The CDC's salmonella outbreak page held its numbers from last week through Wednesday: 184 people sick across 31 states, 53 hospitalized, one death. Seventy-eight percent of those interviewed reported recent contact with backyard poultry. Twenty-five percent of the cases are children under five. [1]

The plain-English version: the same outbreak that sent eight epidemiology stories around the internet last week is still active going into the holiday weekend. The pediatric ratio is the part to remember — kids under five make up about 6% of the U.S. population but a quarter of the people in this outbreak, because they put hands in their mouths and they kiss birds. The death was in Missouri. Strains include Salmonella Enteritidis, Mbandaka, and Saintpaul. [1]

The paper's May 20 brief took the position that the denominator was the story; nothing in the CDC update since has changed that. Service guidance for a Memorial Day cookout where a backyard coop is part of the property: hands washed with soap after every bird contact, no chick-kissing, no coop shoes inside the kitchen, and the household's youngest kept away from the run entirely. The salmonella that lives on a clean-looking hen is the same salmonella the USDA grilling chart addresses with 165°F.

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago