Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 72


     
     1        with it or else to cook everything so that it is destroyed?
     2        A.  No, I do not agree that at all.
     3
     4   Q.   Tell me how else it is to be avoided?
     5        A.  Look, E.coli 0157 is not especially heat resistant.  In
     6        fact, let me tell you that E.coli is used -- E.coli, not
     7        0157, and the characteristics are the same -- E.coli is
     8        used as an indicator organism, as a tracer organism.  We
     9        look for it in the environment, we look for it in a
    10        non-food as an indicator of faecal contamination, because
    11        it is so vulnerable, it is so easily killed, it is so
    12        sensitive that if we find it we can say that it indicates
    13        recent faecal contamination, that is, in an unfrozen food.
    14
    15        The point that I am making is that it is very easy to kill
    16        E.coli.  It is actually, in laboratory conditions, quite
    17        difficult to keep it alive.  The transition between, say,
    18        sampling of food and getting it to a laboratory sometimes
    19        can give you losses in the organism which make it
    20        irrecoverable by the time you get it to the laboratory.
    21        So, the point here is that even a relatively benign or
    22        relatively non-rigorous, if that is a word -- it is an
    23        unusual combination -- of cooking should be more than
    24        adequate to destroy E.coli 0157.
    25
    26   Q.   Yes.  I said you either avoid eating any materials,
    27        substances, which might conceivably have any contamination
    28        by E.coli 0157 or you cook so that it is destroyed?
    29        A.  Sorry, I thought you meant the food -- I thought you
    30        were talking about destroying the food.  I am sorry.  I
    31        completely misunderstood you.
    32
    33   Q.   It does not matter what stage you cook the bacterium; if
    34        cooking to a degree -- you said not non-rigorous cooking --
    35        it does not matter what stage it is done at, does it?
    36        A.  I am sorry, I misunderstood your question.
    37
    38   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  Do you want to assist us as to what the
    39        temperature might be because it might be helpful?
    40
    41   MR. RAMPTON:  But it does not matter at what stage the cooking
    42        is done, the heating is done, does it?
    43        A.  As close to the point of final consumption is better.
    44
    45   Q.   The closer the product is heated to the point of
    46        consumption, the less the risk of some intervening
    47        contamination by something else, apart from anything else?
    48        A.  Quite, yes.
    49
    50   Q.   Now then what is the temperature, do you think, at which 
    51        this rather vulnerable little bacterium may be destroyed by 
    52        heating? 
    53        A.  There is no single temperature.
    54
    55   Q.   Well -----
    56        A.  There is a range.
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Give Mr. Rampton a range.
    59
    60   MR. RAMPTON:  Give me a range, please?

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