GERM
00:00:09.040 – 00:00:10.160
My name is Germ.

WORM
00:00:11.800 – 00:00:13.480
I’m Worm.

GERM
00:00:13.480 – 00:00:26.880
Welcome to the Germ and Worm Travel health podcast episode 74: “Risk on the Road. How much is too much?” It’s a big planet. See it in Good Health.

I’m Dr. Paul Pottinger, also called Germ. I’m a professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington and Seattle.

WORM
00:00:28.000 – 00:00:36.080
I’m Dr. Chris Sanford, also known as Worm, Associate professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Global Health, also at the University of Washington.

GERM
00:00:36.080 – 00:01:46.199
Okay Chris, here we will answer so many questions. Let’s give it a try. Great ones coming to us today every single week.

Questions like what level of risk is acceptable to you and what should be acceptable for me? Okay, what is the latest hurdle to jump for getting my Covid shot? Are they really going to split up MMRV into four separate shots instead of one? And what lightweight items do you pack to bring you joy when you’re on the road? These questions and more.

Please contact us with your questions or suggestions for other topics for us to discuss. The best way to find us online germandworm.com there you’ll find a question submission portal and you can access all of our episodes. Go ahead and binge German Worm all day long. Finally, our medical disclaimer.

This podcast is designed to inform, inspire and entertain, but you should not use this podcast as clinical care before you travel. Please see a qualified healthcare professional for recommendations specific to you and to your itinerary.

We often get questions from our listeners who want to be able to reduce their risk of something bad happening when they travel internationally. I love that. But tell me your risk tolerance when you travel. What risks might you accept when you travel overseas?

WORM
00:01:47.240 – 00:05:09.270
Ooh, thank you for the question. First, let me point out that just because your doctor does it doesn’t mean it’s reasonable. In fact, let me give one or two disclaimers.

Risk is super central to the whole concept of what Paul and I do travel medicine. The whole idea idea of seeing someone like Paul or me before you go abroad is to bring the risk down of something bad happening while you travel.

But people have very different tolerances for risk. And what we do as docs is try to make you somewhat more similar to us. So some people are too cavalier.

They think it’s okay to ride a motorcycle after a few drinks. Some people are too cautious and they don’t want to leave their hotel room because they’re afraid something bad will happen.

And I think they’re being too too timid or too risk averse. So there’s A happy medium, but exactly where that happy medium is is not quantified.

It’s sort of up to the judgment and the gestalt and the spidey sense of the provider. So your risk tolerance may not be my risk tolerance, but I will share a few things that I have done and will continue to do and that I don’t do.

And then Paul, I’m curious to hear yours. So some things that I do that have some risk but I don’t think have undue risk.

I ride a lot of buses all over the world in Latin America, Asia and Africa and elsewhere. I fly on airlines, not just the US carriers but sometimes carriers in low income nations, the national airlines of low income nations.

I don’t tend to go on small airplanes, little Cessnas or something like that, but I do fly on the passenger jets pretty much regardless of country. I eat the local food, even if it’s strange, even if I’m not entirely sure what I’m eating. I talk with a lot of strangers.

I think that’s entirely reasonable.

One thing I do, and this is, I’m not sure if this is risk or just open mindedness, but often I’ll get a one way ticket to where I’m going if I don’t know exactly where I’m going or how long I’m going to be there. And I figure I’ll get a ticket home sometime in the future when it feels appropriate.

I will whitewater raft only with a helmet, only with a personal flotation device. And also I’ll camp, including rural areas, including the Amazon rainforest.

Now some things I don’t do because I think they’re unduly risky is I don’t swim in lakes in Africa due to, among other factors, factors the risk of schistosomiasis, also called bilharzia. I don’t ride on motorcycles anywhere, taxis, rentals, I just don’t do it.

I also don’t ride on other things that I think might tip and hurt me like all terrain vehicles. I don’t like riding bicycles unless there’s a dedicated bike lane. I think riding in a bicycle in a city can be dangerous.

