what's the deal with the obsession with antibacterials

Random topic, I know. I am reading Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley for my writing seminar, and in one chapter it says that as most scientists know that "our immune sysems are set up in such a way that they 'expect' to be educated by soil mycobacteria early in childhood; when they are not, the result is an unbalanced system prone to allergy" (Ridley, 1999). So the debate is I guess for parents of young children whether to let the immune system develop properly and run the risk of catching some virus at the playground or reduce the risk of catching that virus and possibly making your kids have allergies. I am not anti-purell or something like that, but I do not know what side to pick. Is society as a whole becoming too afraid of germs and is this leading to more sensitive immune systems (allergies, asthma, etc.)? Or are we picking the lesser of two evils? This ethical debate worries me.


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