Microbiological Anomalies?: Some of our approaches to infectious disease might seem perplexing to a visitor from outer space

If a Martin or Venusian were to visit Earth, then he, she, or it might be puzzled by several aspects of our relationship with microorganisms. Not being familiar with viruses, bacteria, or microfungi back home, but being ferociously intelligent, he, she, or it might, for example, wonder why, decades after the discovery that touch was at least as important as the aerial route in the dissemination of respiratory pathogens, health education remains almost entirely based on coughing and sneezing. The alien might also be perplexed that a global information network, the World Wide Web, purveys accurate, credible advice about infections such as candidiasis and Lyme disease alongside—and with the same prominence as—nonsense.