Ah. Excellent point. I read that too narrowly.

Not exactly.

A properly functioning crock pot will, in nearly all cases, cook food safely without pre-cooking the meat. The operating temp should be above 180F or so. As long as it comes up to heat quickly, and for the appropriate amount of time it's fine.

However, they sometimes don't or people don't check with a thermometer. Pre-cooking ensures safety.

Well, there is almost no literature about crock pots specifically. It really comes down to temperature and the fact that ground meat products tend to have higher and more dispersed bacterial loads. The thing is that there are quite a few variables to take into account when considering the safety of slow cooked foods: initial temperature, initial bacterial load, max temp, time to max temp, volume, type of bacteria, etc, etc. Generally you will be safe with a standard slow cooker recipe, but to ensure safety you need to cook the meat. (On a culinary note, I think pan searing meat can enhance flavor during subsequent cooking. This is just hearsay though...)

I have a degree in medical microbiology and a lot of experience in bacterial pathogenesis and ecology. So I base much of this off experience. However, I dug up a few things that may be useful. They are a bit dense though...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19722409
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22221355
http://bit.ly/zzS0uR
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21535695

Actually you really should. Internal temp for ground beef should be 165, but if you slowly heat it to temp over 10ish hours in a crock pot, it can be risky. It does, however depend on the temperature of your slow cooker.

If it is too low, all the bacteria will eventually be killed, but they will have had the chance to grow in a very cozy environment for a very long time. Some Ecoli and the related shigella (and many others) will be mass producing toxins that won't be denatured by the heat.

You won't likely get any infection, but shiga-toxin will fuck up your day pretty bad. It can even be fatal.

Chicken is less likely to cause distress as the primary infectious agent, salmonella, isn't nearly as toxigenic as beef bacteria. And, as with most whole cuts, the bacteria are on the outside.

That said, the number one source of bacterial infections in the summer in the US is from undercooked chicken due to the bacteria campylobacter.

bon appetit

Haha!

Oh, and I don't in any way condone drug use nor should this information be used in any way to evade drug tests and so forth and etc.

One other thing:

If you are in the early stages, drinking warm things like tea (non caffeinated probably better) can help to dilate the blood vessels in your throat an encourage neutrophil recruitment (get white blood cells where they are needed).

lol. Those pesky hipsters and their electrical safety practices!

...or you brick the thing! Just follow the rooting instructions carefully.

Salt water gargle doesn't really affect the bacteria in the throat. They are perfectly capable of tolerating transient hypernatremia.

What it does do is osmotically draw excess water out of the swollen throat cells. This provides the relieves some of the pressure and some of the pain...for a while.