I don’t know what to make of this WaPo article.  Beyond some bad editing — check out that crazy photo caption, and the shocker headline, “This Woman Might Die From Eating Cookie Dough,” — the story itself actually makes the point that I would like to make, namely: “Her case is unusual because E. coli O157:H7 tends to most seriously affect the very young and old. At 57, Linda Rivera is not part of either vulnerable group. Her situation is also unique for the number of major organs that have been injured. Her family and one of her physicians said she had no underlying health problems that would have exacerbated the infection.”

Her case is unusual.  But the message of the article seems to be that everyone should be very, very, very afraid of food-borne illness because they, too, could end up in a hospital bed for months like Linda Rivera.

I think Mrs. Rivera’s case is horrifying and I feel terrible for her and for the children weeping at her bedside at the story’s conclusion.  And I think that’s exactly what the WaPo was counting on when they sent a reporter to her hospital room to cover this — that they could splash it across the front page and get a lot of attention for it.  It certainly made me click, and now I’m sorry for it.

Tabloidy.  Gross.