wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

In the U.K. doctors no longer wear ties and must wear short-sleeved shorts while treating patients to prevent nosocomial infections.

I am continually baffled at the Medical & Educational Industries' ignorance about controlling MRSA, Viruses and other infectious microbes in the environment.

Is Ms Snyder Sachs aware of a few safe, non-toxic, revolutionary products that provide residual protection on any surface between cleanings?

Despite the product claims, why have these industries been reluctant to investigate them, much less buy & use them?

If we know that these microbes survive on surfaces and can immediately re-contaminate the cleanest of body parts, on contact, why is there such resistence to the technology?

The spread of most infections come from exposure to "touch surfaces" and not direct ingestion!

Leonard Lopate's question to Jessica Snyder Sachs, as to how one can dispute Darwin's theory of evolution in the face of natural selection obviously being operative with respect to bacteria and antibiotics, unfortunately revealed a severe lack of nuanced understanding, and I'm disappointed Jessica Snyder Sachs didn't bother to correct it. It's true, of course, that natural selection is a proven fact. No serious thinker disputes that. What some dispute is the notion that natural selection, even coupled with random mutation, is sufficient explanation for the origin of more complex species rising out of prior, simpler species. There are respected professional biologists who dispute this. Ask yourself this question: do you intuitively accept that antibiotics and other aspects of the chemical environment inside the human body could eventually, over millions of years, cause bacteria to evolve into creatures as complex as dolphins? No? How about as complex as frogs? No? How about as complex as beetles? No? Then your intuition matches that of some of the most forward-thinking biologists working in the field today. Natural selection, even coupled with random mutation, may be necessary but almost certainly isn't sufficient to explain the origin of more complex species rising from prior, simpler ones. This topic would be an excellent one for Leonard Lopate to explore in a future segment.

Bacteria are life saving and essential in every animal organism - symbiosis. The rise of many bacterial diseases is not because of new diseases or stronger bacteria but rather from the pasteurization and irradiation of our milk and foods. By killing ALL the bacteria in our nutrition source we are not allowing our body the good bacteria and probiotics needed to combat the bad bacteria. To top if off, the abuse of antibiotics has created an opportune environment for the bad bacteria to proliferate. Since our good bacteria are killed and rendered ineffective via pasteurization and irradiation - we are left with nothing to combat these harmful bacteria.

sorry frank, but there is no scientifically verifiable proof that mercury in vaccines is linked to autism. that's just a load of woo.

My husband is a K-5th grade physical education teacher - he noticed that the children, as often as they get sick, don't seem to be as affected by their diseases as the teachers. The kids continue comming to school with illnesses and pass them on to each other, but the minute one of the teachers catches what they have - they become laid out for a week! Are the children spreading SUPERVIRUSES that our generation just can't handle???

My daughter was on "bactrum" for 3 years because of Urinary Reflux. Now we've been told that this is no longer the advised treatment. Can your guest comment on this, and whether a child who has been on antibiotics for so long should be suddenly taken off? What challenges might she face?

Thanks,
Rich Rose

great program!

I thought lactose intolerance increased after milk became more and more ultra pasteurized?

I am a big fan of raw dairy and drinks like kvass and kombucha for flora's sake

I know "raw milk" is like "fat" in the imagination - a panic button without merit - do you have an opinion?

Not just in Northern Europe, in India, where I'm from, lactose intolerance is pretty much unheard of. Milk is an essential part of our diet.

How does Chinese medicine treat good/bad bacteria?

So what was the herbal remedy that woman used to cure her baby's staph infection??

No discussion of MRSA should neglect to mention that it is often spread by hospital personell who REFUSE TO WASH THEIR HANDS between patients(!)

Walk into any preschool or kindergarten class and you'll see bottles of antibacterial soaps/gels. Based on my experience as a parent, children in preschool and elementary school are encouraged throughout the day to use "magic soap" as my first-grader calls it. Do medical experts and pediatricians consider this practice as effective or better than soap and water? Clearly it's easier/more practical than getting kids to use soap and water, but do these "soaps" and gels really work on the common cold virus, for instance?

People who reject Darwinian evolution _don't_ even try to "explain" the process of drug-resistant bacteria, viruses, etc---they either don't know about it (i.e. they are ignorant) or they ignore it.

Nice, huh?

Welcome to our scientifically-ignorant world, 2008.

I use hand sanitizer a lot as i work in a clinic.
Outside of the clinic, i don't use it much at all.

Can the Ms. Sachs comment on quorum sensing and how that's affected by the anti bacteria cleaners/anti biotics/ chemicals?

I continually see household cleaning products with the words "Kills Flu Virus!" on the bottle. Really?

Hi -
I do not use antibacterial soap, but I'm a little confused by the issue. A few months ago, when drug-resistant staph infections were in the news, people were advised to wash hands frequently (and to wash well). The advice on anti-bacterial soap didn't seem clear. We were told that anti-bacterial soap contains alcohol (and not an antibiotic), and that for this reason, such soaps do not contribute to making bacteria become more drug-resistant. Is this true?