Day 106 - 23 Mar 95 - Page 53


     
     1   MR. MORRIS:  That is the population of bacteria?
     2        A.  That is the statistical population, i.e. number of
     3        hunks of meat in the batch or the number of birds or what
     4        have you, is 400 or more; the number of samples you need to
     5        take is 60.  Where you are dealing, and I estimated roughly
     6        that there are, perhaps, 100 or slightly over 100 pieces of
     7        meet in one of those bins, and from memory reading off the
     8        Ministry of Agriculture chart which is well-published,
     9        widely available, and, as I say, frequently practised, you
    10        would need to take 40 samples.  So if you were
    11        realistically looking for specific pathogens at a level of
    12        5 per cent distribution within the whole or more, to give
    13        you a 95 per cent probability of finding them, you would be
    14        needing to take 40 samples per compo, not five.
    15
    16        If your expected contamination rate was less than 5 per
    17        cent, you have then to take on that rate 400 samples.  Now
    18        one is not saying that this is realistic, but it shows the
    19        statistical relationship between number of samples and
    20        probability of finding.  It is not, in my view, appropriate
    21        to apply a sampling plan devised for determining TVCs to
    22        the use of determining or detecting specific pathogens in
    23        food.
    24
    25        Given a five sample, I cannot say what your statistical
    26        probability of actually finding anything would be, but it
    27        would be very unlikely, it would be remote, the chance of
    28        actually finding anything unless the infection rate or
    29        contamination rate was absolutely enormous.  So that, in
    30        effect, the rest of the sampling and, therefore, all the
    31        results which stem from them are largely ritual.   All
    32        these massive bundles of documentation which show negative
    33        results on salmonella, so on and so forth, are largely
    34        meaningless, a complete waste of time and money.  I must
    35        say I have dealt with this many, many times in my career
    36        and revised sampling programmes accordingly, and there are
    37        millions of pounds spent throughout industry on these
    38        ritual tests which are more of the security blanket nature
    39        making everyone feel comfortable, part of the feel-good
    40        factor rather than actually providing any real usable
    41        information.
    42
    43   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Do you say that in relation to the tests for
    44        all the organisms which are listed at the bottom of page
    45        38?
    46        A.  E.coli, per se, is probably high distribution
    47        throughout the meat.
    48
    49   Q.   No.  The comment which you have made, as I understand it,
    50        it may be tested in due course, is that however appropriate 
    51        taking five samples in order to get a TCC may be, and we 
    52        may have to come back to what use finding out a TCC is so 
    53        far as finding out what numbers of pathogens may be, you
    54        say it is really ritual and meaningless when one is testing
    55        for specific pathogenic organisms?
    56        A.  That is absolutely the case, my Lord.
    57
    58   Q.   To which of the organisms listed at the in the bottom part
    59        of page 38 do you say that comment applies?
    60        A.  I do not take it as E.coli because E.coli is not a

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