GASP! RE:Heretic's View of Flu's Role in Health and Disease

"Achtung! Pay no attention to these nasty "Deniers" who would question the germ theory of disease! Have they no respect for the dead? Consider the millions who have perished because of those hateful, fascist Germs! Arrest the reprobates for "Denial" and send them to prison for six years for their daring cheekiness! Never forget: Germs are evil. Germs must perish! Germs cause disease!!!!!"

Seriously... Traveling through rural parts of a certain South East Asian country for several months on several occasions was an eye opening experience. Would you believe that those people had powerful immune systems and almost never got sick? Even when their sanitation wasn't quiet up to snuff? Very few women died in childbirth and very few children died at birth... home birth at that. This was when they were eating their traditional diet, mind you. When someone cut his foot on a sharp bamboo root in a stream with water buffalo wallowing (and crapping) a few yards away, I thought he'd be infected and dead within a week. The vicious cut never even became infected. Did people wash their hands before they ate? Well they'd pour some water over their hands to wash off the dirt, but nobody used bacteriacidal soap; and their water came from surface wells and contained no chlorine so you know it was full of nasty, fascist germs! Interesting experience.

FYI many of the older people smoked like chimneys, huffing down hand rolled cigarettes, stuffed with home grown tobacco that made Camels seem mild. No chemical additives and no cancer!