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Tue, 28 Jul 1998 16:39:13 -0500 |
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Hi folks -- here are a few points that I have picked up from various media
sources.
>Salmonella in eggs is actually quite rare. If you are deeply concerned,
>wash the eggs before you break them in soapy water.
I agree. I heard in a news story that salmonella is only found on the
outside of the egg -- wash it before you crack it, and you're OK.
>I'm inclined to think that today's human immune systems are hyper-sensitive
>to pathogens, much more so than they used to be, because of the numbers and
>types of broad-spectrum antibiotics we dose ourselves with at every sniffle
>and exposure. I don't recall salmonella being a big problem 30 years ago or
>so. People just got the "scoots" for a couple of days, or mild nausea. Now
>it's a big, major problem that rates air time on the news, and
>hospitalization. (Are they overreacting, or are we really sicker with it
>now??)
As I recall from a "60 Minutes" story some years ago, salmonella has become
a problem because the chickens are now processed by machines instead of
people. The mechanical arm that removes the birds' innards is less
dextrous than a human hand; it sometimes tears the guts and lets the
bacteria out. Then the birds are all risned and cooled in a big vat of
water, which allows the bacteria to spread through the whole batch. They
even quoted a scientist referring to the cooling water as "fecal soup." Yum!
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