How dangerous are eggs really?

Something about the whole pasteurized eggs craze has always bothered. Pasteurized eggs are a such a poor substitute for the real thing. And if you want to be safe, you can’t have an omelette, or any other kind of eggs where yolk doesn’t fully coagulate. Conversely, the risk of eating raw eggs has always stricken me as really miniscule compared to other everyday risks such as driving. The fact alone that there’s so much media attention when there is a new case, tells you it probably doesn’t happen all that often.

I’ve long wondered how big of a problem it really is. Well, now I found some numbers (in Danish, concerning Denmark). According to the article, there were 215 cases, of which 12% related to eggs, which makes 26 egg-related cases. Out of a population of 5,430,984, that means .00047873% of the population suffered from egg-related salmonella. The year before, there were just 100 cases, making 12 egg-related cases (assuming the same ratio).