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from the Superfungi-is-the-name-of-my-grunge-rock-band dept.
[...] In 2013, researchers at Michigan State University carried out a thankless, if mildly creepy, study. They observed how more than 3,500 residents of their college town used the sink at various restrooms after they carried out their business.
Some 10 percent of people observed chose not to wash their hands at all, which is simply not an acceptable way to end a trip to the bathroom. But even the vast majority of people who tried to wash their hands managed to totally flub the proper routine. Almost a quarter of people washed their hands without soap, for instance. And only 5 percent washed their hands for at least 15 seconds or longer, which is actually lower than the 20-second minimum of handwashing recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
https://gizmodo.com/in-a-world-of-mrsa-and-superfungi-you-need-to-start-wa-1833889953
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday April 11 2019, @04:44PM (1 child)
Right, because microbes don't spread. The doctors, nurses, orderlies, patients, etc. who are daily exposed to various "supergerms" bred by grossly irresponsible cleanliness and medical practices all spend the rest of their lives within the hospital, and never carry any supergerms out into the rest of the world.
Also - who said anything about supergerms? Normal microbes will bring you to your knees just fine. "Supergerms" only have an advantage once you've already gone to the hospital and been put on antibiotics. Evolution is on their side after all - they easily get tens of thousands of generations of evolution for our every one. The only thing that lets us survive at all with our archaic, outdated cellular processes is that our bodies are completely colonized by many symbiotic microbes that evolve just as fast, and vigorously defend their territory against environmental destruction. Our (genetically related) immune systems are little more than dedicated shock troops sent in to help turn the tide when the peasants can't do it on their own.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @09:41PM
Any carbon atom and ATP molecule that goes into producing resistance factors, is taken from the ultimate goal: replication. Spend resources on unnecessary defence, get outcompeted by every other cell around you.
On top of it, bacterial genes mutate. A lot. Without selective pressure to cull out all the dud variants, what gets selected for is whatever's cheapest to produce. Free market at its finest. :)