The U.S. department of State has this very nice travel advisory system and as a rule I avoid level four countries. Those are the most dangerous places where there’s warfare or something else like that. I avoid raw food.

So even if I’m in France and there’s steak tartare said to be very good, no, I like stuff cooked and I don’t even eat cerviche. In Peru.

And then there’s just some activities that just seem not so dangerous, like the wingsuit, anything like that, or even hang gliding I give a bass to. So that’s my list of yes and no. But again, it may not be your list. But you asked.

And Paul, I’m curious if you have a similar list of things you do and then things that you think are just too dangerous to do.

GERM
00:05:09.430 – 00:06:37.450
Yeah, I was just glad to think about this. I don’t usually think about it ahead of time, but now I. Now I have to and have to share it with everybody here.

So my list is actually really similar to yours, Chris. Motorcycles? Never. And I would not ride them in the United States either. Drinking alcohol with strangers at a bar or a club. No, that is not my scene.

I never do financial deals, sign legal papers, buy property or other things. That’s me. I’m not looking to get rich on emeralds or something like this. I don’t do that.

I think if someone offers me a kinetic opportunity, swing off of a rope, anything that has human energy involved, I just follow my spidey sense. You mentioned, you know, wingsuiting. Yeah, I’m not a wingsuiter, I’m not a zorber, for example, but there might be something that I would do.

Bungee jumping off a bridge, I would do. So that’s just me. What about new sex partners? It doesn’t apply to me because I’m very happily married and monogamous and I’m all good.

I would say that what I recommend to my friends and patients is that if they do want to expand their sexual network when they travel, that can be done very, very safely. It’s a bit different than it was even five, 10 years ago.

That’s something that I really am eager for people to talk with their healthcare providers about. Doesn’t relate to me, but it is something that I think people should be clear about. I want to finish, though, by talking about the raw food. Yeah.

Hell yeah. I love me a good raw food. Steak tartare in France.

That can give you a bad infection. Protozoan infection called toxoplasmosis. I’m willing to take that chance.

The ceviche in Peru can give you a wicked bad infection called gnathostomiasis, which is a parasitic infection worm that crawls up under your skin. Man, I love ceviche. So I’ve had that before. That’s something that I’m willing to do.

So I guess there’s an example where I’M thinking about the infection that could be there. It’s a reputable place, nice restaurant.

I’m going to get into the cuisine, even if it’s something I. I’m not totally sure is going to be totally safe.

WORM
00:07:09.190 – 00:07:19.070
You know, now that you mention it, I have to confess, I don’t eat the foods I mentioned. I love sushi, which is raw, and so maybe my whole raw food thing is only a partial inclination.

GERM
00:07:19.070 – 00:07:38.190
I always tell people, if you’re going to a reputable place, I truly think that for most people, sushi is, (first of all, it’s my favorite cuisine).

Second of all, I think they’re so meticulous in the way that they prepare the food that it’s actually lower risk than, well, I’d rather have that than something from under the sneeze guard at a all you can eat buffet. Put it that way.

WORM
00:07:39.390 – 00:08:02.960
Yeah, I’m with you on that.

All right, Paul, this is for you. I am totally confused about COVID vaccine.

Am I correct to understand that now anyone can get a Covid shot, first you need to have a prescription from your doctor.

GERM
00:08:03.040 – 00:11:24.160
Yeah. So the hellscape that is chaos and confusion of 2025, public health and otherwise. The story continues.

We’re recording this conversation October 8, 2025. As of yesterday, October 7, we had this amazing report from our public servants, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, announcing that they had officially recommended updated coronavirus vac vaccines, creating a new system to get the shot that is indeed more complicated than it has been before.

What this new system says is that anyone in the United States who is age appropriate can get their Covid shot, but first they should talk with their doctor. Dramatic pause inserted here. I’m just. I’m letting that sink in. So just let that sink in for a moment.

You can get a shot, but first you should talk to your doctor about it. Hey, folks, when’s the last time you.

You did anything, Received a pill, a vaccine, had a procedure done on your human flesh where you didn’t first talk to a healthcare professional about this? The reason this drives me crazy is that, number one, of course Covid vaccines are safe, effective. They’ve saved many lives.

