Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 41
1 and say the threshold for showing illness was some point
2 less.
3
4 MS. STEEL: If there are temperature fluctuations on a grill,
5 is that something that could affect the dose?
6 A. It would certainly or could affect the kill rate of the
7 bacteria within the product on the grill.
8
9 Q. But in terms of comparing, I do not know, say, 10 different
10 burgers, or something like that, I suppose you would have
11 to start with exactly the same dose in the first
12 place -- if they all started with the same bacterial
13 contamination level, would temperature fluctuations within
14 the grill have any effect on what numbers survived?
15 A. Yes, indeed. If the heat was not uniform across the
16 whole surface and was lower in some areas than others, if
17 you then assumed that the lower temperature was below the
18 threshold for killing the bacteria, then, yes, some would
19 survive in some of those burgers, whereas others would come
20 out with sufficient destruction.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do not strain to carry on for fear of just
23 missing a point, because if you come back on the next
24 occasion and say: "I am sorry, I completely forgot to ask
25 this", I am not going to stop you bringing it in.
26
27 MS. STEEL: Right, no. There were a couple of bits I am not
28 sure about asking. (To the witness): Could you give an
29 example of how it can be that visual standards do not
30 correlate with microbiological standards or are inversely
31 correlated, how that could come about?
32 A. I use one which graphically illustrates that concept of
33 the experience in the Falkland War where the field kitchens
34 for the British Army were actually on board the Atlantic
35 conveyor when it was sunk, and the field corps had to rely
36 on temporary kitchen facilities which ended up being a
37 tinned roof, sheep sheering shed which had until recently
38 had sheep within it.
39
40 To make cooking equipment, they salvaged a number of items
41 off the refuse tip from Port Stanley and assembled some
42 sort of an operation. Having set that up after the
43 Argentinians surrendered and their officers deserted them,
44 left 10,000 men to be fed by the British Army.
45
46 So, enormous numbers of men were fed over quite a long
47 period from a premises with equipment which, from a
48 superficial observation would have said were wholly
49 unhygienic. They would not have passed any muster by way
50 of inspection. Yet, when the health monitoring records
51 came through, not one single case of food poisoning arose
52 from that whole episode, despite extremely adverse
53 circumstances. In that sense, a dirty, awful operation by,
54 if you like, superficial standards, was by definition
55 hygienic.
56
57 Now, by contrast the survey I did for the Consumers'
58 Association rested on looking at the correlation between a
59 microbiological standard of cooked meats and visible
60 appearance which is often cited as "hygiene". I found
