Day 094 - 01 Mar 95 - Page 32
1 E.coli infected burgers, have they not?
2 A. You are asking two questions.
3
4 Q. Let me just ask that question?
5 A. Let me answer both questions. (1) nothing is perfect
6 in this life. You have to make, to draw a conclusion we
7 have to look at the facts. The facts are today we serve 28
8 million people per day -----
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, but, look, leave that. I take that
11 point it. May turn out at the end of the day to be a very
12 good one. All you are being asked is, really, whether it
13 does not show that the burgers must have been under-cooked
14 in Preston. You seem to be resistant to accepting that,
15 and seem to say: "That is not what our evidence shows".
16 You could perfectly well say: "It looks as if we did
17 under-cook some burgers in Preston, that is a drop in the
18 ocean", but that is not what you are saying?
19 A. No, no, no. I will accept that under-cooking can cause
20 a food illness, in this particular case with E.coli, yes,
21 I will accept that. We know that we have done a lot of
22 research, yes. In reference with the Jack-in-the-box, we
23 have nothing to do with that.
24
25 MR. MORRIS: No, but people did die from eating E.coli infected
26 burgers?
27 A. Yes, they did.
28
29 MR. MORRIS: When you said that the Centre for Disease Control,
30 you said something about they never found E.coli in the
31 patties, or something like that?
32 A. That is correct.
33
34 Q. They analysed the patties and they isolated E.coli 0157 H7,
35 did they not, in their report, or you do not know?
36 A. I have -- I have not read their report. From what
37 I understand, when they went and looked at our procedures,
38 including our cooking procedures, what we serve to the
39 customer, they did not find the E.coli bacteria.
40
41 Q. So if they are saying -----
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are we in Preston or Oregon at the moment?
44
45 MR. MORRIS: This is Oregon. (To the witness): If it says:
46 "E.coli 0157 H7 was not isolated from food samples
47 collected in Oregon but was isolated from a frozen, raw,
48 standard size hamburger patty from a suspected lot used at
49 the Michigan restaurants during the outbreak period", then
50 would you accept if it says that ---
51 A. Yes, that is what it says.
52
53 Q. -- that would identify the .....
54 A. Yes.
55
56 Q. So it is not just the under-cooking of burgers that could
57 lead to a risk, it is also cross-contamination?
58 A. That is correct.
59
60 Q. You have seen the McKey's plant at Milton Keynes?
