Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 64
1 inclination is very much to defend the industries and the
2 many industries I have worked with.
3
4 Q. Do you wish to qualify the effect or indeed the words of
5 any of those passages I have recently read to you?
6 A. I have qualified some. With that, please, take it.
7
8 Q. May we just have a brief glance at one of the earlier
9 documents which is document No. 4 tab 4, which I hope is in
10 your file, an article in the Journal of Medical
11 Microbiology published in 1991; is that right?
12 A. Yes, that is right.
13
14 Q. It is a joint article by you and I think Professor Broody
15 of Dundee?
16 A. Yes, Dundee.
17
18 Q. Dundee University. In fact written I think in 1990, if one
19 looks at the bottom of the page.
20 A. Yes.
21
22 Q. At any rate, received 1990; it may be it was written
23 earlier.
24 A. No, you are right it was written in the early part of
25 that year.
26
27 Q. All I want you to look at in this document is a passage
28 right at the end on page 71 before we get to the
29 bibography. In the right-hand column, again the numbers
30 are in the right-hand corner, under "Slaughter Policy"?
31 A. Yes.
32
33 Q. In the very last paragraph you jointly, I do not know which
34 of you actually wrote this, put this: "It must be
35 questioned whether the problem of salmonella in eggs
36 deserves the great attention it has recently received.
37 Salmonella food poisoning is a non-contagious disease and
38 most cases are scarcely more serious than the common cold
39 and similar upper respiratory viral infections which are
40 nearly a thousand times commoner. Only a minute proportion
41 of food poisoning cases are fatal and fatalities are mainly
42 in old debilitated persons." I do not take you there to be
43 disparaging of that fact, that that happens. I am not
44 suggesting that for a moment. "There are many graver
45 health problems to be faced". Now allowing for what you
46 said the other day about the development of an invasive
47 salmonella typhimurium, do you still stand by what you
48 wrote in that paragraph?
49 A. Yes, I do. In the broader scheme of things it helps
50 sometimes a specialist like myself and others to actually
51 stand back. My calculations are that the public sector is
52 spending something look like £200 million a year on
53 salmonellosis and related food poisoning. When you look at
54 the some other ailments and some of the other problems, it
55 is I think germane, in fact, important to ask whether or
56 not we are spending too much money, time, effort. My views
57 have modified.
58
59 Q. It may well be, may it not, Mr. North, that the search for
60 Utopia is to a large extent a waste of time and money?
