Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 71


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  That is my fault for not looking at the
     2        transcript.  I do not like to waste time doing that.
     3        I prefer to rely on my memory.  Remind me which are the
     4        organisms which fall into what one might call the strict
     5        food poisoning categories?
     6        A.  The salmonellas, the clostridium perfringens, the
     7        staphylococci are the classic food poisonings.  The E.coli
     8        is a food-borne; it is not strictly speaking a food
     9        poisoning.
    10
    11   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I know.
    12        A.  Neither is campylobacter.
    13
    14   Q.   The point here is to distinguish between those where the
    15        mechanism involves proliferation leading to illness, and
    16        those where it is the limited numbers in the original food.
    17          E.coli and campylobacter fall into the latter category
    18        and salmonella fall into the former; that is right, is it?
    19        A.  Quite so.
    20
    21   MR. RAMPTON:  So, whatever its rarity, the only defences against
    22        poisoning by E.coli 0157: H are these, are they not:  One
    23        must either avoid eating any substance which risks having
    24        been contaminated by that bacterium, or else one must cook
    25        everything so that it is killed?
    26        A.  Or one must eliminate it from the food chain and that
    27        is a realistic proposition.
    28
    29   Q.   How does one to that?
    30        A.  Frankly, sir, with these -- this is what they tried to
    31        do with salmonella and were doomed to failure but is, in
    32        fact, what they have tried in similar circumstances with
    33        other very specific organisms, identifiable organisms, with
    34        known confined sources and succeeded.
    35
    36        In that context, the primary control from the grand
    37        epidemiological scale of these types of diseases are those
    38        two controls.  One is the cooking to avoid products which
    39        are not going to be cooked which might be thus contaminated
    40        and, on the other side of the coin, to develop a strategy
    41        for eliminating it from the food chain.
    42
    43   Q.   Which would consist of what?  Do such strategies exist and
    44        are not used by the food industry or what is it?
    45        A.  It is a policy strategy because it requires the
    46        simultaneous co-operation of many different sectors of the
    47        whole industry, including farming and normally requires
    48        government intervention and very often legislation.
    49
    50   Q.   If I am a food manufacturer, perhaps with a bit of clout so 
    51        that I can get the government to listen to me, is there a 
    52        strategy in existence written by somebody and which I 
    53        can: "Look, this is what we have to do"?
    54        A.  Not for E.coli 0157.
    55
    56   Q.   Let us put that one side, if we may, a pious hope -- I do
    57        not mean that sarcastically -- for the future and return to
    58        my original proposition:  The only way of avoiding the
    59        risk, slight as it may be, of E.coli 0157: H poisoning is
    60        either to avoid eating anything which might be contaminated

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