It kills everything

Even Superman mixes things up sometimes

I work with health care and have done so basically all of my career. One of the pillars of health care is clinical evidence based on medical science. Basically whenever a new treatment is proposed, it needs to prove itself through scientifically solid evidence that it is better or comparable to the currently available treatment (even if that is doing nothing). I'm inherently skeptical towards any "alternative" treatments like homeopathy, "healing" or prayers as no evidence up to date has shown any favorable outcomes and although the patients health might not negatively be impacted, someone is preying on the gullibility of the sick.

Generally my colleagues agree with me and are sensible in this, but I have often been engaged in discussion on the topic of using face masks to avoid getting a cold. The Japanese often use the masks in the belief that it actually helps in preventing getting a cold although no evidence exist that using the flimsy masks that the Japanese use actually improves the end-point here; getting a cold or not. Until there is any evidence I will continue to refuse to wear a mask.

Around a year ago one of my colleagues, Mr. Short, had purchased some form of "bacteria killer" device, I am unsure on exactly how it was supposed to function, but it was worn around the neck and supposedly would kill off bacteria in the general vicinity and thus protect the wearer from nasty bugs. This initiated some friendly discussion on whether it actually worked or not with me checking up on it on Internet and not finding any evidence apart from the manufacturer's own lab testing (which might or might not be correct, but it's all meaningless anyway unless it actually can prove to reduce the number of times the wearer gets sick). My colleague insisted that he thought it would work, but relented to the fact that he had no evidence to back him up.

The topic was forgotten about until last week, when he was suffering from a particularly nasty cold but still came into the office (wearing a mask, of course). This made me remember the anti-bacteria talisman thing from earlier. The conversation went something like this.
Mr. Salaryman: (genuinely curious) Oh yeah, what happened to that thing you wore around your neck, are you still using that? Wasn't that supposed to stop you from getting sick?
Mr. Short: (silent for a few seconds) ... no, I stopped wearing it...
Mr. Salaryman: (sending amusement) Oh really? How come?
Mr. Short: (embarrassed) Well, apparently it stopped selling it as it proved to be a little too efficient and could pose a danger to small children and you know that I have small kids, so...
Mr. Salaryman: (cannot refrain from rubbing it in) Huh? There you go, so I was right in the end, better to wait for some real evidence, huh?
Mr. Short: Yes, you were right, next time I'll wait for at least some evidence before getting a thing like that...

...I do however overuse nose-spray on occasion despite the overwhelming evidence that it's not good to do so...