How stunningly ignorant are Fox News hosts? Let’s see Pete Hegseth’s disgusting confession:
Following a commercial break, Fox & Friends co-host Jedediah Bila revealed that Hegseth had been munching on day-old pizza that was left on the set.
Pizza Hut lasts for a long time,Hegseth replied, defending himself.My 2019 resolution is to say things on air that I say off air. I don’t think I’ve washed my hands for 10 years. Really, I don’t really wash my hands ever.
I inoculate myself,he continued.Germs are not a real thing. I can’t see them. Therefore, they’re not real.Hegseth argued that his unsanitary habit leaves him immune to sickness.
Uh…say what?
I remember when my father came home, he had this can of gritty gray goop that was basically an industrial degreaser, and also a pumice stone, that he’d use to scrub the grime out of his hands. Maybe Hegseth’s problem is that he’s never really worked? (Also, the sharp, astringent smell of that stuff is one of the things I remember about my dad. I also know that it really bugged him that his hands were calloused and dark with hard work.)
As for the germs “not real” remark, when I was doing animal surgeries long ago, I learned how to do a thorough scrub — it mattered. The first time you have to scrub pus out of an incision on a kitten you learn to take sterile technique seriously.
Of course, you can see germs. All you need is a good microscope. One of the banes of my experiments with grasshopper embryos was that you really did require sterile technique to work with them, because there was so much yolky tastiness that bacteria would thrive on. I’d sterilize all the work surfaces with alcohol, I’d use sterile media, I would wipe down the microscope objectives with alcohol, and still when doing multi-hour observations I’d see the medium grow cloudy, I’d see the little nests of bacteria proliferate, I’d even watch grasshopper hemocytes dart in and phagocytize them. Germs are real.
It’s a routine experiment in microbiology classes to have students take swabs of various surfaces, including their hands, and then culture the results on a growth medium. It’s disgusting. Ask any microbiologist. I’ve been to conferences where you can spot the micro people: they’re the ones who wash their hands before they use the bathroom, and then wash them again when they leave.
I work with young people all the time — college students are not quite as bad as preschoolers, but you do get exposed to a lot of infectious agents. Years ago I found that I could reduce my frequency of illness by thoroughly scrubbing my hands first thing in the morning, and washing once again before I went home. It’s also routine before doing a lot of routine experiments: I scrub up before setting up fruit fly cultures, for instance, and I’ve noticed that my fly bottles have virtually no contamination compared to those of some of my students.
I do appreciate Hegseth confessing to how filthy and unsanitary he is. I guess I’ll have to refuse any requests to appear on Fox & Friends in the future.
