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?

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