Overly sanitized environments may lead to illness

This article describes some interesting studies regarding the correlation between overly clean environments and overly-sensitive immune systems. The idea is that immune systems learn by responding to foreign bodies in the environment, and overly clean environments stunt the immune system by preventing it from learning properly.

This is something that I have believed for a long time, because animals in the wild survive perfectly well surrounded by all kinds of dirt and bacteria.

In many respects, I think the metaphor also applies to political correctness. The more society attempts to sanitize speech and the press, the more over-reactive its citizens become to relatively tame events. It's quite common to hear about people being "shocked and appalled" by things that are pretty innocuous in my opinion .

Perhaps society itself is suffering from an overly reactive immune system?

Comments

[Parand]

"animals in the wild survive perfectly well surrounded by all kinds of dirt and bacteria"

Depends on your definition of perfectly well. I long subscribed to the "you don't need X because we survived perfectly well without it before modern times / in the old country", until it was pointed out to me that life expectancy before modern times / in the old country was late 40's and people suffer(ed) from horrible diseases that can be easily remedied.

[joe]

Are you a libertarian?

[PJ Cabrera]

I think Boobgate, two SuperBowls ago, is a perfect example of what you're describing. The ensuing charade was more appalling to watch, from my perspective, than the blurry 4 seconds of video that caused it.