Day 114 - 04 Apr 95 - Page 61
1 going on around me.
2
3 Q. When you are on operating table (and I hope you never are)
4 and you are under a general anaesthetic you continue to
5 breathe, do you not, but you are insensible, are you not?
6 A. It does happen, particularly with women with caesarean
7 operations when you have to use a very light anaesthetic,
8 that they do report that they do detect a pain; although
9 they are apparently out they still detect pain. So I would
10 not be too sure about any assurances you give me there.
11 I would prefer to have good anaesthetist at hand.
12
13 Q. I think we would all agree about that, Dr. Long, but leave
14 humans on the operating table and take a cow that is lying
15 on the ground about to be tipped out of the stunning pen
16 having been shot with a captive bolt pistol; it is still
17 breathing but, to all intents and purposes, it is
18 insensible. How long do you think it might take that
19 animal to recover consciousness, assuming your possibility
20 that that is practically speaking a possibility?
21 A. I think it would possibly ensue within two, three
22 minutes, but it might ensue over five minutes.
23
24 Q. Well then, why your 30 seconds, is really my question?
25 A. Because I believe in these matters in giving a great
26 deal of benefit to the doubt. I think these could be very
27 cruel processes. I think one should operate
28 expeditiously. If you go to longer times there is the
29 danger that the animal will be felled and for some reason
30 there is a stoppage in the line or something it is left
31 there for longer, and it may return to some sort of
32 consciousness. It may still be unable to get up. It may
33 feel very sick and groggy, but it will suffer pain.
34
35 Q. If it should, as it were, recover consciousness in that way
36 that it becomes sensible to pain, then no doubt having been
37 shot in the head with a captive bolt pistol it would feel
38 whatever animals do feel about that kind of condition,
39 would it not?
40 A. It would have a hefty headache I should think.
41
42 Q. And shortly after that it would have its lower chest stuck
43 while it was conscious, would it not?
44 A. I think the comparison we make is with a patient who
45 has come round from an epileptic seizure.
46
47 Q. How much testing have you done for antibiotic or other
48 residues in animal meat for human consumption?
49 A. I have not done any directly. I had training as an
50 organic chemist and, therefore, I was able to examine the
51 results of the tests that the Ministry of Agriculture put
52 out. I was able to examine them critically. I was able,
53 particularly, to examine the new procedures which the
54 Ministry is adopting in controlling tests that are done in
55 various laboratories.
56
57 Q. How much science do you think one needs to understand
58 questions of veterinary treatment of animals?
59 A. What we would have to think about -- when you say
60 "veterinary treatment", for infectious diseases?