We’ve talked about this many times here on the podcast. There’s some sort of a dark mythology that people are being held down and getting jabs in their shoulder against their will.

I mean, we would never immunize anybody against their will. That’s not the American way. And so obviously, at some point, everybody in America will have talked to their.

Their doctor about this or some other trusted health source to decide if it’s right for them. We always do that.

And so on the one hand, this feels like a big fat nothing burger and I’m grateful that they’ve taken away some of those barriers that were threatened from before. On the other hand, what the actual hell do they expect you to do if you want to get your Covid shot?

Are you supposed to make a doctor’s appointment first just for that purpose? We are living in a society that is dramatically underserved. We have way too few medical doctors.

When’s the last time you tried to get visit in with your primary care doctor? Heaven forbid, your own doctor, much less an urgent care person or a specialist.

So this is another barrier and how they’re actually going to adjudicate this. If you show up at a pharmacy to say, oh, I did discuss this with my doctor.

I mean, the way I’m reading this right now, anybody should be able to walk into any pharmacy and say, give me my damn Covid shot. And if they say did you talk to your doctor? You should be able to say yes. It’s none of their effing business whether you actually did so or not.

And you do not require a prescription to do so. At least that’s my understanding as I read through these many stories that are here online. It’s really quite outrageous.

Here’s a good quote I like from our society president, Dr. Tina Tan, president of the ID Society of America. The claim that past recommendations deterred healthcare professionals from talking to their patients about risks is completely untrue.

It is yet another example of the misinformation and made up information that is this administration’s continues to release to the public and further creates confusion and distrust in healthcare providers and vaccines. Dr. Tina Tan she’s exactly correct. Drives me crazy.

Please everybody, in spite of whatever you hear from Atlanta, D.C. or the White House or whatever other colored house, go get your Covid shots. You know that this is safe and effective for you.

And if you do have questions, if you actually are unsure, then absolutely, of course, talk with your physician. That’s exactly the right thing to do, as it always has been.

WORM
00:11:25.840 – 00:11:42.560
Yeah, and fortunately, increasingly these are available at pharmacies. And just FYI, the stuff they have at pharmacies is fully as good and equivalent to the stuff you’re going to get at your doctor’s office.

So as to which is better, well, the place that’s better is where you can get in and get an appointment and get it.

GERM
00:11:50.070 – 00:11:57.910
Hey Chris, I like this one. A lot from Anonymous what packing tips and what lightweight items bring you joy when you travel internationally?

WORM
00:11:58.710 – 00:13:30.330
Ooh, thank you Anonymous. Many things bring me joy, some of which I pack along with me.

First, let me share a very wonky formula that I made up because I’m an academic and academics make up formulas when you don’t need them. I’ve created a formula for priority for packing and this is both for medical items and for things that bring you joy.

And the formula is P equals U divided by wv, which means priority equals utility divided by weight times volume. So something is very useful and light. It gets a good number. If something is heavy and you don’t use it, it gets a very bad number.

And I haven’t worked out the units on this yet. Three things that are all lightweight that I just love that I don’t travel without.

One is a pair of neoprene strap for my glasses that holds them on both for glasses and sunglasses.

So I would have been very bummed recently when I went whitewash rafting on the salmon in Idaho if my expensive sunglasses would have fallen into the water. So I kept that neoprene thing. One brand name is Croakies on for the whole trip. Another thing that I like is instant coffee.

Starbucks makes a nice brand. They little via packets within the world of instant it’s about as good as you get.

And one more thing and this ties into sleep is I find that wax earplugs work better than foam earplugs. I’m a light sleeper but I find that things can be moderately noisy and I still still get a good night’s sleep if I have wax earplugs.

So those, those are three things that weigh almost nothing that I always travel with.

GERM
00:13:31.610 – 00:14:10.690
I’ve learned a ton here. This idea of the wax ear plugin. Thought about that since I was a kid with tubes in my ears. I need to look into that. That’s a great, great tip Chris.

