With all the hype about H1N1 and other flu and cold viruses, we have become an uber-clean society, where hand sanitizers and disinfectant wipes are as common in households as the paper towel. But is this cleanliness having an effect on our children?

Most experts conclude that our desire to be super clean and safe from germs may actually be hurting our children. While there is a legitimate cause of concern with serious illnesses, such as H1N1, we may have gone overboard when it comes to protecting our children from dirt and germs.

Thom McDade, PhD, associate professor and director of the Laboratory for Human Biology Research at Northwestern University states that, “Just as a baby’s brain needs stimulations, input, and interaction to develop normally, the young immune system is strengthened by exposure to everyday germs so that it can learn, adapt, and regulate itself.” In a recent study McDade also found that children who were exposed to more animal feces and had more cases of diarrhea before age 2 had less incidence of inflammation in the body as they grew into adulthood. This inflammation has been linked to chronic adulthood illnesses, such as heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. The study analyzed data collected from thousands of children over two decades in the Philippines.

“We are moving beyond this idea that the immune system is just involved in allergies, autoimmune diseases and asthma, and beginning to think about its role in inflammation and other degenerative diseases,” McDade adds.

According to medical professionals, we are over sanitizing infants’ environments that may cause more harm than good. It is a parent’s desire to keep their child from germs, but in that desire, we may be depriving them the opportunity to build a strong immune system.

Hand washing is still the number one prevention of spreading infections and diseases, as discovered by Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister more than 160 years ago. By no means is this study suggesting that we let our little ones run around covered in dirt and filth. But it is meant to serve as an eye-opener to parents that a little prevention goes a long way in preventing the spread of germs. The old adage, “everything in moderation” may apply quite well to this study. Being dirty is fun for kids, and a little dirt may actually improve their health into adult hood.

“I hope this research will promote some thinking about the potential cost of a zealous public health effort to promote hand washing and hand sanitizer use,” McDade said.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHISh559oho[/youtube]

Truck vs passenger car accidents always end in a disaster in which the people in the car are the losers. The crashes are disasters, which almost always cause catastrophic death and destruction.

There was a time I remember when truck drivers were called the “knights of the road”? They had a reputation for safety and for helping those stranded on lonely roadways. In those days, the truck drivers served a romantic notion of the open road while on their long journeys; carrying the freight of America from East, West, North and South. I still remember driving by trucks and reaching out the window to give the motion of pulling down on an imaginary cord, just to hear the trucker respond with that wonderful air-horn.

Then trains began increasing competition with trucking companies for freight transfer. The piggyback system ate into the profits of the long haul truckers. Why pay a driver benefits with gas and insurance when you could simply drive your trailer to a train, load it on and deliver by having a tractor meet it at the destination for delivery. Competition quickly became, and still is, the name of the game and public safety has increasingly become its casualty.

Why does there seem to be an increase in trucking crashes?

The obvious two factors are increasing competition and the fact that there are more truck drivers on the road and this results in the human risks to increase proportionally.

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I used to feel safe when I would see a commercial truck traveling next to me on the road. After reading some statistics comparing airline pilots to truck drivers, I am not so sure I feel that way now.

In your mind imagine a truck tractor with two trailers attached to it, sitting next to an airliner. Not a great deal of difference between the two in size. Granted the 747, for example, weighs over a whopping 735,000 pounds at take off; compared to a meager weight of around 150,000 pounds for a tractor trailer.

On the other hand, the traffic in the air has not yet gotten as congested as the roadways and 747′s do not regularly drive amongst 4000 pound passenger vehicles.

So, I was shocked when I saw the comparison between airline pilots and truck drivers when it comes to suitability:

Number of Pilots: 590,000

Number of Truck Drivers: 10,000,000

Number of commercial planes: 222,000

Number of commercial trucks: 8,000,000

Pilot age limits: 65

Trucker age limits: None

Airline Industry prohibition re: narcotics: yes

Trucking Industry prohibition re: narcotics: No

Flying hours limitations: 30/week; 100/month; 1000/year

Driving hours limitations: 77/week; 88/8 days; 330/month; 4000/year

Flying hours tracked?: yes — electronic tracking

Driving hours tracked?: yes — driver kept log

Federal Regulatory budget for airlines: $14,600,000,000

Federal Regulatory budget for trucks: $500,000,000

Sobering numbers as we drive our little 4000 pound vehicles next to those 80,000 to 140,000 pound trucks, at 70+ miles per hour; after the trucker has been driving — -how many hours?

