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Dirty secrets?
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The article
"Modern hygiene’s dirty
tricks" (SN: 8/14/99, p. 108) reports that hay fever is
less common among farm children than among urban children or rural
children who don’t live on farms. I wonder if the results are
not skewed by "survival of the fittest." Wouldn’t
sufferers of hay fever (including their progeny with similar
genetic dispositions) seek relief in nonfarm areas? People not
affected by the scourge (and their progeny) probably continued to
find survivable conditions in farmland areas. I, myself a sufferer
of hay fever, seek to avoid farmlands at all costs.
Richard
V. DeGruccio
Elk Grove, Calif.
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I suggest that
our immune systems, like our muscles, need to be exercised to be
effective. Though this is anecdotal, I’ve noticed that when I’ve
been a farmer, I have had far less sickness than when I’ve lived
in town.
Jim
Adams
Louisa, Va. |
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Basing the
hygiene hypothesis on the observation that cleaner societies (i.e.,
industrialized countries) have higher asthma rates raises some
questions. In particular, within a single industrialized country,
the United States, asthma rates are far higher in poor communities.
It is usually thought that poor housing, higher pollution levels,
and so forth may account for this: In short, these are dirtier
places to live. Yet this thinking runs counter to the hygiene
hypothesis and is not discussed in the article.
Doug
Brugge
Tufts University School of Medicine
Boston, Mass.
Researchers who support the hygiene hypothesis
believe that the particular types of germs to which children are
exposed are crucial. For example, suggests Graham Rook, "poor
people living in inner cities on concrete will not encounter the
organisms that are common in soil and untreated water . . . that are
working in animal models of allergy and in our clinical trials."
Rook argues that "the high incidence [of asthma] in inner cities
is good evidence that the childhood virus infections are not
protective." —S. Carpenter
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I was angered
and disappointed by your selection of photographs to accompany the
cover article. Sexism appears to be alive and well. I believe a
picture of boys and girls playing in a sandbox or making mud pies
would have been a much better, nonviolent illustration for the cover
of the magazine. As for the picture of the 1950s housewife in a
spotless kitchen, some of us have worked very hard to overcome the
stereotypes of the 1950s and do not appreciate reminders that we
have to continue to fight these battles daily.
Ann
S. Viksnins
Mendota Heights, Minn. |
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