Germicides--Friend or Foe?
Yesterday and friend and I went to visit someone and were told it wasn't a good time because they had the H1N1 virus (swine flu) in the house. So we went back to the car and she asked me, "What do you do about germicides? Can you use them?"
My first response was, "You don't really want to hear my whole rant on germicides. But here's the short version. Germs don't scare me as much as germicides do. If germs can kill, and germicides can kill the germs, which is really the more dangerous of the two?"
My point was that some people are so scared of germs they don't think twice about whatever it is that they are using to get rid of them. It reminds me of some of those old western movies--Just imagine, the town is worried about a law-breaker in their midst, so they bring to town a gunfighter who can bring down the big, bad outlaw. This gunfighter is usually someone who operates on a moral value every bit as low as the bad guy they are trying to eliminate, and he is stronger and faster with a gun to boot. Which would scare you most? Which should scare you most?
It seems to me there are two types of thinking when it comes to germs: One group takes an offensive approach--Get rid of the germs at all cost. Use whatever is at our disposal to kill them, and do it now! Don't worry about whatever else may be killed in the process. The other group thinks more defensively, in terms of building up the immune system to be able to handle the germs. They know that our bodies can handle a staggering amount of invaders as long as we have an equally staggering amounts of antibodies and other good things ready to attack.
Of course, the latter way may involve changing eating habits, drinking habits, maybe even sleeping habits, and more, and this is not very appealing to them, so they prefer the offensive approach. Unfortunately, the things most people use to attack germs offensively are very harmful to the immune system, so they are shooting themselves in the foot, and maybe worse.
Basically, it's good to remember that one of the functions of the immune system involves recognizing foreign invaders, that is, things we were never intended to take into our bodies. Chemical germicides, no matter how effective they are at killing germs in a test tube, are still going to be seen by the body as a foreign substance, so, at least to some extent, our bodies will be fighting the germicide itself, and likely sacrificing some of its fighters in the process. How much better to use things that the body will not see as foreign--garlic, onions, raw greens, etc. These will support the immune system rather than fight it.
One very good natural anti-bacterial agent is salt-water, something our body needs, and something I have addressed in other posts. People deficient in salt are often the ones to succumb to viral illnesses to begin with, because germs cannot survive in a salty solution. People who get too much salt may be prone to many other maladies (I will get into that another time), but it is often observed that they don't get the flu as often as others do. (I'm not saying to get too much salt; I'm just making a point.)
Advocates of drinking water are quick to remind people that the body is 70% water, but they usually fail to mention that it is 70% salt-water out of necessity. We would never be able to know what it would be like to live with only pure water flowing to and from our cells, for we would die long before it would get to that point. Salt has had a bad rap, but it is very necessarily to our life and health. One of the longest standing recommendations for defense against colds and flu has been to gargle with saltwater, and I have seen it recommened as a defensive measure against the H1N1 virus as well.
Well, I may not have felt I could share my "rant" on germicides with my friend, but I will share it here.
© Dorothy Herrmann 2009
