Tejay Greenwood

The Dirt Hypothesis Methodology

1. Do the geographical and industrial environment (more specifically the amount of dirt in
their environment) that someone lives in, have an effect on their immune system, and
therefore the rate at which they can contract diseases.
2. This is a larger phenomenon, as there have been studies and research in various areas
concerning this question. Recent studies and studies from years ago, such as Erika Von
Mutiuss study on asthma is the 1980s.
3. Dr. Knips hypothesis is that geography and history have an effect on how the immune
system builds and keeps disease at bay, tested with his living laboratory.
4. He connected tissue samples from children in Russia, Finland, Estonia, and
Petrozavodsk. So that he could test samples from poorer countries against those where
people do hysterical cleaning. Such as where Karelia was poorer and had more physical
activity.
5. I feel like Dr. Knip took all variable into consideration, but I could not recognize a
control group. While I did see how he got samples from various other environments, and
those could instead act as positive and negative controls, to make up for the lack of a
neutral control group.
6. The methods used for the asthma studies and the methods used for the type 1 diabetes are
similar, because they both consider smaller children instead of grown adults who have
lived in the environment much longer. The asthma research discusses a lot about the
parents and how they have an effect on their childs chances of having asthma, but not
about the parents themselves. However they are different because with the diabetes study
they talk more about the relationship between dirt and the disease.

7. I think that it would be appropriate to consider Dr. von Mutius work as a replicate of Dr.
Knips. I say this because their methods are so similar and their drive for the same
information is so intense that it much larger than a single phenomenon.
8. Yes, because the rise in type 1 diabetes cases, celiac disease, hay fever, and asthma is
being caused by the living standards.
9. I believe that all of the doctors were contributors and were all similar but also different I
definitely think that it affects how the doctors and the research were perceived. Some
better than others. I remember it saying that they were surprised by some of the doctors.
10. I think they could publish their work as it is. They put a lot of thought and effort into

theor work and have solid and honest data. I also believe that it be published now because
even if it cannot solve an immediate issue it still contributes a lot of sound information.