Your Mothers Cooking is more likely to give you Salmonella, than a Turtle

Dihydrogen Monoxide is tasteless, odourless and colourless, it kills uncounted thousands of people daily. Accidently inhaling it can kill you, prolonged exposure to it's solid form will cause severe tissue damage. It can cause burns and if you ingest it, you may experience excessive sweating, urination, some bloating, nausea and vomiting. And if you become dependant on it, withdrawal means death. There is no vaccine or pill to cure you. And its effects don't end there, contributes to erosion of landscape and buildings, monuments, is a component of acid rain, accelerates rusting and corrosion of metals, is known to cause electrical failures and it has even been found in excised tumors of terminal patients. Yet the government and the disease centres do nothing, while this contamination reaches epidemic proportions. It is found in our air, soils, plants and animals ...

The above is a mostly well known play on words and a excellent case study on manipulation of information to suit your purposes. Dihydrogen Monoxide, is water.

I am finding more and more an attitude that makes me want to slap people, supposedly intelligent people, falling hook, line and sinker for these factual fallacies. In the case of Salmonella and pet turtles ... when you only talk a quarter of the facts, when you only read a quarter of the facts ... you are only a quarter informed, that means ... shhh, you don't know what you are talking about and are perpetuating myths and participating, in this case, in scare tactics. To repeat the words of others without fully understanding the whole topic is lazy, pure and simple. Mankind as a whole needs to learn how to think critically, have a little scepticism that encourages you to learn more.

This article is an attempt to bring some realistic truth and fact to this dangerous myth that reptiles cause salmonella, merely by touching them or a spot they touched. This is an attempt to educate, inform and maybe change a few perspectives.

Salmonella is a rod - shaped, oxygen dependant bacteria that inhabits the intestinal tracts of as many as 90 percent of reptiles. It is also found on raw chicken and sometimes beef or pork, in unpasteurized dairy products, eggs are another common food that if not cooked right will give you salmonellosis, even home made foods like Hollandaise sauce, mayonnaise, ice cream, cookie dough and salad dressings put you at risk for salmonellosis if the food and its preparation is not performed hygienically. It is also found in a wide variety of mammals droppings such as cats, dogs, sheep and cows (bigger hershey kisses), chicken, wild turkey and most wild birds were found to have salmonella in their droppings as well. There are roughly 2000 subtypes of salmonella. Some even live in the soil.

Symptoms include fever, chills, sudden onset of headache, stomach cramps, diarrhea, Nausea and sometimes vomiting. These will last anywhere from 3-10 days, with 4-7 being more commonly given. If your infected, fear not, you will join the ranks of the walking dead, responsible for your entire family, friends and neighbourhood have belly hurting toilet runs. Healthy people recover without medical assistance mostly or treatment. Young babies, kids, elderly and immune compromised may need medical assistance.

I found how to get salmonella rather interesting to be honest. The main chunk of ways to get salmonella all start with the same few words ..."Improper hand hygiene when you ..." and the other way I seen involved food either not properly handled nor cooked. I can't emphasis enough that to get salmonella, you have to put the source into your mouth (most common way), eyes or cuts. When it comes to reptiles, their source is, quite frankly, their lovely hershey kisses they leave us after we spoil them rotten with food. You can not get salmonella from a sneeze or cough, you must touch the source then smoke, lick your fingers, eat, rub your eyes ... all without proper hand hygiene.

You didn't think I was going to skip this part did you? This is the core of the problem with reptiles, improper hand hygiene. I will be the first to admit, I probably kissed my turtle a few times when I was 7 or 8 years old, not with permission mind you, nor did I always wash my hands before or after handling him or his tank. No, I have never had salmonella, and most turtle keepers I know, have never had it either.

