used to the routine of washing my hands with  industrial-strength hospital germ killer before holding her hand.  Even the boys know that they need to must sing the ABC's while soaping up to know that they have washed long enough to kill the germs.  In fact, there was a hand sanitizing station at nearly every hallway entrance in the hospital.

The swine flu has become a pretty serious concern.  The government people that monitor flu say 30%-40% of all people could get this particular flu in the next year or two.  As you can imagine, the sales for hand-sanitizer lotions have gone through the roof.  Some schools require that each kid have their own bottle.  A guy at the gas station this morning kept a bottle in his truck for after he filled up.  Everywhere I go, somebody's offering me a squirt of their personal 5 gallon stash of Germ-X.

Is this safe for everybody to turn into germaphobes??  Common thinking says that repeated use of anti-bacterial soaps and hand sanitizers make us less immune to the viruses and bacteria we are trying to protect ourselves, right?  It seems like some of those results could be inconclusive or wrong depending on what you read.   Here's a nice article.  This article has a little different view on the matter.   This article exposes germs living in the containers!  Take your pick.

These little bottles of hand sanitizer have worked it's way into every purse, desk drawer, and pocket in America.  Congratulations if you own some hand sanitizer stock!  ...and I'll take a dime-sized amount of your berry-sage scented Purell.