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Sick to the stomach
10 March 2001
From New Scientist Print Edition.
Joanna Marchant

Food poisoning rockets in summer, but it's not down to dodgy cooking on the barbecue. Poor hygiene on farms and abattoirs is to blame for the rise in illness, say British researchers.

People in England and Wales are up to five times as likely to get food poisoning in summer. To pinpoint the cause, environmental risk analysts Ian Langton and Graham Bentham from the University of East Anglia in Norwich tried to correlate average temperatures with food poisoning cases each week. They found the number of cases was linked to high temperature when the food was being produced, two to five weeks before it was eaten. "The consumer has always been blamed, but it looks like a bigger problem is the food production process," says Langton.

According to Langton, high temperatures stress intensively reared animals even further, making them more susceptible to infection. Bacteria also grow faster in warm weather, so any unhygienic practices on farms or abattoirs have serious consequences. Another problem is the reduction in the number of abattoirs. "The animals are transported longer distances, and to put it bluntly, they shit all over the lorry," says Langton. "It is not a good environment."

This means that food we buy in summer is more likely to make us sick. Bacteria in food grow rapidly at any opportunity—in the car on the way home from the supermarket, for example. "Even half an hour is enough time for the outside of a chicken to heat up considerably," says Langton.

Almost 90,000 cases of food poisoning were reported in England and Wales in 1999. Because most cases go unreported, some experts believe the true number could be 30 times as high. Lifestyle changes have undoubtedly contributed to the rise in food poisoning over the past few decades: eating more white meat, which can contain a range of pathogens, more convenience foods, and buying food from out-of-town supermarkets rather than local shops.

But Langton says the food industry must adapt to these changes and take responsibility for providing safer food. "Too much of the food people buy has the potential to be a risk. You can't blame the consumer. If you buy food it should be safe."

From issue 2281 of New Scientist magazine, 10 March 2001, page 18

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