My list is very similar to yours. Honestly, I was thinking about this as well. I love the instant coffee too.

Sometimes it’s just what I want in my hotel room or the place where I’m staying. The Starbucks via is one to me it’s too bitter. So I like the Trader Joe’s premixed has a little bit of powdered milk and sugar in there as well.

I definitely am someone who loves the noise blocking earbuds just for the plane and then for sleep. Yeah I use the blue colored or the softest foam. I gotta look into the ear plaques made of wax. That’s pretty good. Yeah.

WORM
00:14:10.690 – 00:14:12.250
Do a little contrast and compare.

GERM
00:14:12.650 – 00:15:32.290
Yeah, I often have enough wax in my ears already, but maybe this will be okay. Mix with my natural wax. I also bring melatonin with me because I want something to help me do that. Jet lag recovery.

I’ll bring my favorite bug spray. You can get bug spray where you go. I like the one that I like. I’ll bring my favorite sunscreen as well.

For me, on the weight versus benefit calculation, I don’t know where it comes out. But photography, I’m really getting into photography. And so I do have a big, fat, heavy black camera that I’ve gotten into recently. Not convenient. It’s a pain. And the photographs look amazing. So for me, that’s my luxury item that I have been getting into recently as well. The cameras and phones are so good. A lot of people can get away without it, but that’s something I’ve been investing in.

And then definitely books and shows on my phone.

I think the biggest thing I do that brings me joy, since this person was asking, I’ll do a curated photo album on the phone of the family, you know, so I can see if I’m having trouble falling asleep. I can watch a slideshow of the family go by. It also was a great way to, you know, to make friends with people in new places.

You can show a photo family album, and that’s a great way to break the ice. And, well, I think kids, that’s always a something that reaches across language barriers and cultural chasms.

And that’s something that’s fun for me to carry, and it weighs nothing, you.

WORM
00:15:32.290 – 00:16:04.870
And that’s a great way just to make small talk, because around the world, the first thing people want to know about you is, are you married? How many children do you have? That’s sort of a universal language. Even if you don’t share a language. If they show you photos of their kids and you of yours, then little closer.

And this next question, Paul, is for you. We’re planning to live in Kenya for two years and we have a newborn. We want to protect against all the infections that we can. There’s a vaccine called proquad that we want to use, but it looks like this may be going away.

GERM
00:16:05.270 – 00:19:51.740
Yeah, what a great question. So, first of all, that sounds exciting to live in. Kenya is one of my favorite countries. I love it there. I’ve been fortunate to visit a few times.

I hope you have a great experience, whatever the rationale for the trip is, and wonderful to bring the kid along with you. So thanks for asking about ways to keep the kid and the whole family safe during the trip. You asked about Pro Quad. What is Pro Quad?

ProQuad is a wonderful vaccine and it’s a way to protect the recipient against measles, mumps, rubella and varicella. Almost sounds like a name of a law firm or something. Measles, mumps, rubella, varicella.

And so this is these are all bad infections and they can can all be prevented with a single shot called Pro Quad Quad, meaning four. So it’s a four valent vaccine.

The way this is given here in the United States is it’s given to kids aged 12 months to 12 years and it’s a two dose schedule. So the first dose is usually given between age of 12 and 15 months.

The second dose is usually given at age 4 to 6 years, although you can give that second dose earlier if necessary, as long as it’s been at least three months since the first dose. That might actually apply to this family, depending on the age of the child, when they travel, etc.

So it’s a wonderful vaccine, it’s very effective and it is an important tool in the armamentarium. We got to this vaccine, of course, Chris, and you’re a family medicine doctor, so you know this better than I do.

But man, kids hate getting their shots and I don’t mean that to belittle the kids, it’s just that they’re little people, shots hurt and so this is a brilliant idea to try to protect against more infections with a smaller number of jabs, as they say in the uk shots, as we say in America. But that’s not the question. The question was are they going to take this away? And again, welcome back to the chaos and hellscape that is 2025.

