Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 42
1 that, generally, and it was quite a remarkable exercise
2 because it did show generally the better and cleaner and
3 brighter the premises looked, the worse the microbiological
4 standard of the food that actually came out of it.
5
6 It was so remarkable that after a prolonged and expensive
7 sampling and analyses, inspection programme, I disbelieved
8 the results and insisted that they were repeated. We did
9 exactly the same and found exactly the same thing. Then
10 I submitted to the court a number of papers with similar
11 observations, where cleaning clean premises does not
12 necessarily guarantee you a good standard.
13
14 I am shortly to deliver a paper to Utrecht University
15 recounting my research experiences. The paper is
16 indicative or the title of the paper is indicative, which
17 will be "Cleaning as a cause of food poisoning". In
18 certain contexts, the actual pursuit of apparent hygiene is
19 one of the major mechanisms spreading contamination within
20 the working environment and distributing it to the food.
21
22 Q. Can you explain how that would be spread?
23 A. Well, there was a classic hospital outbreak in 1987
24 where trays had been used to contain raw defrosting
25 poultry. After use the trays were placed in a washing up
26 sink and washed. Subsequently, very shortly thereafter,
27 other plastic trays were washed in the same water, came out
28 obviously visibly clean, were then used to contain in this
29 instance a risotto, which was then involved in a fairly
30 major food poisoning outbreak.
31
32 The mechanism devolved that the organisms were identified
33 with raw chicken and the investigators took the view that
34 the contamination had been spread from the raw chicken by
35 the mechanism of washing up the trays used to contain the
36 food.
37
38 I was personally involved in an outbreak in Walsal in 1989,
39 I think it was, maybe 1990, with a similar mechanism where
40 a piping bag had been washed in exactly the same scenario.
41 It had been washed in a sink which -----
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am going to stop you there because I think
44 we have got to stay as close to McDonald's as we possibly
45 can.
46
47 MS. STEEL: In terms of -----
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: One can imagine for oneself all sorts of ways
50 these things could happen.
51
52 MS. STEEL: In terms of something that would be relevant to
53 McDonald's, are there any implications in the use of
54 cleaning cloths or items like that?
55 A. There is good evidence, both in theoretical studies and
56 outbreak investigations, that cleaning cloths have been
57 vectors, have moved contamination and, in fact, fostered
58 and allowed contamination to multiply on the surface of the
59 cloths and in the cloths, and then been spread on to other
60 surfaces which have then become contaminated and thence
