Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 71
1 MR. RAMPTON: That is my fault for not looking at the
2 transcript. I do not like to waste time doing that.
3 I prefer to rely on my memory. Remind me which are the
4 organisms which fall into what one might call the strict
5 food poisoning categories?
6 A. The salmonellas, the clostridium perfringens, the
7 staphylococci are the classic food poisonings. The E.coli
8 is a food-borne; it is not strictly speaking a food
9 poisoning.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I know.
12 A. Neither is campylobacter.
13
14 Q. The point here is to distinguish between those where the
15 mechanism involves proliferation leading to illness, and
16 those where it is the limited numbers in the original food.
17 E.coli and campylobacter fall into the latter category
18 and salmonella fall into the former; that is right, is it?
19 A. Quite so.
20
21 MR. RAMPTON: So, whatever its rarity, the only defences against
22 poisoning by E.coli 0157: H are these, are they not: One
23 must either avoid eating any substance which risks having
24 been contaminated by that bacterium, or else one must cook
25 everything so that it is killed?
26 A. Or one must eliminate it from the food chain and that
27 is a realistic proposition.
28
29 Q. How does one to that?
30 A. Frankly, sir, with these -- this is what they tried to
31 do with salmonella and were doomed to failure but is, in
32 fact, what they have tried in similar circumstances with
33 other very specific organisms, identifiable organisms, with
34 known confined sources and succeeded.
35
36 In that context, the primary control from the grand
37 epidemiological scale of these types of diseases are those
38 two controls. One is the cooking to avoid products which
39 are not going to be cooked which might be thus contaminated
40 and, on the other side of the coin, to develop a strategy
41 for eliminating it from the food chain.
42
43 Q. Which would consist of what? Do such strategies exist and
44 are not used by the food industry or what is it?
45 A. It is a policy strategy because it requires the
46 simultaneous co-operation of many different sectors of the
47 whole industry, including farming and normally requires
48 government intervention and very often legislation.
49
50 Q. If I am a food manufacturer, perhaps with a bit of clout so
51 that I can get the government to listen to me, is there a
52 strategy in existence written by somebody and which I
53 can: "Look, this is what we have to do"?
54 A. Not for E.coli 0157.
55
56 Q. Let us put that one side, if we may, a pious hope -- I do
57 not mean that sarcastically -- for the future and return to
58 my original proposition: The only way of avoiding the
59 risk, slight as it may be, of E.coli 0157: H poisoning is
60 either to avoid eating anything which might be contaminated