So a bunch of people who do not know what they’re talking about but are at the moment in positions of authority at Food and Drug and Health and Human Services, they’ve threatened this idea that combination vaccines such as this, including MMRV and even MMR itself, should be split apart. There is no reason to do this. We got to this point of having three or four antigens in a single vaccine precisely because it’s better for kids.

It gets more done more quickly, it’s less painful for kids and therefore it really reduces the barrier to getting kids protected against these potentially devastating and in some cases not just inconvenient and not just miserable, but potentially life threatening infections. The idea that they would be split apart is crazy. It’s just crazy. There is no good reason to do it.

This comes again from the dark conspiracies of the halls of Maga and Maha and whatever you want to call the fascists who are currently making up these decisions. It’s idiotic, it’s inexcusable and for me personally, unforgivable. So I don’t know whether they’re going to try to go through with this.

First of all, nobody makes these vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella. You can’t get them in individually. There is an individual varicella vaccine which is a good one. So that’s already been calved off.

I love the idea of putting them together and the point here is that hopefully the industry will push back and say, hell no, we’re not going to do this. We’re not going to play this game. We’ve already made these vaccines. Can we please just continue to protect the world with what we’ve got?

Stay tuned–or not! Maybe don’t stay tuned.

If you want to know about this, talk with your pediatrician, with your family practitioner, your travel health specialist, because this is such an insane time. The fact that we’re even having this conversation is inexcusable.

I don’t know what to say except there is no reason to do this and I’m very hopeful that we will be able to stick with what we currently have. Chris, what’s your thought as a family physician?

WORM
00:19:51.900 – 00:21:07.960
Yeah, I fully agree. And this actually ties into travel vaccines for both children and adults.

Sometimes I’ll recommend several and a common response is hey, I’d I don’t want to overwhelm my immune system. But there is no evidence that receiving several vaccines on the same day will in any way overwhelm your immune system.

You can receive 5, 6, 7 on the same day. And when we study antibody levels, which is the response to a vaccine, they’re all just as good as if we would have given the vaccines one at a time.

It’s been looked at. And when people try to split up their vaccines and just get one per visit, what this leads to is a lower compliance rate.

So people intend to come back several times, but they don’t and then they’re under vaccinated and sometimes they then get sick from vaccine preventable illnesses. So again, your immune system is very robust and can deal with a huge number of different antigens or shaped molecules.

And giving several vaccines at once has the benefit that, you know it’s done. Compliance is a done deal. And so to split it up is not supported by research. The idea that you’re overwhelming the system or doing something bad.

There’s zero evidence, zero studies that show that. So this is just. I agree with you Paul. A kooky idea is getting in the way of health in the country.

GERM
00:21:08.120 – 00:21:29.710
Stay tuned to Germ and Worm.

Hey Chris, a question to you on a happy topic from Anonymous. German Worm seem to like hiring local guides and I do too. But should I always follow the local guides advice?

WORM
00:21:30.030 – 00:23:43.720
Oh, thank you for the question first, you’re right, I love hiring guides. I almost always do. And 98% of them approximately are good and helpful and enhance my touristic experience.

And in terms of following their advice, I think that unless your horse sense tells you not to, I tend to. I don’t see a lot of reason they would tell me to do something that wasn’t in my best interest. And I’ll give you a particular anecdote.

I was camping in Namibia at Sossofly, which are these huge sand dunes at the southern part of the country. These sand dunes are like as much as 900ft high, said by some to be the highest sand dunes in the world.

So I was just with a small group, one guide and there were two other turtles besides me. And at dusk I threw my sleeping bag out on the sand because there was nothing within sight, no animals, no plants, just sand dunes.

And the guide goes, maybe not. Maybe don’t put it there, maybe put it in the tent or on top of the van. And I said why? And he said it could be creepy crawlies.

And I didn’t see any creepy crawlies, but I figured he would know. And so I slept on the roof of the van and my evening was very uneventful.

When I got home, I went to Google and I put in camping, sleeping outdoors, Salsa fly. And I found some reports of hyenas biting people sleeping outdoors on their faces as they slept.

