A lot of things that are rare in the US, e.g. trichinosis, are still endemic in Europe. Something like > 50% of pigs in Eastern Europe are infected while there are < 20 human cases per year in the US because of better agricultural standards. Part of the reason you can eat a medium rare pork chop in the US and not die. I love bacon.
2021 data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control:
Bulgaria and Croatia had the highest rates of trichinellosis at 0.42 cases per 100,000 population, accounting for 58% of all cases reported in 2021. Taking those two countries gether and extrapolateing to whole US population of 3400 hundred thousand (340 million) would be 1428 cases - definitely much higher that <20, which would be something like 0.0002 per 100,000.
The total number of reported infections in 2021 was 79 cases for the whole European Union / European Economic Area was 79 cases for a total population of 4500 hundred thousand (450 million), an infection rate of 0.02 cases per 100,000.
Discounting the two worst countries would reduce the number to about 40 cases per 4500 hundred thousand population would bring the rate of infection to something like 0.008 - not entirely too far from the US.
Wut? Do people really do that? I would assume "medium rare" for a pork chop would mean that some of the meat would still be pink, and I personally would never even think of eating pork that wasn't cooked all the way through.
You know you're getting the meat from a specific farm with higher standards, and cooked by someone who is very aware and good at cooking it long enough to kill pathogens but still be pink. Sous vide or slow cooking are very popular here, since you can be very confident the internal temperature of the meat was high enough to kill any pathogens, but not high enough to brown the meat
I do that. Cook it to an internal temp of about 145 F (about 63 C). That's hot enough to kill Trichinella in an under a minute (as well as other pathogens), but the meat will still be pale pink and juicy. I've only done this with American supermarket pork though, so experiences may vary.
Try ordering a pork chop at a fancy steakhouse sometime. Pork in the US only needs to be cooked to 145F to be safe per USDA. Despite this, people would willingly destroy a high quality pork chop but not think twice about eating raw oysters or runny eggs, both of which are far more risky.
