I red decades ago that the immune system is like a muscle in that, without regular “exercise”, it atrophies. Farm kids were exposed to many more “exercises” than city kids and hence were more immune to hay fever or asthma. Don’t know if that is true but it seems to make some sense. At the age of 69 I have never had the flu, never had mumps, did have measles and chicken pox which were common in my childhood. I am a proponent of tried and true vaccines like polio and dpt but I have taken the flu vaccines once when we had a baby who was very vulnerable to respiratory infections. I am willing to trust my own immune system over this hastily-authorized treatment now pushed by government. If I am banned from any business or activity, so be it. I, and the business, will have to live with it.
I am a farm kid.
Had the flu once (H1N1, not a fan). Food poisoning a handful of times, all self inflicted. Bad allergies, but it was not an excuse to stay indoors and they have faded with age.
When I worked in pharma, we had a food safety class that talked about food poisoning. The lady was a Doc from Mexico, and asked “Who are the farm kids here?” As a group, we had very few memories of food poisoning. Her thesis was that if you grow up around animals you are exposed to EVERYTHING. And the weaker kids die.
You are right.
The immune system needs to chew on something to work properly.
Too clean an environment and it reverts to allergic responses.
In a study done some years ago, city kids had more allergies than country kids, who had more than farm kids.
Older ones in the family had more than the younger ones.
The kids with the most robust immune systems that worked properly were kids who had a high level of exposure to dirt and germs.