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!