But it does no harm to get a reminder that Natural Nature is not the reliable benign cuddly alternative to cold cruel chemical Science.
Nature impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, burns them to death, crushes them with stones like the first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations, & has hundreds of other hideous deaths in reserveJohn Stuart Mill on Nature
It is no laughing matter to the growers of Spanish cucumbers, whose business has been seriously damaged on what seems to have been not much more than a speculation. Another example of damage done by the precautionary principle.
I was startled to hear one news headline which suggested that most of those who have suffered were middle aged women. A later interview, with a man who sounded German & was clearly struggling a little with the translation, called them ‘women of the middle ages, that is 25 to 34.’
Hence the speculation that the source was likely to be salads.
But who would want to be a German public health official at this time.