So obviously I was very glad that I followed my guide’s advice. So as a general rule, yeah, follow your guide’s advice. If the guide says don’t step there, I don’t really need to know why I don’t step there.

Now there’s exceptions. In fact, I was just talking about this very topic on my recent river trip on the Salmon in Idaho.

And two people brought up examples of where they were kind of sorry they followed their guide’s advice.

And one was a case of where someone didn’t recommend they take enough water in the Grand Canyon on a hot day, and another was a scuba trip when they came up at the wrong place and the guy didn’t even get their tank filled all the way. So it’s not perfect.

But as a general rule, yeah, if you’ve hired a guide and they give you health advice or other advice, I think they’re generally on your side. So anyway, A, hire a guide and B, unless you have some visceral sense that it’s a bad idea, I tend to do what they recommend.

GERM
00:23:44.280 – 00:24:29.920
I think it’s all about choosing the right guide right into how are they recommended to you? What’s that relationship like? This should be a sacred bond. And you’re talking to me.

I’m here alive today because I have followed to the letter the recommendations of my guides on multiple high altitude mountaineering expeditions. I mean, that’s why I hire the best guides, so that they can tell me how to stay alive. And that’s always served me well.

But that’s because I’ve been able and fortunate, able and smart enough to hire the right guides. And I think if the guide asks you to do something that you don’t feel comfortable with because it feels too risky, well, have that conversation.

Don’t just blindly follow them. The reverse is true. And Chris, your face is looking good. I’m glad you didn’t get nipped in the nose by a hyena. That’s not a good look at all.

WORM
00:24:30.080 – 00:25:26.800
I’ve even had good luck though, with random guys who’ve approached me. I was in Shanghai a few years ago and this elderly man, he was about 80, said, hey, do you want a tour of Shanghai on foot? And I said, sure.

And we came to a price. I think it was $10 for an hour. And he walked me around for about 20, 30 minutes and it was interesting. And he showed me some banks on the Bund.

And then he said, oh, do you feel like a rest? And I said, what do you think? And he said, good idea. So we sat down on a bench, but then we had a lovely talk for half an hour.

And he me told, told me about his family and the Cultural Revolution and his children. And it really was one of the best times I had on that entire trip. And that’s a story of where things didn’t work out like I thought they would.

So again, I have tremendously more good anecdotes than bad about hiring guides all over the world.

Okay, Paul, this next is for you. And this is from Veronica. What do I need to know about a disease and a vaccine for that disease before I agree to get the vaccine?

GERM
00:25:27.270 – 00:28:04.750
I mean, this is a great question, right?

Just A few questions ago we were talking about that importance of shared decision making and talking to a qualified healthcare professional before you let them prescribe you something or recommend you get jabbed in the shoulder with something. So this is great, Veronica. I love it. The reality is there’s all kinds of things you could find out about.

Before you agree to undergo an immunization, you should know what the disease is like, what are you being immunized against? What are the symptoms of that disease? How is it spread from person to person, from the environment or both. And how dangerous is that condition?

Is it something that’s going to make you miserable? Is it something that could kill you? Is it something in between those two?

If you were to get this infection either without or in spite of the vaccine, is it potentially treatable? What does it look like to have this illness?

Obviously with respect to the vaccine, you want to know how effective it is either in totally preventing the transmission of that infection or in what it’s going to do for your benefit. Will it just simply reduce the severity of the illness?

Are you likely to still maybe get that infection but have fewer sequels from it, like reduction in risk of long Covid? In the case of the COVID vaccine, you should know about that. And of course you want to know what the side effects are going to be.

And that could vary from a sore injection site for a few days to a cytokine surge where you feel like you’ve got a so called flu for a day. Something like this. Obviously the financial side is important. We do live well, at least as of last time I looked.

We lived in a country where basically anyone can get a vaccine. Part of the routine schedule of vaccines. Americans should be able to receive them regardless of their income.

That’s been a core foundation in which is a source of immunizations for roughly half of Americans who are getting these shots as part of the routine schedule recommended by ACIP free of charge to them. But that’s not true for all vaccines. Some vaccines are more exotic, especially when it comes to travel.

