It seems this is the morning of bad science/everybody panic news. First we've got BoingBoing bitching about bacteriophage treatments of food to eliminate potential contamination with strains of E. Coli and Salmonella.

Intralytix also has two other applications waiting approval of the FDA to spray for E.Coli and Salmonella. Oh boy, can you imagine the cocktail we'll be eating? And if people start getting sick, the lovely pharmaceutical companies will gladly sell some miracle drug to treat it.

Then you've got CNN talking about the deadly, deadly E. Coli poisoning our spinach.

E. coli can cause diarrhea, death

E. coli causes diarrhea, often with bloody stools. Most healthy adults can recover completely within a week, although some people -- including the very young and old -- can develop a form of kidney failure that often leads to death.

Anyone who has gotten sick after eating raw packaged spinach should contact a doctor, officials said.

Other bagged vegetables, including prepackaged salads, apparently are not affected. In general, however, washing all bagged vegetables is recommended. Thorough cooking kills the bacterium.

Oy. I don't know where to begin. It's like these news stories you get every month about how some new thing has been tested for "bacterial contamination" and found to have more bacteria on it than a toilet seat (which tend to be the cleanest things in your house). Quick, is anyone in the room a microbiologist? No? Well, I'll have to do my best.

First of all, we are not sterile. We are dirty creatures covered with bacteria. We have bacteria growing on our skin, in our mouths, and throughout our GI tract. In addition we are full of other organisms, from the tiny arachnids that cover our skin to the trillions of viruses we hold in our gut, we are not, by any means, sterile. Yet there is this expectation in the news that we should be, or that bacteria and viruses of themselves are deadly. Sorry, but a bacteriophage that kills E. Coli and Salmonella will probably save lives, and do no harm to humans. But don't get me wrong, I'm not agreeing with CNN that E. Coli is a deadly evil bacteria (salmonella might be but not E. Coli). If that were true we'd all be dead from the amount of E. Coli we're all carrying around all the time.

There are many strains of E. Coli, most of them are harmless but one known as O157:H7 can be deadly because it carries a gene for a shiga-like toxin allowing it to directly attack the cells of the gut. While children are more likely to suffer from the illness it's actually worse when adults get it.

Uggh. Crap like this makes me tired all over. Pretty much everything in the CNN article is either wrong, exaggerated, or just not informative. Like telling people who have "gotten sick" after eating raw spinach should go see a doctor. Sick with what? A UTI? A fever? Maybe you should tell people instead that becomming ill with diarrhea after eating a suspected source of contaminated food are signs that you may have consumed the toxic form of E. Coli.

I would advise reading a good article on HUS rather than this CNN bullshit.