PressEthic

In a New York Times article Sunday, Monica Davey explained the unfortunate illness that has affected some Americans as a result of consuming California-grown spinach contaminated with E. coli. She paints a harrowing portrait of a young child who, stricken with the sickness, asked his parents whether he was going to die.

There have been 171 cases reported, and the news media is treating this as a situation of epidemic proportions. However, of the 171 reported cases, Davey explains that only 16% (thats about 27 people, total) "developed the dangerous hemolytic uremic syndrome." This hardly constitutes a pandemic, but as is so prevalent in the news media today, fear sells. In an attempt to appeal to the emotions of her audience, Davey asserts:

But beyond the raw statistics were individual stories of a sudden, mysterious, life-threatening illness, one that struck most often in the homes of those who viewed themselves as more health conscious than many other Americans...

And around the country, some families still wait by bedsides, wondering which foods they could ever again feel safe giving their children, what the government or the spinach industry could have done to protect them, and, most of all, whether their loved ones will ever fully recover.

'Here you think you’re feeding your child a great, healthy meal,' Dennis Krause said sadly. 'But here I was, poisoning him.'

Unfortunate? Yes. Newsworthy? I would venture to say so. However, should Americans be made to fear feeding their children anything, in the event that it may prove fatal? This seems a bit ridiculous. Can't we just avoid spinach until the problem is resolved? Or rather, as this article implies, should we be afraid to eat anything at all, for fear that something in it might be contaminated that we, too, could potentially die from?

An article by Jesse McKinley in today's New York Times was also devoted to the E. coli-tainted spinach, however, it was more informative and less scary. In it, McKinley talked about the possible repercussions of the outbreak with regard to the agricultural industry as well as those it employs. This, it seems to me, offers the public with a better, more practical understanding of the problem, and one that is far less frightening.