Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

UK food hygiene disaster

R.A.McCartney | 11.06.2011 15:34 | Analysis | Health | Other Press

Food hygiene regulations are being almost universally ignored by vendors of take-away foods. This could lead to an outbreak of highly contagious and lethal diseases.

The E. coli outbreak in Germany is now thought to have been caused by contaminated bean sprouts. However, Professor Hugh Pennington (emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland) said on BBC News 24 that it required “only a very few” bacteria to cause an infection. Both the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Health Protection Unit, and the Food Standards Agency confirmed to me that it, and other lethal diseases, could be spread by practises which are common among sellers of take-away foods.

Tests have shown that a large proportion of the UK population do not wash their hands after using the toilet. Thus bacteria such as the new lethal strain of E. Coli could be on their hands. When they handle money, they can transfer the bacteria to that, and it can survive for up to 48 hours on the money. Most vendors of take-away foods do not have a single person dedicated to handling the money. Any food seller who handles the money can transfer the contamination to the food if they handle it without using a glove or washing their hands (this is especially common at places which sell sandwiches, kebabs or falafels, hot dogs, or burgers.). Even at places where they avoid handling the food itself, they do things such as gripping the food lid on both sides before pressing it down on the food & sealing the container. This contaminates the food. Warm, moist food provides ideal conditions for the bacteria to multiply and infect people.

The person I spoke to at the Food Standards Agency said that inspections by Environmental Health Officers would catch such practises. However I have been unable to find any place selling take-away food in London which DOESN’T ignore the food hygiene regulations.

The news media should have taken this opportunity to warn the population of the danger, but they have not. This week You And Yours, the flagship consumer affairs program on Radio 4, lauded the increase in the availability and variety of “street food”. This was a plug for a book on the subject, and failed to mention the danger from lax hygiene. Government agencies which are supposed to warn people of health dangers also failed to seize the opportunity. On the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, the head of the Health Protection Agency assured people that E. Coli would not be a problem in this country, and that people should “continue with their normal hygiene regime”. If food vendors do that, we are headed for a potential disaster.

Many experts have been warning for decades that it’s only a matter of time before all anti-biotics are rendered useless by the spread of anti-biotic resistance. NDM-1 antibiotic resistance is already established in the general population of Delhi, and seems certain to spread further. We should not wait for lax hygiene to cause a major outbreak of disease in this country. People should be warned of the dangers. The food hygiene laws also need to be rigorously enforced. That required more inspectors and more prosecutions.

R.A.McCartney

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

Rabbbit Burger Addict

12.06.2011 05:48

Interesting report. Is there any data available yet suggesting this particular new deadly E.Coli strain has been contracted any other route than by consuming infected food directly? i.e person to person?

Gotta say I am in love my with my local take-away, it's cheap, tasty, I'm a skinny bugger that doesn't get enough calories or carbs and I'm on benefits

But I've been noticing this more and more as if the fast-food sector have become complacent. Especially once they've been awarded one of those meaningless 'Food Safety Hygiene 4* Certificates" from the local council. Surprised there hasn't been many more big bug outbreaks from take-aways, maybe they are on the way as you say. The touching of Salad etc and final additions, handling cash, answering phones are very high risk.

People should say: Oi! that's my food! and refuse to pay, that'll teach em, then send Environmental Health in (if they bother to show up) to observe them putting people's health at risk for themselves.

Steve Tomato Picker


Organised campaign refusing to pay for contaminated food

15.06.2011 14:26

The head of the Health Protection Agency said on the aforementioned Andrew Marr program that the new strain of E. Coli could not penetrate the skin, and therefore could not be passed person to person. However, if you shook hands with some one who had it on their hands, and then handled food you were eating, you could be infected.

My contact at the Food Standards Agency got back to me since my original post. She said this was only one of the serious risks of food contamination which they were aware of, inspectors couldn’t check for everything, they have a limited budget, and they have run campaigns to raise awareness of the issue. None of this excuses the fact that they failed to use the publicity surrounding the E. Coli outbreak to raise awareness of the risks of food vendors ignoring food hygiene laws. The media would and the public would most likely have been very receptive to the message.

“People should say: Oi! that's my food! and refuse to pay”. Interesting suggestion. The Food Standards Agency woman said something similar. One or two people doing it wouldn’t have much effect, but if, say, thirty people walked into the shop over a two or three days & did the same thing, it might start to have an impact on that particular shop. Catch these on video & you could post it on Youtube. You might even get TV people to broadcast it & report the issue. Unfortunately I’m not in a position to organise something like this, but a relatively small group might be able to raise awareness of the issue & mobilise people to demand higher standards of food hygiene.

R.A.McCartney


More reports on danger of human-to-human spread of E. Coli

30.07.2011 13:52

"Germany confirms human E. coli transmission" Al Jazeera 19 June 2011

 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/06/201161941630620984.html

"... a woman working in a kitchen of a catering company near Frankfurt, in the state of Hesse, became infected with the bacterium after eating sprouts and passed it on to 20 people she prepared food for".


"Is Europe in for a summer of E. coli poisoning? " New Scientist 21 July 2011

"... the bacterium has been knocking around Germany for a decade, and may still lurk in people who are symptom-free.

"'Considering the large number of summer festivals in the EU, with sometimes inadequate food hygiene standards', people should remember 'the need for proper hand washing'"

R.A.McCartney


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech