Page 13 - IAV Digital Magazine #468

Fox News Host Pete Hegseth Says He Has Not Washed H i s H a n d s I n 1 0 y r s . ” G e r ms A r e N o t A R e a l T h i n g ”
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
By Katherine Hignett
To the chagrin of his co-hosts, Fox and Friends pre- senter Pete Hegseth told the show’s audience Sunday morning that he hasn’t washed his hands in a decade.
The revelation came after co- hosts Ed Henry and Jedediah Bila questioned Hegseth’s off- camera consump- tion of pizza left out after National Pizza
Day Saturday. Hegseth had argued that pizza “lasts for a long time.”
Bila then quipped Hegseth "might take a chomp out of" anything on a table "that's not nailed down"— including mugs.
“My 2019 resolu- tion 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,” Hegseth continued, prompting laugh- ter from his co- hosts.
“Someone help me,” Bila said. “Oh man.”
“I inoculate myself. Germs are not a real thing. I can’t see them. Therefore they’re not real,” Hegseth said.
“So you’re becoming immune to all of the bacteria,” Bila replied, rolling her eyes. “My dad has that theory too.”
Hegseth
later shared a Tweet in support of his unusual concept of health and hygiene with the hashtag “DontWash.”
But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that handwashing is a vital way to prevent the trans- mission of dis- ease. By washing your hands— especially after using the bath- room—you pre- vent the spread of harmful bacteria like Salmonella a nd E.coli that can
persist in tiny, invisible particles of human feces.
It’s also important to wash your hands after han- dling raw meat, as this can harbor germs leftover from animal feces.
“A single gram of human feces— which is about the weight of a paper clip—can contain one trillion germs,” the CDC reports.
Handwashing education has measurable effects on dis- ease, with serious
impacts on colds and diarrhea— especially in chil- dren, the health agency reports.
“Regular hand- washing, particu- larly before and after certain activ- ities, is one of the best ways to remove germs, avoid getting sick, and prevent the spread of germs to others,” the CDC advises. “It’s quick, it’s simple, and it can keep us all from getting sick.”
Hegseth’s behav- ior may come as a shock to
noted Fox and
Friends fan Presi dent Donald Trump. The presi- dent told Howard Stern back in 1993 that he washed his hands “as many times as possible” every day, adding: “I like cleanliness. Cleanliness is a nice thing. Not only hands, body, everything.”
Hegseth later suggested he meant the com- ments as a joke in a Twitter thread.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine