Beach sand can be a petri dish of bacteria

[Ixolib]

And with all the landfalling hurricanes, I wonder how much that adds even more guck to the muck.... I mean, when a beach home is blown away, what happens to the sewerage that was "formerly" safely housed in the waste pipes?? Aren't those pipes then spewing there contents freely into the water and/or on the beach?

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2005-07-21-bacteria-beaches_x.htm

[Swimdude]

Wow. Poop everywhere. YUCK!

[Pebbles]

Eck that is kinda a gross thought. But nature has a way of cleaning this kinda sewage I imagine much of the waste in a hurricane is washed away... Inland is a different story though. It was quite a health hazard with the pig farms when Floyd flooded NC. But again when it comes to that type of waste... nature 'cleans' it up over time.. may be wrong but animals have been making waste for millions of years and nature has dealt with it.

[Hurricaneman]

I had no idea

[JQ Public]

Being a microbiology major I have become used to isolating bacteria on all sorts of things from garden soil to pond water in labs. Its not that uncommon for you to find feces and such in everything. Its funny how alarmist these news organizations get over such things. As long as you wash your hands and rinse your food before preparing it you should be fine. For the most part you would need a high concentration of any bacteria to make you really sick. Did you know the most bacteria-laden/dirtest thing in the whole house is the kitchen sponge. Its because people never replace them. My biggest pet peeve is leaving things like that wet and stagnant w/o letting them dry out before the next use.

But yeh during floyd many hog lagoons spilled over their banks here in eastern NC. Water treatment can take care of most of those sewage problems, but fishing and drinking the water alone is a different story. Also avoid swimming in the ocean directly after hurricanes etc especially if you have any open cuts or scrapes on you.

[coriolis]

Being exposed to pathogens keeps your immune system strong. Back in the good old days (before the Clean Water Act and the EPA, when rivers were dirtier than they are now) kids swam in rivers and lakes all the time, got dirty, and caught critters. We all grew up healthy and strong. Nowadays parents are so afraid of GERMS! A lot of it is due to advertising and the over use of antibiotics.

Now that kids are growing up in such sterile environments you are seeing much greater incidences of asthma and autoimmune diseases. It's because people's immune systems are not getting "healthy" doses of pathogens to keep focused on the intended job. I read an article in Natural History a couple years ago that compared kids in India to kids in America. While the kids in India get more minor infections, their systems fight them off. Things like asthma are almost unknown there. The author was studying whether asthma is a sort of autoimmune problem.

[kevin]

Actually people died younger back then.

You are right that the body needs exposure to low levels of bacteria. I don't know if sewage qualifies.

[coriolis]

I'm referring to kids that grew up in the 1960's and 1970's (like me). I'm not referring to the 1800's or anything. When I was a kid we got our shots and had chlorinated drinking water and all that. But if we got a sniffle or a cold our parents did not run us to the doctor for a prescription for antibiotics. After the thing ran its course, we'd be fine. Maybe I had a sheltered life but I don't know of anyone that I grew up with that had to carry an inhaler for asthma.

I'm a parent now, and I guess I'm as guilty as the next one. (Or maybe it's my wife because she is an alarmist when it comes to the kids being sick.) But the doctor's are part of the problem too. They have to practice defensive medicine. Sore throat? fever? Bring him in for a strep test. Just in case, we'll give you a prescription for amoxicillin. Thanks Doc! Pay our $10 co-pay for the doctor and $10 co-pay for the script, and we're on our way. I guess my parents didn't have such good insurance. We had to be really sick to go see the doctor. Did you know that strep throat almost always clears up on its own. All the bad things that you hear about are extremely rare. Of course if we don't do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE, we're negligent. So stop complaining about the costs of health care!

OK, rant over. I've probably insulted plenty of people already.

[MGC]

I have to agree with Coriolis. I too am a child of the 60's. I only went to the doctor when I was really sick. My parents didn't have health insurance. We use to play outside all day every day. The kids of today never go outside. I too believe they are not exposed to as much and have an under developed immune system. I didn't know anyone that had asthma when I was a kid.......MGC