Day 294 - 05 Nov 96 - Page 24


     
     1        what our experts, what government experts, what the real
     2        hands-on evidence of our employees, our witnesses who are
     3        ex-employees, and the reality is, for whatever reason, that
     4        the system is flawed and it is fragile and it is breached
     5        on a regular basis.  And whether the public know about it
     6        or not, is another matter.  Maybe it is one of the reasons
     7        people are turning away from eating products like beef.
     8
     9   MS. STEEL:   Can I make one final point on it, which is that if
    10        there is no problem for McDonald's, you know, if there is
    11        no reason why they -- I don't know -- well, why do they not
    12        just introduce the recommended times that are recommended
    13        by the government in order to cut down the risks.  You
    14        know, there must be some reason why they are not
    15        introducing them.  The only reason that is, you know, on
    16        the horizon for anyone to see, is basically that it is
    17        going to take longer to produce the food and going to cut
    18        their profits.  McDonald's have not offered any explanation
    19        for why they are not cooking at the recommended
    20        temperatures.
    21
    22   MR. MORRIS:   They will say the temperatures are adequate and
    23        then in three years' time they will put them up another two
    24        seconds or another few degrees, as they have done over the
    25        last 10 years.  They argued, no doubt, at each stage that
    26        they were adequate then, but they cannot argue that any
    27        more.
    28
    29        Now, stepping back to the beginning of the process, Dr.
    30        Long, who is a very experienced researcher, had worked as a
    31        researcher for Glaxos for 40 years or something and had
    32        researched also conditions on farms and at markets and in
    33        transportation and in slaughter houses, studying firsthand
    34        some of the welfare and other problems, health problems
    35        associated with animal husbandry and slaughter, and his
    36        evidence was that animals had been turned into what he
    37        called production machines subject to stress and distress,
    38        disease, abuse, and a short and totally unnatural life.
    39        And dairy cattle particularly were under stress.
    40
    41        The whole series of what he called production diseases
    42        affected dairy cows, because of the excessive pressure of
    43        production.  He also criticised the use of growth boosters
    44        and other performance enhancers which were masqueraded as
    45        animal health products.  He said the diseases caused by
    46        modern farming methods and the drugs used to combat them
    47        not only caused problems for the animals but also risks for
    48        human health too.  He shared concerns about the risks of
    49        eating meat containing antibiotic, hormone and pesticide
    50        residues.
    51
    52        Mark Pattison for McDonald's from Sun Valley, he made some
    53        references relevant to this part of the case.  He agreed
    54        that broiler houses provide the ideal conditions for the
    55        rapid spread of viral diseases like gumboro disease.  He
    56        said that from their arrival to five days before slaughter
    57        the birds' food contained growth promoters; quote, the ones
    58        normally used are zinc, bacitracin, Virginia Mycin or
    59        Avoparcin, unquote, which are antibiotic compounds.
    60

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