On an afternoon segment of show “Fox and Friends” Feb. 11, televison personality Pete Hegseth announced that he has not washed his hands in ten years.

The commentator proudly announced that he “innoculates [him]self” after explaining that “germs are not a real thing. I can’t see them. Therefore, they’re not real,” Hegseth said in the segment.

Co-hosts of the show expressed their confusion at the declaration and one emitted an audible groan, captured by the audio of the live show.

Scientists refute this strain of thought and maintain that just because things cannot be seen by the human eye does not mean that they are not real. In fact, there are several phenomena which we cannot see yet experience in our day to day lives, including the wind, gravity and oxygen.

Often times we recognize the things we can not see through their effects on things we can see – in the case of germs, we recognize them in the illnesses they cause.

The claim that germs are not real – which Hegseth continues to advocate, sending out a flurry of tweets with the hashtag “#Dontwash”  shortly after the segment aired – places him in the camp of germ-theory denialists, a group denying the existence of microorganisms as cause of disease and popularizing an “alt-med” belief .

Those committed to the theories of alternative medicine tend to prefer natural therapies over prescribed medicines, including osteopath, herbal medicine, massage, acupuncture, homeopath and chiropractic.

Many people use these treatments to supplement – rather than substitute – modern medicine. Yet, as national politics become increasingly polarized, the effects are beginning to show on healthcare and the distribution of medicine.

As William Jewell College’s own professor of microbiology, Dr. Lilah Rahn-Lee, explains, society could face serious consequences if large numbers of people refuse to accept the principles of modern medicine and the existence of germs.

“Bacteria don’t care about us, they’re going to be there whether we think about them or not. Your life is shaped by germs and bacteria whether you want to think about it that way or not,” said Rahn-Lee. “You’re probably going to have a better and more productive way of thinking about and interacting with the world if you choose to accept this evidence.”

Rahn-Lee has office hours Tuesday 10:00-11:30 a.m. and Thursday 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. in White Science room 139 and would be happy to answer questions about germs and show members of the Jewell community bacteria through a microscope.

As of 2016, approximately 4.2 million people were registered to vote in the state of Missouri. Of that, 10,000 appears to be a minor fraction. However, in the 2014 midterm elections – the most recent midterm election cycle in the U.S. – only 35.23 percent of enrolled voters in Missouri cast their ballot.

Based on these figures, the 10,000 voters who were sent incorrect information could make up close to one percent of the number of people expected to vote in Missouri.

Bozarth said that the incorrect information was due to a miscommunication between the party and its vendor, yet declined to explain who the vendor was or how the miscommunication occurred.

A photo of the mailer provided to the Star shows the words “urgent notice” in all capital letters displayed in a red bar across the top of the sheet. It also encourages voters to return their mail-in ballots immediately.

The mailer incorrectly states that mail-in ballots must be returned by five p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 30. However, ballots aren’t due until Nov. 6 – election day – and new requests for mail-in ballots were processed until Wednesday, Oct. 31.

Mailer sent to Missouri voters.

Though it is impossible to know the impact these erroneous mailers will have, voters who received mailers and falsely believe that the deadline to cast an absentee ballot has passed could miss out on voting altogether. Alternatively, recipients who were still deciding who to vote for could have cast their ballots in haste.

The mailers were delivered to likely Republican voters as a part of the party’s get-out-the-vote effort, a campaign goal to motivate individuals to participate in this year’s midterm elections.

When asked if he was concerned some voters might not vote as a result of the misleading mailers, Bozarth said he was “very confident in the Missouri Republican Party’s get-out-the-vote effort,” reported the Star.

Bozarth said that the party made Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office aware of the error. No statement has been made by Ashcroft’s office and, aside from the article in the Star, neither the Missouri Republican party nor Bozarth has released a public comment on the mistake.

Photo courtesy of Jessica McGowan/Getty Images.