On Thu, 7 Apr 2005 18:18:16 +0100, Kay
wrote:


In article , MM
writes

Snipped

I absolutely agree with this. Today's townie kids' immune systems are
shot to pieces because the kids never get their peck of dirt while
growing up. When do you see kids playing outside in the fields
nowadays?

What fields? A side effect of the current policy of building on
'brownfield' sites is that informal play spaces in towns are scarce. OK,
there are well manicured parks - but few and far between. For the late
primary school age when independent outdoor play is important, parks are
often too far away, across too many main roads, and where is the
wilderness for imaginative play?

Everyone is scared of 'stranger danger'.

As a mother, what was more in my mind was the danger from main roads.
The volume of traffic has more than doubled since I was a kid.

That, too.


If they do go out
of doors away from the telly or computer game, they just ride their
bikes around. Where's the cowboys and injuns, the lying on the ground
playing fives, that kind of thing? Kids (and adults) have little
contact with the natural world, then suddenly, panic, as 'bird flu'
strikes.

I'm not sure any amount of contact with the natural world would make you
immune to bird flu...

But some/many will survive the pandemic if/when it arrives. People
always do. That's how we are here. Even the 1918 pandemic only killed
around 20 million people, which in a total world population of 1.8
billion at the time wasn't that significant. It couldn't have been,
since we are now at around 6 billion in less than a hundred years.
Therefore, some people's immune systems are far better at fighting off
infection than others, and I reckon a lot of the survivors have by
accident or design stressed their immune systems from a very early age
so that they were prepared when the biggie occurred.

MM