It is really amazing, how many people really do not know how to properly wash their hands and how much they miss during a handwash, even one where they know they will tested afterwards. Want a scary fact? Doctors are the worst at washing their hands, nurses and most other health care workers are great, doctors not so much. Below is a short video clip on how to properly wash your hands. There are six steps

• Wet hands with warm water.
• Apply soap and lather good (the more bubbly the better).
• Rub hands together, ensuring to get the palms, thumbs, side of palm and inbetween fingers, feel free to curl your fingers and rub your nails lightly along your palm.
• Rinse the lather away.
• Dry hands with a clean dry paper towel (it shouldn't be soaking wet when your done).
• Then use the same paper towel to turn off the tap (its dirty!) and to open the door.

So we are back to the early 1970's and 1980's. These little quarter sized turtles became all the rage and pet stores were literally overflowing with them. They were selling like hot cakes, as were small tanks and dried fruit flies. Notice the lack of a filter. Any ways, parents took these green glassy eyed precious gems of life home and set up the small fish bowl sized tank in the kids room, their living rooms and no doubt dining rooms. These turtles were so captivating to some kids, they literally acted like a babysitter, much like Disney videos do, and kept the kids occupied.

Really who would have thought a unsupervised child would put a little green wiggling turtle into their mouth, maybe kiss the new pet like one would a dog. Kids care not for germs and dirt, thats the parents job, oh right, they weren't doing their job. Dinner time, quick hand wash and chow down. Clean that bowl was a new chore for lots of kids eager to go outside and play ... dump water in sink, rinse, and fill before putting turtle back, playtime .. yay!

Really need I go on about how the 'epidemic turtle salmonella scare of human history' happened. When it became knowledge that turtles were the sole and only cause of this epidemic, fear of the unknown took hold, the guilt that you as parents brought this disease into the house, caused many a difficult sleep I am sure. Particularly the set of parents responsible for the start of the scare. Mythology says that some parents let their children swim in non chlorinated water in an underground pool, in which turtles lived. Yeah, I hear your sighs too.

Who took the brunt of violent fury from those we call compassionate human beings, those small cute, glassy eyed, green shelled turtles who depended on you. Rather than educate the people about proper hand washing, the risks associated with reptiles in general, since they all carry salmonella, the governments and various agencies used peoples fear of the unknown to save the costs associated with educating them and chose to scare them so bad, the poor turtle would forever more be branded the most dangerous pet to even own. Why its even suggested to remove all reptiles and cages, disinfect everything before you bring a infant into the house. All of this was focused like a laser on turtles, lizards were ignored mostly, indeed, their popularity seems to have grown once the millions year old turtle was vilified.

Its a period of pet turtle history that is stomach turning for me, turtles by the masses were slaughtered, flushed, released into a non native environments (doing more damage than a few days of fanny issues). Do not think I am making light of this, nor am I blaming the parents or the governments and agencies, there were many factors that lead to this ... this modern day dark age.

In my research for this article opinion piece, I found many countries, on board, teaching the importance of hand washing, responsible pet ownership and providing accurate scientific based fact sheets. There was one country that was not on board, that still promoted the turtles as a biohazard of the early 1970's out to take out the world, their fact sheets were not strictly fact, dropping hints of death at the mere touch of a turtle. I am not saying ALL Americans believe that or are like that, just the information their innovative leaders of tomorrow still allow to be produced.

So I have to ask ... why are we still saying touching a turtle will give you salmonella, do not purchase as pets, do not touch or interact with, do not support them or organizations that support turtles, fear the shelled turtle and do all you can to eradicate this great risk to mankind.

Why is it, large dogs attack, maim and kill children, elderly and in general people daily ... yet there are no cries to slaughter the dogs, no instead people say "need more education for that dog owner, dog needs training, dog must have been abused" a thousand excuses for the cute and furry man's best friend, but when a shelled relic of the world crosses your path, you scream in fear and want it dead.

Wash your hands after handling turtles and turtle habitats, do not kiss or suckle on the turtle, try to not rub it across your eyes ... ensure its tank is set up properly with filtration, over filtration. The cleaner a turtles environment is, meaning the better cared for he is, the less likely he is to be intensely 'covered and dripping' in salmonella.

And please ...

Stop educating people when you don't know a damn thing about anything

*This article does not pertain to any hub previously written by any other hubber ... merely a reflection of personal experiences*