Howard Dean's Urine

On Peter Heck's web site I found the following Howard Dean quote:

"Now that we're on dog pee, we can have an interesting conversation about that. I do not recommend drinking urine, but if you drink water straight from the river, you have a greater chance of getting an infection than you do if you drink urine." ...teaching an eight-grade science class in La Crosse, Wisconsin

I know Mr Heck thought this was a pretty strange thing to say, (perhaps it is...) and that is why he posted it. However if I taught a biology class this is something that I would pass on to my students.

From our earliest days we are taught that our waste products are dirty. That's fine. However, as a medical technologist I can tell you that if you put a healthy person's urine on blood agar, no bacteria will grow. If you put tap water on blood agar, bacteria will grow. This means that in terms of what qualifies as "dirty," a healthy person's urine is cleaner than tap water... and much much cleaner than the water in Mexico (pronounced meh'-hee-ko).

Urinary tract infections (or UTI's as we say in Greentown) are usually caused by E. coli that originated in the bowel... and usually caused by fouling one's bed, or women wiping in the wrong direction. The urine is usually cloudy and has a terrible odor. However when some people eat asparagus, their urine has a similar odor to an infected specimen. So on your wedding day it might be best to pass on the asparagus. Certain odors have no business wafting through the honeymoon suite.

Of course waste from the other end (doo doo, ka ka, poo poo) is loaded with bacteria, and it's odor increases in direct proportion to protein intake. As Mr Kellogg (Anthony Hopkins), a vegetarian, says in The Road to Wellville... "My own stools, Sir, are gigantic and have no more odor than a hot biscuit. "

Well said.

I found a web site with a list of stupid Howard Dean Quotes. You'll find it here:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/stupidquotes/a/deanquotes.htm

Yes I know. But look at it this way: there's nowhere to go but up from here.