It’s too late for you, doomed reader. You know I love you, but I may have killed you. This makes me sad. Unless you are one of my despised enemies. Then I am glad.
The very act of clicking to read this magnificent post has—there is no doubt about this—exposed you to potentially deadly pathogens.
There is nothing you can do about it now. I could have warned you, but it is the warning itself that brings death. All that is left for to me is to say is that it’s been swell to know you.
Yes. Germs infest and infect your keyboard, or your screen. You breathe them. Right there. Just now. You took a breath. It could be your last one! Wait. Don’t log off. If you set down your “device”, hoping to avoid your fate, you must brush up against the nearest surface. Which will be saturated in microscopic mortality. Death surrounds you!
No good going to shower, hoping to cleanse yourself of these clingy corpse-makers. For you will have to use your towel, which, science informs us, “can harbor innumerable disease causing bacteria”.
Germs contained in towels can cause skin disease, hair loss, urinary tract infections, and even spread drug-resistant bacteria that can be fatal.
Most of the bacteria in towels comes from the user’s body, face, and hands. With the high humidity usually found in a bathroom it becomes a highly favorable environment for rapid bacterial growth. Towels that appear clean to the naked eye may be full of tens of thousands of bacteria, posing potentially serious health threats.
As I tweeted yesterday, by the end of the year in high school, my never-laundered gym towel could be stood up on its own it was so crusty. Yet I never got sick from it.
Our problem is over-measurement, which creates problems were none exist.
There is a mini-industry in peer-reviewed papers finding death glued on common items. You may have a different one, but my favorite is how the nether region can be summoned by ties: “The necktie as nosocomial fomite in health (SSDF) personnel.” I haven’t done it, but I’d bet, like with “climate change” causing any imagined ill, any item you search for is scientifically covered in grave-welcoming germs.
The zeal to quantify all things, to have only Experts certify knowledge, and the irresistible urge to terrorize people into believing normal activities are potentially deadly, will only lead to tyranny. Doubt this? Then let me remind you of mandated PCR tests. Set with a sensitivity so high that it was like hearing a gnat’s footsteps.
When your beneficent doctor orders a blood test he can check platelet counts, red blood cells, white ones, hemoglobin levels, hematocrit levels, mean corpuscular volume, glucose, creatinine, sodium, potassium, chloride, troponins, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, albumin, alkaline phosphatase, bilirubin, of course carbon dioxide and pH, serum chloride, von Willebrand factors, protamine, fibrinogen, factors II, V, VII, VIII, IX, XI, protein C, protein S, anti-thrombin, heparin. All good stuff.
That’s just to get started: this is an abbreviated list. And that’s just blood. Other tests you know. And gene tests are now becoming common. Do you know how many genes there are? Well, it’s a lot. And it’s not just genes, but alleles, which are versions of genes. Which Duffy allele do you have, kemosabe?
The point to all this jollity is that these measures are all given “normal” ranges or values. Maybe you’ve seen these printed on blood tests you’ve had. If you deviate outside the normal range, the doctor pulls his chin, and may even smile, because now he has something to work on. He may even be right. But it should be obvious that the more things are checked, the more likely it is to find a biomarker “outside” the normal range.
If outside the normal range indicates ill health, i.e. a problem to be solved, then it will be almost impossible for anybody to be healthy. If you seek, you shall find.
In yesterday’s post on autism and vaccines, I warned that visiting the doctor “just to be sure” that one is healthy, or, worse, visiting because you want to check a newsworthy malady, increases the chances of a positive diagnosis. Just as asking your doctor to prescribe the drug you saw on TV (the one where happy people cavort) makes it more likely he’ll prescribe it. “Ask your doctor if this diagnosis is right for you” works.
It’s made worse with (sometimes) vaguely defined diseases, like autism (thanks to a commenter yesterday for reminding me of this). Or gender dysphoria (read here how easy it is to convince a doctor to give a positive diagnosis).
And, of course, doctors have to make a buck.
We don’t have time today to cover it, but the danger is having only Experts officially designating sickness leads to mandated treatments, as in the covid panic. Plus, over-measurement is everywhere, in every field. More on this later.
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And those who object to this will be declared "mentally ill." Prisons, er, I mean care facilities will be established to house them until they see that O'Brien is indeed holding up 5 fingers.
I remember a post by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick where he quipped "Don't do something, stand there!"
Many times it's better to do nothing.