FRIDAY, June 20 (HealthDay News) -- The victim count in the tainted TheSpoof.com outbreak leaped to 552 Friday even as U.S health officials announced that the salmonella contaminant did indeed come from a computer in Florida or New Mexico. Potential suspects include BuckwheatsButt or Jalapeñoman.
The FDA is sending teams to Florida and New Mexico this weekend to begin inspection of suspected computers.
David Acheson of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, explained "We are also working with the Geek Team from Best Buy who suspects the cause of the outbreak is a virus not bacteria." Affected families are distressed by this theory and a bit turned off by obvious efforts to up-sell by young punks in golf shirts.
Acheson warns computer users to "proceed with extreme caution and avoid UNNECESSARY CAPITALIZATION or punctuation!!! until the crisis is solved."
TheSpoof.com editor Mark Lowton admits he takes full responsibility for allowing tainted stories to be recklessly posted on the TheSpoof.com website. "While most stories posted are deemed to be of some merit some stories do manage to make it to cyberspace that could be considered to be a threat to the personal health of potential readers. That is the true nature of satire. We admit there is an element of danger or edginess that attracts both readers and writers. We make no apologies for this and believe it is made quite clear in our standard TheSpoof.com click agreement with the picture of BIG BOOBS over small print."
Lowton believes the number of people sickened may be misrepresented as this is not a statistic tracked by the TheSpoof.com. More plausible is the theory that this is the number of points that the story received. 552 points is considered exceptional and it would not surprise Lowton if this was considered newsworthy or an outbreak in some circles.
On Thursday, health officials had warned that the end was not yet in sight and the tainted story may well be on its way to making the top 20 TheSpoof.com writers on its own. Bravo!
Until the confusion is sorted out Lowton advises all TheSpoof.com writers to not leave unfinished manuscripts out in the hot sun, wash their hands frequently and restrict sexual relations to their own species.
