Volume 1

Food safety : fourth report / Agriculture Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Agriculture Committee
Date:
1998
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Food safety : fourth report / Agriculture Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/72
    data’’*, Towards the end of our inquiry we asked for an update of progress in completing this study, and the Government said that “detailed analysis and careful interpretation” was still required before publication, although it was confident that it would be able to publish a report on the findings “later this year’’’. The Government confirmed the point, set out in its original memorandum, that the findings of the study supported the view that the current reporting system “significantly underestimates the true magnitude of infectious intestinal disease” in England®*. The publication of this report should be extremely important in understanding the true prevalence of food poisoning in the UK. 23. It is relatively easy to diagnose weaknesses in the UK’s notification and reporting systems in relation to foodborne illness, but important to recognize that it will never be possible to establish a fully comprehensive and accurate picture, given the nature of the problem. Even for the minority of cases which present to a GP, it is rarely possible to link illness to a particular foodstuff. This is especially so as the great majority of food poisoning cases are sporadic, rather than part of a general outbreak. Moreover, an unknown proportion of infectious intestinal disease is not associated with food. We also have no reason to dispute the Government’s contention that “by international standards the UK has one of the better systems” for reporting food poisoning cases”’. 24. With such imprecise data, it is difficult to arrive at an assessment of the overall costs to society of such foodborne illness. The IID study referred to above (see paragraph 21) is intended to provide updated information on this subject*’. Until then, the best available study, based upon data collected in 1988-89 and expressed in terms of 1992 prices, estimates that costs to the public sector were approximately £70 million a year. This figure, which Dr Rubery advised us had to be “treated with considerable caution”, omits estimates of costs to industry and the family. The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health cited a number of rather higher figures, up to between £0.5 billion and £1 billion a year at 1988 prices*'. Purely for indicative purposes, we sought from the Government details of the cost of smoking-related illnesses and road accidents: the former are estimated to cost the NHS in England between £1,400 million and £1,700 million a year, and the latter £490 million a year in casualty-related medical and ambulance costs. It is important to have some idea of the economic costs to society of food-related illness, both in absolute terms and in relation to other public health risks, to inform the allocation of resources to deal with the problem. Major food safety issues such as the BSE epidemic may also impose huge costs on the economy in an attempt to prevent widespread illness and deaths. At the same time, the consumption of food is a biological necessity, and not directly comparable with smoking or driving. As Dr Rubery said, public concern and public perception, as well as the effectiveness of action which can be taken, are also very important factors in determining policy’. We also take to heart the comments of Professor Philip James that “there is ten times more ill health... which comes from the inappropriate nutritional quality of the diet compared even with infection’. Microbiological hazards 25. Three bacterial micro-organisms, each with numerous sub-types, have managed to insinuate themselves tenaciously into the complex and lengthy UK food chain and are responsible for the majority of food poisoning cases: Salmonella (especially S.enteritidis and S. typhimurium); Campylobacter (especially C.jejuni); and verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (VTEC) (especially E.coli O0157:H7). Campylobacter comes ahead of Salmonella as the most common identified cause of human food poisoning’; E.coli 0157, though much less 36 37 Q 20 Appendix 90 Ev p 10; Appendix 90 Ev p 18 Qq 14, 20 Ev p 211 Qq 17-19 Q 1359 Ev pp 102-3 39 40 4] 42 43 44