You are the one talking nonsense, the problems with incorrectly prepared chicken are well publicised but a medium rare burger should be a matter of personal choice. A patron is more likely to catch something from the chef not washing his hands properly than from a pink burger.

Not actually true. Please see my previous post, or check out the article below in wikipedia
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=e...=1#Food_safety

There's a pretty good answer on yahoo answers about it
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...5110542AAZQqND

or the E-coli section of the article below
http://www.bournemouth.gov.uk/busine...nformation.asp

or this one
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science...ay-researchers

or this one
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/View...?ArticleId=223

or the E-coli0157 bit of this one
http://www.tewkesbury.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=928

and wolverhampton council has some good info on it
http://www.wolverhampton.gov.uk/NR/r...D3/0/ecoli.pdf

OK smoking kills just about everyone who does it, makes the people around them sick and is still legal, so how many die from a pink burger...?

Sorry but smoking doesn't kill everyone who does it! As for how many die from eating a pink burger, not very many that I am aware of but then not many people eat uncooked burgers!

I would imagine a LOT of people do get sick from eating minced beef products that LOOK cooked, but are actually undercooked. They wouldn't all die though. In most cases we're talking about severe vomitting and diarhoeara (never have been able to spell that right!) which may last anything from a few hours to a few weeks and then in most cases goes away.

Most people wouldn't die of E-coli poisoning, a few might not even get sick, depending on the amount of E-coli they have contracted and their resistance levels.
There have been deaths though directly attributed to 'pink burgers', especially in the notorious "Jack in the box" case.

Not something I would want to suffer with if I could avoid it though.