Day 103 - 14 Mar 95 - Page 40
1 hard to trace? The incubation period is three or five
2 weeks or something like that, is it not?
3 A. No.
4
5 Q. It is not?
6 A. The incubation period is three or five days.
7
8 Q. Sorry, but it can be up to several weeks?
9 A. It could be up to that time to actually identify which
10 species of listeria but, generally, you should have an
11 isolation, positive or negative, within seven days.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We are, first of all, taking of a patient
14 realising that something is wrong, and that could be three
15 to five days after whatever they have eaten which has
16 caused it. Then it takes time to investigate, of course?
17 A. Yes, and really what I was referring to, if you have a
18 suspected source of food from which you want to isolate the
19 organism, it will take up to seven days to isolate the
20 organism, the listeria.
21
22 Q. But I understand the difficulty, for instance, with
23 E.coli. There are probably some foods which are stronger
24 candidates than others if there is an E.coli infection. It
25 occurs to me one of the difficulties with listeria it could
26 be just about anything you have eaten?
27 A. Yes, that is correct.
28
29 Q. It does not have to be meat at all?
30 A. No, no, that is correct.
31
32 Q. If it a child, it may have been grubbing around in the
33 flower bed and got it, is that technically possible?
34 A. I suppose it is, although you do not tend to hear of
35 cases in children like that but .....
36
37 Q. It says: "The Riverside Health Authority would like to
38 emphasise that the risk of listeriosis is small"?
39 A. Yes.
40
41 MS. STEEL: But it would be hard to trace, so it would be hard
42 for anyone to make a claim against a particular company if
43 they did suffer as a result of listeria?
44 A. It might be, yes.
45
46 Q. Is that another reason why you would not bother to test for
47 listeria?
48 A. No. As I have said before, the reason we do not test
49 is because it is a very common organism. If you find it is
50 positive, so what? You know that is going to be the result
51 anyway.
52
53 Q. Just a couple of bits I missed out earlier on. How old are
54 the oldest chicks when they are transported from the
55 hatcheries to the broiler sheds?
56 A. They are only a few hours old. They are all delivered
57 the same day of hatch.
58
59 Q. So do you only hatch on certain days of the week?
60 A. We hatch four days a week.