If we add to the mix of driving distractions for truckers the following: texting, using laptops, cell phones, eating, and fatigue; we have a recipe for potential trouble. Truck operational problems further aggravate the situation: braking malfunctions and tire over wear, for example. Finally, road conditions: vehicles driven by other distracted drivers; ice, rain, Florida “black ice”; and escalating vehicle population. Taking these factors into consideration, together with the above statistics, best illustrates how dangerous it really is on our roadways.

So, don’t text; don’t speed, don’t drive after drinking; and BE CAREFUL out there!

Several years ago, Sandra Bullock starred in a movie Hope Floats, which was a quaint, feel-good movie about recovering from an unexpected life-altering blow and finding hope for the future in an unlikely place. If Hope Floats can be used as a phrase for life in the Gulf of Mexico waters, it arrived today in the form of a huge containment boom, which is in the process of being lowered over the largest of the three oil leaks coming from the pipeline 5,000 feet under the surface of the Gulf.

The four-story high dome, constructed of steel and concrete, must be painstakingly lowered to the floor of the Gulf and has never been attempted at the depth of the nearly three-week-old leak. The process is expected to take several days to complete, although the dome should be in place by later this afternoon.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w-rjrJUqVU[/youtube]

Communities and residents from Louisiana to Florida are taking steps to protect their property; fish, oysters and other wildlife; their personal property and their economic survival from damage from the arriving oil slick, but oil has already washed ashore in Louisiana and up the delta of the Mississippi River. The main oil slick appears to be moving toward the northwest, temporarily, at least, sparing the west coast of Florida from the direct assault of the oncoming wave. Additional controlled burns of the oil at the surface have been completed this week.

Lawsuits have already been filed and a federal judicial panel in Washington has been asked to consolidate at least 65 potential class-action lawsuits claiming economic damage from the spill. Commercial fishermen, business and resort owners, charter boat captains, even would-be vacationers have sued from Texas to Florida, seeking damages that could reach into the billions.

Meanwhile, state, local and federal officials are preparing to deal with multiple health hazards for citizens if the oil reaches shore. Health risks range from assessing what illnesses or ailments might arise from exposure to the toxic slick to what effect the oil will have on seafood consumed nationwide. Officials are monitoring air and water quality and implementing plans to analyze seafood.

So, if Hope Floats, this dome works. What is at stake is multi-faceted – the livelihoods of fisherman and farmers, the eco-system of the entire Gulf, the lives of wildlife and the future of off-shore drilling and how and where it is done.

Men dressed in black cloaks secreting through the night from one house to another. Their mission: to buy off residents. To purchase rights away from widows and orphans.

This sounds more like a movie and less like real life.

When I first heard stories that BP officials were traveling around and trying to exchange releases for “cash”, my first response was that I did not believe it. I mean it’s the 21^st century, right? Companies don’t really think it is acceptable to try the shady character on the corner, “hey buddy” dodge, right?

I guess BP did not get the memo about avoiding the appearance of being really shady characters after you dump thousands of gallons of oil into one of the most treasured bodies of water on the planet.

Well, my very fragile faith in the responsibility of Corporate America has been wracked — ’cause it is true!

Apparently, BP employees were traveling around trying to get waivers of liability against the company in exchange for payments of up to $5000. What is possibly more despicable is that reports seem to indicate that the BP “black cloaks” are targeting fisherman. The very people who stand to be hurt, in many respects, the very worst, are the people BP targets first.

Sorry “Black Cloak” BP guys, if you did this, it is despicable and you should be ashamed. Announcing that BP would not hold anyone to releases they signed, after you were caught trying to take advantage, does not somehow make it any more unseemly.