“Cucumbers are extremely poisonous. 99 percent of people who consumed cucumbers during their lives did not live to be 90 years old”(a very old anecdote). The anecdote seems ridiculous until the events described in it happen to you (from personal experience).
Traditionally, it was believed that food poisoning was mainly caused by poor quality milk, meat or eggs. We now know that this is not the case. The vast majority of poisoning is caused by vegetables and fruits. We simply heat-treat meat, milk and eggs. We eat greens raw.
Long way of "fresh" greens
The ways of the world economy are inscrutable. Judge for yourself: cucumbers and other vegetables grown in … Spain are imported to Russia (and not only to Russia, but also to Austria, Hungary, Luxembourg, and so on).
Let's say this is normal for Europe. They do not have enough land there, and therefore Spain, for example, specializes in garden products. And what are we? Is it possible that we don't have enough land, and have we completely forgotten how to grow cucumbers?
Okay, let's suppose that it is more profitable to transport vegetables across Europe than to plant them at home. In this case, you can amuse yourself with the hope that the product will have "European" quality. However, the pedantic Teutons, who also eat Spanish vegetables, declare: by the beginning of this summer, 16 people had already died from poisoning. And in addition to Germany, cases of the disease have been identified in Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
By the way, it's not a fact that the cucumbers are Spanish. It is possible that they come to Spain by sea from China, while preserving, with the help of various chemicals, a fresh, "from the garden" view. And what and how is grown in China - only the Chinese know. But this is so, by the way.
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The point is not even where the cucumbers come from, but that after their consumption the number of registered patients with severe symptoms (including bloody diarrhea) has already exceeded a thousand. And how many more deaths there will be is unknown. And even if the patient even manages to avoid a lethal outcome, he still has a "memory" of the poisoning - the disease complicates the kidneys.
Spain, for its part, accuses the Germans of profanation, swears that everything is okay with the cucumbers, and demands compensation for moral and material damage. (The scandal left more than 500 Spanish farmers jobless. The financial losses are already in the hundreds of millions of euros.)
Everything is calm in Russia
For our country, the forecast is still comforting. Western vegetables (even if they are carriers of viruses) practically do not reach the central part of Russia, and this, in this case, is great. The last large consignment of "live" products from Spain (via Germany) arrived in St. Petersburg in March, now it is June, therefore, this consignment has long been eaten - after all, they don't live so much (vegetables, in the sense).
Everything is complicated in the Kaliningrad region. There, food products from Denmark, Holland, and mainly from Poland are presented on the markets. Among them there may easily be a "Spanish woman".
True, since May 30, 2011, Rospotrebnadzor has suspended the import into the Russian Federation and circulation in the territory of our country of vegetables produced in the countries of the European Union until further notice. Perhaps this rather harsh measure will prevent mass poisoning of Russian citizens, unless, of course (we repeat), the trouble lies precisely in food.
By the way, from the point of view of botany, a cucumber is not a vegetable, but a fruit that we eat unripe.
Bacteria and big politics
After carefully examining the poisoned people, scientists experienced a real shock - deadly bacteria have never been encountered on our planet. Where did they come from?
So, there are several assumptions. First: bacteria are brought to us from space. True, it is difficult to even roughly guess how this happened. No microorganism can fly to Earth "on its own", it needs transport - a large meteorite. Information about the fall of meteorites on the territory of Europe has not yet been reported.
The second option is African refugees. Crowds of people fleeing local wars that have engulfed the entire north of Africa cross the Mediterranean Sea in all imaginable and inconceivable ways, legally and semi-legally infiltrate into Spain, Germany and other prosperous EU countries. It is impossible to examine everyone. Quarantines are rather arbitrary. What diseases, common on the African continent, but completely unknown to pampered Europeans, are emigrants carrying with them? Nobody knows that.
Another version: not everyone in Europe is satisfied with what is happening in Libya and other "hot" countries. How to distract people from protests and demonstrations? Give them your problems. Diarrhea - what else can make a person stay at home and not think about anything other than their health?
Diarrhea - Gaddafi's revenge
And "for a snack" another option is biological warfare. In Iraq, the Americans were looking for biological weapons and found none. Or maybe just Libya had it, and now - it went into action. even in an artisanal, not yet massive (and thank God) way.
Gaddafi, infuriated by NATO's attempts to deprive him of power, endless bombing strikes and the death of his loved ones, decided to take a desperate step. Dozens of his agents, disguised as refugees, cross European borders, carrying with them strains of deadly bacteria that have long been developed and grown, but never used. Gaddafi's people distribute them in markets, large supermarkets, airports and other crowded places. How many of these agents, how many biological weapons they have, is unknown. Time will tell.
Natalia Trubinovskaya