There may be a substantial price tag attached to that. You need to know what that looks like ahead of time.

Obviously you really want to have faith in the manufacturer of that vaccine and in the person you’re talking to. Is this someone who you trust? Someone who is qualified to give you the advice that they are?

So doing a chatbot on AI may or may not know what the F it’s talking about? If it’s a board certified physician, yeah, you’re probably barking up the correct tree. So I appreciate this a lot. I do not.

As an infectious disease doctor, I do not expect my patients to simply take what I say with a without questioning it. I welcome those questions.

And if you have someone who’s not willing to have those conversations, please persist because you deserve to have the information you need before you make that choice.

WORM
00:28:04.830 – 00:28:39.240
And I would make a point of getting curated data. All information is not equally valuable. A good source, as Paul said, is your doctor.

Another good source would be a professional society of doctors such as aafp, American Academy of Family Physicians or Paul Society, idsa, Infectious Disease Society of America. But if you see a YouTube or Instagram post by a movie star who gives an anecdote about a vaccine, I wouldn’t make decisions based on that.

There’s a lot of kooky stuff out there on vaccines. So I would go to a site which is high grade and curated.

GERM
00:28:41.320 – 00:29:01.160
Chris, this is a question to you from me.

It’s along the same lines considering the healthscape that we currently live in and the political climate here in the United States where we live, the impact of US Foreign policy on other countries, should our listeners avoid international travel? Because everyone hates our dirty rotten guts as Americans.

WORM
00:29:03.240 – 00:30:11.000
You know, I have had some anxiety about this because our current administration is making decisions. It’s impacting people all over the world. And I’ve traveled a lot recently. I haven’t slowed down.

So in the last year or two, I’ve been to Vietnam and Slovenia and Morocco and Turkey and elsewhere. And what I’m finding is that people are not making me the whipping boy for American policy.

People are able to separate the American government from tourists.

And in fact, I think there’s some value in tourists going abroad because you show that there are, assuming you’re a reasonable person, that there are reasonable people. And not everyone toes the line with the current administration. So I think people are still friendly.

I have not had people, people get mad at me because of U. S. Government decisions. People have commiserated, they’ve told similar tales of where they have had suboptimal governments. And so the commiseration is nice.

But I would say no, don’t slow down. No one is blaming you. In my experience, no one’s going to get mad at you.

And it’s nice just to see that people can still have reasonable talks despite tensions at the diplomatic level.

GERM
00:30:11.490 – 00:30:46.620
I think that’s right. I mean, I personally make it clear within about 3 nanoseconds of meeting anybody that I hate Donald Trump. And I, you know, I’m not with him right.

So that’s just my own ethos because I’m so worried about this. The perception that we have. I think the way that we travel as Americans is as important as the fact that we are Americans. Put it to the other way.

What about the reverse? What if you met someone here in the United States who was visiting from another country whose leader you think is odious?

You wouldn’t hate that person. You might even want to chat them up about that situation. We should be willing and ready to do the same when we are a guest in someone else’s country.

WORM
00:30:47.180 – 00:30:48.460
Yeah, agree fully.

GERM
00:30:48.620 – 00:31:27.440
Everyone, that’s a wrap for episode 74 of Germ and Worm. As always, we welcome your questions on travel Health.

Please be in touch with us with questions or just recommendations. Something you want us to follow up on? Get us online germandworm.com that way you’ll be able to find a communication portal.

You can search prior episodes and binge our previous content to your heart’s content. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, follow us and rate us favorably on your device. That’s a free way to support this podcast. I’m Germ.

WORM
00:31:27.440 – 00:31:31.050
I’m Worm. It’s a big planet. See it in good health.

GERM
00:31:31.050 – 00:31:51.810
And we’ll see you next time.

This podcast is designed to inform, inspire, and entertain, but it does not establish a doctor patient relationship and therefore it should not replace your conversation with a qualified healthcare professional. Please see one before your next adventure.

The opinions in this podcast are Dr. Sanford’s and Dr. Pottinger’s alone and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the University of Washington or UW Medicine.