Germophobia's going to kill us

That's right, it's not the germs themselves, but your insane, neurotic germophobia that's going to be the death of us. Germ killing power is everywhere. Every cleaning commercial targeted at women states that so and so's product kills 99.9% of nasty germs. As a mother I find this ridiculous and, yes, dangerous.

Superbug. The word's been around for a few years now, but what is it? A superbug is a mutated form of a common germ that's become resistant to cleaning agents and medicines like antibiotics. Now, let's look at why we have superbugs. Make no mistake, these little critters are cause for alarm- and I mean all out the sky is falling alarm, because if these bugs become the norm then there's not much we can do since all the medicines we have to fight them would be completely useless.

1. Overcleaning. Seriously- let you and your kids be exposed to some germs. Exposure and, yes, even getting sick is necessary to let your body build up immunities, those nice natural defenses we come built with. Living in a bubble only means that when your kid hits the real world with no immune system, the risk of serious complication goes up. As long as you keep things pretty clean and aren't eating feces directly, you're pretty much okay.

2. CAFO's. Now, I'm against meat consumption for all kinds of ethical, environmental, and health reasons, but superbugs certainly ranks high up there behind ethics. Factory farms keep animals in filthy conditions, closely packed together, and eating foods they were never meant to eat. This means that the animals, if not treated with antibiotics, would stay sick all the time and most of them would die. The answer, in the CAFO world, is to give them drugs on a regular basis whether they're sick or not as a preventative treatment. Now, if you're looking past the fact that these animals are treated insanely horribly anyway, you might think this seems like a good idea. No, no. All it does does is breeds bugs that have to be stronger than those drugs in order to survive. The bird flu, the swine flu.. all thanks to antibiotic created superbugs.

If you're worried about all the nasty, possibly deadly germs left over from the meat you served for dinner then don't eat the meat. Really- it contains possibly deadly germs that you're hoping will be cooked out and you're feeding it to your family? If you don't want nasty germs laying around, stop eating nasty food.

Now, I'm not saying that living dirty and throwing poop at each other is a good thing. That's what got Europe in trouble with the whole plague thing. Yes, wash your hands after you use the bathroom or scratch your butt, but people,seriously, stop overreacting- you're gong to kill us all if you do.