[TestifyToLove]

Only one strain of e.coli is truly dangerous and a person will not get sick from their own feces re-entering their intestinal tract from the other end (did that research when my ASD son told me I was lying that he would get sick by eating his own poop cause he had done it for years and never got sick from it ).

I'm a firm believer in the fact that germs are not the enemy per se and research consistently bears out the fact that trying to avoid germs is what is making Industrialized nations sicker, not learning to destroy those germs.

That said, we keep hand sanitizer and for certain situations we use it liberally. M is extremely oral seeking. I use hs liberally on his hands in public in-between hand washings. When we go to any doctor's office, I use hs on a paper towel to scrub down the toys before M gets them into his mouth. And, when I'm messing with Ch's port, I wash my hands with a surgical scrub but still apply h/s before sticking a needle in him. We also ambush all medical professionals in hospital stays with liberal amounts of h/s whether they wash their hands or not. M is always under contact isolation, more is better for his sake when nosicomal infections have taken him to the brink of death twice already.

But, in the house, we clean with vinegar, water and baking soda. TTO has fumes that are too harsh for M's lungs so we don't use it. Bleach sends M into near instant bronchiospasms so except for the nasty infestation of drain flies we battled this summer, we don't allow bleach anywhere in the house.

Several of the kids are really big on hs after going anywhere near M's poop. They wash well with soap and water first and then sanitize. In that situation, I don't know if it does any good except that it makes them feel better so I let them.

Hand sanitizer is better than nothing but it is not better than handwashing. It was never meant to replace handwashing in the first place. But, in medical situations, it does in fact serve a strong purpose that is healthy and does protect the health of patients.