Unwashed hands, bacteria-ridden underwear, un-pasteurised dairy products: apparently Germans are less hygiene conscious than you might think. We look at a damning new report by German health experts.

Germans may be widely regarded as clean and tidy people. But this stereotype has received a blow from health experts, who say that Germans are making themselves and others sick because they do not wash their hands or change their underwear often enough.

The shocking findings come amid statistics showing that less than half of all German children are inoculated against such common childhood diseases as whooping cough and measles. And a whopping 75 per cent of German children cannot swim well enough to save their lives in deep water.


Dangerously lax

"As a nation, we have become dangerously lax about the most fundamental behaviour concerning personal hygiene and health safety," according to the report by the German Hygiene Council compiled by eight leading health experts.

"On the contrary, it has become fashionable, even trendy to refuse to inoculate your children and to take the attitude that too much cleanliness is actually bad for you," says Dr Martin Exner, managing director of the Institute of Hygiene and Public Health at the University of Bonn.

"Environmental consciousness is partly to blame, I hate to say," says Exner, author of the report. "People think they are doing a favour for the environment by using the same tea towel or sponge for days or weeks on end rather than using paper towels or disposable implements. They think it is better for the environment if they don't bathe or do laundry as often."

Grubby Germans

The result is that Germans lead grubby lifestyles that would have made their grandparents cringe in horror.

"Kindergarten pupils are made to share forks and spoons and to use the same cloth hand towels in the misguided belief that paper towels and disposable cutlery are bad for the environment," Dr Exner says.

The study's findings show that over 10 per cent of all Germans do not bother to wash their hands after going to the toilet.

Over a quarter of all Germans, in the survey of 8,000 individuals, don't wash their hands before preparing meals that require handling raw meat and vegetables.

By comparison, percentages of people in Britain and America are far higher. And in Italy, the hand-washing percentage is 30 per cent higher than in Germany.

Hygiene backlash

"In Germany over the last generation, there has been a backlash against the stern old Prussian attitudes towards personal hygiene," Exner says when explaining why Germans have become so lax. "Youths in the 1960s and '70s rebelled against their strict parents, and they have passed along to their children their counter culture attitudes."

Part of that attitude is a fervent belief that chemicals and paper are bad for the environment. Even pasteurisation is frowned upon by some Germans.

"Some parents go so far as to give their children un-pasteurised dairy products, thinking that they are more 'natural' and therefore healthier," Exner says. "That's total rubbish, of course, and is very risky."

Coughs and sneezes spread diseases

Misunderstood environmentalism helps spread contagious disease, he claims.

"So as not to sully the environment with paper tissues, people will cup their hand over their mouth when sneezing, but then will not wash their hands before handling produce at the market or shaking hands with people," Exner says. "And if they use a handkerchief, they neglect to change it often and launder it properly."

To spare the environment, many Germans do their laundry with weak detergent, or no detergent at all, and at a low temperature.

"If you don't wash underclothes at a temperature of at least 60 degrees Celsius, you aren't killing bacteria. Washing towels and undies at 30 degrees is useless, especially if you don't use proper detergents."

Shocking results

Exner's research team at the University of Bonn conducted a year- long study at a respectable nursing home and the results were shocking.

"During the course of a year, 105 residents died. And our study proved that 25 per cent of the deaths were directly attributable to inadequate hygiene," Exner says. "And that was at a very well-run and quite well regarded nursing home with a good reputation. I shudder to think what conditions are like elsewhere."

There is also a growing belief in alternative medicine and a distrust of pharmaceuticals.

"Incredibly, there are even paediatricians who advise parents against inoculations for their children, saying that unvaccinated children are healthier because they develop a natural resistance to allergies and disease," Exner says.

Controversial

A leading voice in the campaign against vaccinating children is controversial paediatrician Dr Gabi Hoffbauer, who has written a best-selling book in which she argues that children who have been inoculated for mumps and other diseases show a higher incidence of diabetes, allergies and neurodermatitis.

Her book, "A Critical Look at Immunization," has sold a million copies in Germany.

For Exner, the opponents of immunization are turning back the hands of time to an age when contagion raged across Europe.

"Already, US health authorities have raised the red flag about Germans entering America," Exner notes.

"In America, diseases like German measles have been all but eradicated. They don't like to see unvaccinated Germans arriving on their soil. "After all, they don't call it German measles for nothing," Exner says.

15 August 2006

Copyright DPA with Expatica 2006

Subject: health in Germany, hygiene in Germany, environmentalism in Germ