Day 113 - 03 Apr 95 - Page 38


     
     1
     2   MR. MORRIS:  Just hold on a second.  There is just one point you
     3        mentioned in passing was aerosol contamination.  Could you
     4        describe what that is?
     5        A.  Yes, if you have water about, if you are opening up an
     6        animal, you get a release of bacteria spray, you distribute
     7        bacteria into the atmosphere.  The best example I can tell
     8        you is what Sergeant Major's Newham barracks in the First
     9        World War, that if you put the beds in the barracks too
    10        close together, each one of us has an aerosol about, a sort
    11        of aura of bacteria that we are pumping out, so that we can
    12        infect one another fairly easy.  That is spread by aerosol.
    13
    14   Q.   I understand.  Before I go on to treatment, what are the
    15        concerns -- it is partly to do with treatment; it may be
    16        partly to do with disease -- in terms of residues that may
    17        be actually left in the meat, apart from bacteria?
    18        A.  The main problem is that many of the drugs that we have
    19        referred to have withdrawal times, that is, before an
    20        animal is milked or before it is slaughtered, they should
    21        be withheld.  They are not always withheld in that way
    22        because the market drives the farmer, perhaps, to
    23        anticipate the ending of the withdrawal period.
    24
    25        So, one would get residues of various drugs, sulphur drugs,
    26        penicillin may be, tetracyclines, as well as contaminants
    27        in the feed.  I am thinking, particularly, of aflatoxins,
    28        say, or mycotoxins in feeds such as peanuts or peanut
    29        derivatives or even cereals that may -----
    30
    31   Q.   These are feeds that are fed to animals, are they?
    32        A.  Fed to the animals, and then they come out in the milk
    33        or in the meat.  I would also point out about hormones; you
    34        have to remember that progesterone as a growth boosting
    35        hormone was banned in the European Union in 1989, I think.
    36        In the UK that was anticipated by a year.  That is one of
    37        five so-called steroid booster hormones which are still
    38        allowed in the USA but not in the European Union.
    39
    40        When the cow goes through her cycle, while she is still
    41        milking, she actually excretes progesterone in the milk.
    42        That is how you tell whether she is in season.  So,
    43        actually there is a residue, if you like, but it is
    44        produced by the cow.  If you take the cow through this
    45        procedure, well, then one will be consuming actually a drug
    46        which is forbidden to be administered in the feed.
    47
    48   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But are you saying that is something new or
    49        as old as history so long as people have been husbanding
    50        animals for milk? 
    51        A.  Well, it would be avoided, of course, if you used the 
    52        suckler system to distinguish the suckler system, because 
    53        the calf would get it and not the humans.
    54
    55   Q.   Yes, but that has been with us so long as people have been
    56        husbanding cattle ---
    57        A.  Yes.
    58
    59   Q.   -- for milk for human consumption?
    60        A.  Yes, I am only indicating that there is some confusion

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