Do you agree that supermarkets must take urgent action on contaminated chicken?

You are right, Ian. There is nothing new and the public could have been told about the risks ten or twenty years ago. However careful you and your family are about hygiene and proper cooking you could be at risk when you eat out. I have provided an example below.

Ian, the full report gives the data for outer packaging contamination. Two retailers show up relatively badly, one shows up particularly well. Worth having a look if you are concerned as it might help you decide where, and where not, to shop.

Those retailers do relatively badly regarding the contamination of the chicken itself. 🙁

Not one of the retailers is selling chicken that achieves the FSA targets and a scientist working for Sainsbury has questioned whether the FSA targets will achieve the expected reduction in campylobacter infection.

One problem with this report’s data is that it accumulates 12 months results without looking at trends since “action plans” were published. I think this is a real deficiency (unless I’ve overlooked it). Sufficient data should be becoming available now, particularly taking account of the much larger samples taken by some retailers for independent testing. I look forward to more up-to-date information from the FSA. They could, for example, begin to publish data by retailer for quarters from February onward to see if action plans are producing any encouraging results. Significantly successful initiatives could then be imposed across the industry.

We will not eat chicken, but the cross-contamination of other foodstuffs from chicken packaging is a worry. It demonstrates how the highest hygiene standards have to be observed in warehousing and merchandising within the supermarkets. Do staff switch from handling chicken to other meats or products without washing their hands or replacing their protective gloves [if worn]? [The order pickers for home deliveries might be an interesting place to start.] Are the chiller cabinets cleansed adequately before replenishment – and are they also used for other products? Should chicken be quarantined in separate cabinets? Treating chicken as a special case with operating theatre standards and practices might be one way of showing people they have to wake up to the infected chicken problem and treat it with a lot more respect. Might kill the trade though . . .

You are absolutely right, John. Even if you don’t buy or eat chicken, you are still at risk.

The fact that the majority of the fresh chicken is sold as pieces rather than whole birds seems to have been ignored.

If you are very concerned about campylobacter, don’t buy chicken. Otherwise cook it properly to destroy the problem. I’d be choosy about eating it from takeaways. As it is a long-standing problem that has no apparent total solution we can only expect producers to minimise campylobacter (not just in chicken, but other poultry). It will be interesting to see how effective the initiatives some retailers have taken will be over the next 12 months. I would like the FSA to examine any resulting trends quarter by quarter by retailer, including using the retailers’ own independently tested results.

Even if we don’t choose chicken when eating out, we are still at risk if the kitchen of a restaurant or takeaway is handling contaminated chicken. That’s the message we need to get across.

Most people are aware that raw meat needs to be cooked properly. Despite this, we have over a quarter of a million cases of campylobacteriosis in the UK every year and no doubt there will be many more that no-one knows about.

Kitchen hygiene – whether at home or in restaurants – is very important. Handling raw and cooked meats together is also a major source of food poisoning, as is using food that has deteriorated, or contaminated by pests, or not stored in a cool enough environment. The list goes on. We have to trust where we eat to observe such basic hygiene. If you can’t, then avoid eating out totally.

Malcolm – I believe that a great deal more should be done to tackle campylobacter. It is well established that many different measures can be effective in tackling the problem. Use them together and the combined effect will achieve more, much like compound interest.

Those who have not been following the campylobacter problem should have a look at this report about undercover investigation by the Guardian. There is a horrific video further down the page. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/27/dirty-chicken-scandal-campylobacter-eight-out-10-uk-birds-supermarkets-asda

Much of the chicken processed for retailers is done by the 2 Sisters Food Group and Faccenda. 2 Sisters lists Aldi, Asda, Co-op, KFC, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose as their customers.

The article starts by saying that Prof Tim Lang advises us not to buy chicken. If enough people heeded this advice the poultry industry would be forced to take action and clean up its act.

Malcolm – For a start, I would advocate not purchasing chicken for the reason I explained above. A marked drop in sales could do a lot to wake up ideas in the food industry.

As a short-term measure it would be worth looking at frozen chicken, since freezing seems to be an effective measure in decreasing the extent of contamination.

I presume that unannounced inspections already take place, but do we, the public, get to know the results? Was any action taken against the companies mentioned in the Guardian investigation? As has been pointed out, the welfare of the animals would be affected if the production line was stopped but in the circumstances the meat could be turned into pet food rather than appearing on the shelves of the supermarkets. That would mean a loss of profits – and profit is more important than public safety.

