E-coli outbreak: the issue of health and safety

So, in the UK in the last week or two the bacterium e-coli has been discovered at various petting farms - several young children have become ill, some seriously.

Fair enough.

Now "experts" have called for under 5s to not be able to touch the animals at all.

Now that, I have an issue with.

Our immune system works by our bodies basically recognising a bacteria or virus and basically going "aha, i have a cunning plan!" and it makes antibodies to kill the infection blah de blah. Simply, if the body can recognise faintly an infectious bacteria, then it can fight it - it's why the common cold is pretty weak...it's so common that our bodies get really good at recognising the many cold viruses. For our bodies to be able to have an effective immune system in this way, though, we have to become ill at sometime. It is the same principle as vaccines - such as if you are injected with some dead cow pox bacteria then you will become immune to that and the very similar (but much worse) small pox. Genius!

What the experts are suggesting, then, is pretty stupid. Basically it can be put this way...under 5s not touching animals means they won't get e coli, but it also means they wont be able to get any other so called "tummy bugs" and so won't build up an as effective immune system. Meaning the children lose out in the long run. Nice advice, experts.

This "no touching animals if under 5" has other bad consequences too. If you watched "Jamie's School Dinners" on Channel 4 a few years back, you will have observed that many kids on the program did not know for example here their burgers, chips or fruit came from. A big reason for this is that children living in urbanised settings such as a town or a city will rarely see wildlife such as farm animals or orchards or crops etc. In short, this restriction on touching animals will mean even more children will be ignorant about where their food comes from as they will only know the animals from sight and perhaps smell - which in many cases is not as effective in terms of learning as actually doing the learning (ie touching the animals).

A much more sensible course of action would be to wash the kids hands straight after they touch the animals. Sure, they could theoretically get some nasty illness, but this act will mean they learn good basic hygiene at a young age and also learn where their good comes from to boot. Everyones a winner (except the animals which get inevitably slaughtered/abused for food - but who cares? I like my steak and full English breakfast thanks)! If you look at history, improvements of basic hygiene, not limitations on contact with animals, is what saved lives.

I think these "experts" are stupid. I bet they work for the government.