Nana, the thought is not too crazy.. There is precedent for this type of terrorist attack and bio-terror has been the focus by the CDC for some time now;
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2009/10/for-the-first-12/#.VmQ9LbgrLcc
Salmonella Bioterrorism: 25 Years Later
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the foodborne bioterrorism attack on The Dalles, Oregon by top followers of cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Far more people know about it now than did at the time.
Since envelopes of anthrax were sent to media outlets and the U.S. Senate, bioterrorism has received much more attention throughout the United States. And while the 2001 anthrax attack remains a mystery, everything was solved involving the 1984 Oregon outbreak of Salmonella enterica Typhimurium that sickened 751 people and sent 45 to hospitals.
It was the largest foodborne illness outbreak in the nation in 1984. Now there’s interest because the group involved cultured its own pathogen for terrorist purposes.
Jim Weaver was the local Congressman when people in The Dalles got sick. He’d rise on the floor of the U.S. House just four months later to charge the Rajneesh with sprinkling Salmonella on the salad bar ingredients in eight restaurants.
Rep. Weaver’s remarks ran counter to the CDC investigation, which blamed unsanitary food handlers for the outbreak. Writing recently in The Oregonian, Weaver recalled: “I received daily printouts from the CDC investigation that made it only too clear that it was virtually impossible for the food handlers to be the source. For example, in one restaurant, the same food handlers set up salad bars in a private banquet room and in the main public dining room.
“Dozens of salmonella cases issued from the salad bar in the public dining room; none from the salad bar in the private banquet room. Yet the health authorities remained unanimous in blaming flood handlers.”
The food handlers would have to wait a few more months to have their names cleared.
American Type Culture Collection in Seattle had sold the bacterium to the Rajneesh. Among the hands that sprinkled droplets of Salmonella from vials hidden under their red robes was that of Ma Anand Sheela, the Bhagwan’s top lieutenant.
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