Are the Terrorists Shitting in Our Bagged Spinach?

Fun facts:

* People killed by eating E coli spinach since the first case was reported three weeks ago: 1

* People sickened by eating E coli spinach in the past three weeks: 90

* Average number of poeple sickened by spinach each day since the "outbreak" began: 3.9

* People in the US killed by heart disease today (which can be prevented by eating more spinach): 1,792

* People in the US killed by heart disease since the spinach outbreak started: 41,216

* Number of individual E. coli bacteria in the feces that one human passes in one day: between 100 billion and 10 trillion.

(Based on most recent CDC numbers from 2004. Actual number of heart disease deaths may be higher.)

Now, I love my bacon (I had four slices today at iHop - bacon was awful, but better than Quizno's), and I am hardly the healthiest eater in the world, but the crazy spinach-scare is ridiculous. I could write more about the evils of factory farming and cross-contamination from spreading untreated cow shit all over the food we grow , but why bother.