Fassa first misrepresents the Pasteur model of disease. …Germ theory denialists …tend to assume that germ theory states that pathogenic microbes are 100% infectious and always cause disease. Consequently, when people are exposed to pathogenic microbes and don’t become ill, people like Fassa point to that as evidence that germ theory is invalid. …Even most teenagers can understand that catching an infectious disease is dependent not just on the microbe but each person’s resistance to that microbe.

…In many cases big pharma deserves a lot of mistrust; its record in many areas demands it. What distinguishes many of these germ theory denialists is that they take healthy skepticism and take it to a pathological extreme. They also seem to think that the reason that antibiotics ultimately fail is because germ theory is invalid, which reveals an incredible ignorance of how antibiotics work. … Bacteria are incredibly good at evolving under the selective pressure of antibiotics. That’s what creates superbugs, that and our tendency to overuse antibiotics.

…The condition of the body and a person’s immune system does matter. …Debilitated people do not resist the invasion of microorganisms as well as strong, healthy people.

…Although their rhetoric against vaccines is often cloaked in appeals to “strengthening the immune system” or similar words, much of it, when you strip away the obfuscation and come right down to it, often denies germ theory. Second, germ theory tells us that there are some things we cannot control, and alt-med is all about the illusion of control. Germs, after all, are scary. You can be perfectly healthy, and an infectious disease can strike you down–possibly even kill you–through no fault of your own. By denying that the germs are the cause of disease, germ theory denialists can tell themselves that if they just eat the right diet, do the right exercise regimen, take the right supplements, germs can’t hurt them. Righteous living triumphs!

Too bad the real world isn’t like that and infectious diseases can kill.

Gobsmacked by germ theory denialism. Again. | ScienceBlogs

sigh….