Earlier this week I posted a blog on the digital security problems at NIH, which revealed the agency cannot encrypt sensitive data, such as the personal information (including social security numbers) of clinical trial patients, on Macintosh laptops used by NIH employees.

So how many Mac laptops do NIH employees use? I had a hard time uncovering that number, until I got a call today from NIH spokesperson, Don Ralbovsky, who gave me a "ballpark" estimate of "about 4,500 Mac laptops or notebooks."