You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
I am a veterinary immunologist and advocate hand washing, when it is necessary. However, it needs to be said that your body had multiple levels of innate immunity that control most, if not all pathogens (e.g., virus, bacteria, fungi and parasites) we encounter on a daily basis. Google "innate immunity" for more information. Excessive hand washing seems to come from a fear of bacteria (germophobes), and most don't realize that there are "good" bacteria all throughout the surfaces of the body to help prevent bacterial/fungal disease. Animals that are born without intestinal bacterial flora (e.g., by caeserian section) are much more susceptible to infectious diseases, and have an underdeveloped immune system. Anyone who has developed thrush after taking antibiotics for a long period have experienced this first hand. My point to this rant is that it's not always a good idea to try and remove all bacteria/microbes from your immediate environment. In reference to gardening, I would be much more concerned about exposure to Aspergillus fumigatus, a saprophytic fungus that lives in compost piles, and can tolerate the composting reaction and temperature. These fungal spores (conidia) are easily inhaled and may cause severe disease in the lung and other organs of the body in immunocomprimised humans. A healthy human probably inhales 1,000 A. fumigatus spores daily, and our innate immune system takes care of these so we don't develop disease. Someone receiving chemotherapy for cancer or auto-immune disease would be exquisitely sensitive to this fungal pathogen if they were out gardening, and especially working with a compost pile. Likewise, I'd be much more concerned about handling uncomposted poultry manure (which is highly enriched for Salmonella and Campylobacter bacteria) than small animal feces in my garden. That's my 2 cents worth on innate immunity and hand washing.
good points.. but there is little innate immunity involved when it comes to inappropriate parasite exposure... all the immunity you muster may help you very little when a parasite ends up in your central nervous system... in fact, it then may even make things worse.
Realistically however, most people's exposure to these parasites is not as high as many think it might be, and the actual number of serious infections is probably small relative to the potential exposure. I don't wash my hands unless I find myself actually digging in soil that i notice also has a lot of cat stool in it (not a super rare incident in my yard, but most dirt is probably pretty safe)... still, before putting my mud-soaked hands in my mouth, I usually at least rinse them off.
