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Fear of Germs at Play in Society, Author Says

Posted on: Wednesday, 1 February 2006, 18:00 CST

By BILL RADFORD THE GAZETTE

LeAnna DeAngelo studies germs not through a microscope, but through the eyes of a psychologist.

And what she has seen is the persistent roles germs and the fear of contagion play in our lives and how the invisible world of germs causes many to forsake science and logic.

DeAngelo, 43, who is starting private practice as a wellness coach and psychotherapist in Monument after years in academia, is author of "Germs on Our Mind: The Psychology of Contagion." Her work as a research-health psychologist earned her a nomination for an Ig Nobel Award; the Ig Nobels seek to stimulate interest in science and medicine by honoring unusual and imaginative research.

She seized on the subject as a doctoral student seeking a theme for her dissertation and has been fascinated since.

"What really hooked me," she says, "was the idea that these tiny things have so much impact on our lives, that these unseen entities affect how we think and feel about other people."

Germs can be a source of prejudice.

In her book, she tells about shopping at a store in downtown Kansas City, Mo., as a young child and being warned by her father not to drink at a water fountain because blacks used it -- and black people had germs.

Disease also was at the core of Adolf Hitler's philosophy, which saw Jews as a major "contaminant."

"Since the beginning of time, it has been an issue that certain people are considered less clean, less healthy," she says. The French used to call syphilis "the Spanish disease"; the Spanish referred to it as "the French disease."

"I think it's still going on today, but on a much more subtle level," DeAngelo says. For example, research has shown that people appear to perceive attractive people as having less harmful or threatening germs than unattractive ones.

In her book, DeAngelo also:

Explores the idea that some germs may help keep people healthy and that an increasing lack of contact with dirt and germs may be to blame for a rise in allergies, especially asthma.

Discusses the role germs may play in triggering some mental illnesses. Some research, for example, has pointed to a viral cause for schizophrenia.

Examines fears of bioterrorism. Germ warfare is not new, DeAngelo notes: There are accounts of soldiers infecting Indians with small- pox-contaminated blankets during the colonization of North America.

Source: Gazette, The; Colorado Springs, Colo.

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