Wash Your Hands

I was recently telling a friend of mine some of the things I learned researching death statistics for the Cause of Death book that have changed the way I do things. I’m more careful now when I cross the street, for example. And, although I’ve always been pretty good about washing my hands, I am even better about it now. It turns out there are millions of microbes that live on our hands. While most of them are harmless, many cause the illnesses that are responsible for over 10 million deaths a year in the world. In 2002, for example, at least 17% of all 57 million deaths in the world were caused by the common bugs that can live on your hands. These deadly microbe-caused diseases include flu, bronchitis, pneumonia, diarrhea, TB, measles, whooping cough, meningitis, some types of hepatitis and approx. 18% of all cancers. For more interesting info on microbes, check this out: http://www.microbeworld.org/know/important.aspx and don’t forget to wash!