Day 295 - 06 Nov 96 - Page 20
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is that the typhoid?
2
3 MR. MORRIS: Yes, and I am not sure how relevant that is to
4 this case, except that cross-contamination obviously can
5 occur by the handling of the products in McDonald's stores,
6 and that is something which the Preston outbreak official
7 report had identified as part of the problem, from what I
8 remember. So the date of those last admissions were 22nd
9 March 1995.
10
11 I think the other relevant admission was made on this issue
12 of the case regarding the additives used in their food.
13 There was an admission made on 15th December 1993 that,
14 "McDonald's pride themselves on the uniformity of their
15 products throughout the world and that in order to achieve
16 that uniformity they have set formulae and specifications
17 for menu items and use a number of additives in the
18 preparation of their food."
19
20 The only other admission, I think, of relevance to this
21 section is under the advertising admissions. Admitted on
22 25th May 1994, admission H. "In the United Kingdom in
23 November 1990 the Advertising Standards Authority ruled
24 that a McDonald's advertisement was misleading which
25 claimed that chemicals only played a small part in
26 McDonald's foods." I think that covers the admissions.
27
28 Why they came up with it was because we were talking about
29 the potential, the existence of risk because of the
30 contamination of the products and the potential there
31 exists for them not to be cooked properly, and obviously,
32 we say that potential is substantial. But the potential
33 clearly exists because of what we have heard in this case,
34 admissions and the food poisoning outbreak at Preston, et
35 cetera. Those are just the admissions. We obviously had
36 quite a number of other evidence which we would believe
37 demonstrates that undercooking is a regular problem in
38 McDonald's stores.
39
40 If I can carry going through the notes we have served with
41 the references to the transcripts.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
44
45 MR. MORRIS: As far as page 58 goes, if I can just direct your
46 attention to the two references from day 104, page 28, page
47 30 of the transcripts. This was the-----
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Hold on a moment. Who is this?
50 Mr. Bennett?
51
52 MR. MORRIS: This is Mr. Bennett, yes. Obviously, our witness
53 Marja Hovi, we believe, was again one of the few witnesses
54 that Mr. Rampton made an effort to cross-examine fully
55 and-----
56
57 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I don't accept Mr. Morris's insulting
58 terminology. The word 'effort' should not be there.
59
60 MR. MORRIS: Sorry, I withdraw the word 'effort'. He
