Every once in a while Real Life pulls me away from Blogging (Damn You Real Life). This has been one of those weeks.
I did want to do a sort of wrap up of the whole Swine Flu – Safety Science – Prevention topic that I got into on my Shut-Up Stupid Sunday post and Rocket Scientists elaboration in her Saturday Soapbox “Thankless Science”.
One thing that has not been pushed enough in the latest Swine Flu scare and most of the other communicable disease scares that I can remember is the Prevention Hero that almost everyone has sitting in their homes right now: Bleach.
Instead of buying all those expensive anti-microbial products being advertised, a gallon of bleach will work as good (if not better). I recommend the cheapest generic brand, they are all the same formula and if you’re worried about only having designer labels on your cleaning supplies, you’ve got issues I can’t deal with.Naturally its not as flashy as other products but spraying down any surfaces with a 5% solution of bleach and water will kill almost all microbes that are on the surface and as an added benefit it will make any mold go dormant.
Another huge advantage bleach has is it breaks down very quickly when exposed to air, soil, sewage or just about anything else in the environment so its impact on the environment outside your home is minimal.
So just like the CDC and local Health Departments who get little or no thanks for immunizing the at risk population against the flu (Once again the vaccine is as safe as the regular flu shot), the cleaning people and our hero bleach get no thanks for keeping us safe from a huge number of diseases.
Note: I also wanted to clarify something I mentioned in my post on Swine Flu, I mentioned that young adults are more at risk from the Swine Flu because of how good a job that the CDC has done in suppressing previous outbreaks. I didn’t point out that by suppressing those outbreaks they saved millions of lives compared to the few thousands of people that who will get the disease because they weren’t exposed to flues in the past.
