Day 295 - 06 Nov 96 - Page 14
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just let me make a note. (Pause).
2
3 MR. MORRIS: The actual-----
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Pause a moment.
6
7 MR. MORRIS: Sorry (Pause).
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You see, I understand that what Ms. Steel
10 has said, that there is quite a lot of potential for the
11 spread of E.Coli. What I do not understand is that it is
12 guaranteed that it would be spread. That I have difficulty
13 with. It does not help to overstate your case
14 necessarily. I mean, if that was so, whatever the
15 difficulties are with tracing infections back to particular
16 food, and so on, it really means people would be falling
17 ill in their millions after going to McDonald's.
18
19 MR. MORRIS: Two things. First of all, the 6,950 head of
20 cattle per week is the equivalent of the total volume of
21 meat that McKeys takes. Day 80, page 32. Therefore, the
22 actual number of head of cattle per week would be 10 times
23 as great in terms of McDonald's only taking 10 percent of
24 the available meat.
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let me get this -- (Pause).
27
28 MR. MORRIS: So, in any event, the figures given by the expert
29 committee that reported to the government about E.Coli,
30 which I have not got reported in front of me, gives the
31 most accurate and extensive in-depth analysis of the E.Coli
32 problem, which they are taking very seriously. I think
33 they had much greater figures in terms of the prevalence of
34 E.Coli 0157H in the herds. Dr. North stated that he was
35 prepared to accept their monitoring and their opinion.
36
37 So what I am saying is until 1991 the gut was not sealed
38 off during slaughter, and we have heard about how it was a
39 regular occurrence for gut to contaminate the carcass. Of
40 course, it would often be washed and sprayed, which would
41 guarantee to spread the contamination around the slaughter
42 house, and McDonald's brought in a particular specification
43 that the gut should no longer be damaged but should be
44 sealed off during slaughter.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Was that related to E.Coli 0157H?
47
48 MR. MORRIS: Oh God, yes, definitely. It was after the Preston
49 incident. So we have the situation where there is a
50 substantial percentage -- I can't remember now from that
51 E.Coli official report -- that the contamination is
52 guaranteed to be spread in the slaughter house, that
53 because of the nature of the product... Sorry, that the
54 octabin procedure that McDonald's rely on is guaranteed to
55 spread the contamination amongst carcasses, and the
56 batching in the chillers, as Marja Hovi explains, spreads
57 contaminations.
58
59 Further, when they produced their burgers at McKeys, which
60 they choose to do and don't have to produce burger products