I would like all the companies involved to be more honest with us. Looking at the action plans that have been published, they are marketing their companies as doing a fine job in tackling campylobacter and there is never any admission that they have let their customers down in the first place. In other Conversations we have had a representative of the appliance industry who seems intent on denying consumer rights and keen to push us to buy expensive products with a high profit margin.

This should not be a competition between retailers. All food needs to be safe, irrespective of where it is purchased from, and irrespective of price. One advantage of the retailers using the same processing factories is that campylobacter control measures are being shared.

wavechange, “This should not be a competition between retailers.” As I commented above in relation to the various retailers’ action plans: “Significantly successful initiatives could then be imposed across the industry.”
As for companies “admitting their guilty past” I see mea culpa as of no value. I doubt they deliberately provide campylobacter. It is not the simple problem that some portray. What matters is taking action to minimise it. If anyone is so concerned about chicken then just avoid it. I’ll continue to buy chicken from M&S until I decide they have a problem.

I can’t see how people justify eating chicken on taste and flavour grounds, let alone any hygiene problems.

It’s cheap, never tough, has little gristle, bland, can easily be flavoured and it’s cheap.

I would start up several brand new test farms around the country where chickens had not previously inhabited and where they could have rotational grazing areas. The farms would be started with thoroughly clean eggs not chickens.

If this was successful, I would shut down every chicken farm in the country. They may be allowed to reopen when they had been thoroughly cleaned and if the birds grazing areas could be rotated.

Overcrowded battery farms with birds living in their own faeces has to become a thing of the past.

You have to start at the root of the problem.

alfa, that seems a positive approach, rather than the “something must be done”. I wonder if there are already chicken farms on brand new sites that would show whether or not they show a better campylobacter result. Perhaps looking at small producers could also see whether they have any better outcomes. Maybe Which? could take this up with the FSA?

Small farms might depend on how they started. If they bought chicks to start their farms, they could already have been infected. Eggs on the other hand seem to be fairly free of campylobacter except externally on their shells. If the eggs were cleaned then incubated in a fresh environment, it would be interesting to see the results.

At the moment all the media attention seems to be on the supermarkets to do all the work and maybe they do have a case to answer for if they source from specific farms that are likely to be overcrowded and infected.

Strong measures were needed for BSE and I think the same needs to happen with Campylobacter. Otherwise the problem is not going to go away.

The worrying side is cats, dogs, other pets and wild birds can be carriers. Have they always been carriers or are they being infected from the worst farms and the bacteria silently spreading.

alfa, many think the “strong measures” taken to deal with BSE were a panic and ill-informed response – probably a bit like badger culling.
As you say, campylobacter is more widespread than just chickens but it can be dealt with by taking simple precautions. I would simply like to see the facts in front of consumers, and the hysteria and panic taken out of it.
Looking at M&S results before and after their actions seems encouraging, although it is early days and they only cover 9 months. They took 487 samples between Aug 2014 and April 2015 for independent testing ( by comparison the FSA took 130 samples in a year). Before the action plan the results were:
47% below 100 cfu/g
40% 100 – 1000
12% above 1000.
After the actionplan commenced:
67% less than 100 cfu/g
25% 100 – 1000
7% more than 1000.
However it is not a full year, there may be a seasonal effect and only more testing will reveal what is happening. This is the kind of information I hope the FSA will publish for all individual retailers.

I’ve looked at the M&S corporate site and cannot find the results for the final quarter. Hopefully they will show improvement, but a Tesco chicken remains the best bet from the figures on the FSA website.

I can also only see up to April for M&S. Remember the FSA figures (like Tescos) are only a year’s average. they do not show trends. That is why I want to see how effective new measures are.
The larger sample taken by M&S’s independent test lab yields their average figures over 9 months as:
60% less than 100 cgu/g
30% between 100 and 1000
10% greater than 100.
About the best of the table on this basis, but I suspect if you took all the independently tested results into account from those retailers who took the trouble we would have a better picture of the current position, and perhaps where best to buy our chicken.

Malcolm, you may be right on the response to BSE but the point is, strong measures were taken and the problem solved.

As I see it, Campylobacter is just one more problem everyone pussyfoots around, doing their bit in the name of improving the situation , but no-one takes hold of it by the horns and gets down to a nitty gritty solution that will be unpopular with many.

With chicken, culling would be unnecessary, just run down the stock and go from there.

I am also against badger culling. A humane solution needs to be found, but that would involve money that no-one is willing to spend.

From the point of view of animal welfare, I would like to seen the end of battery farming, alfa.

I’m fairly sure your approach has been tried by organic farmers with free-range flocks. The campylobacter strains that are the main problem are present in the environment and as soon as one chicken becomes a carrier, then it can be spread easily via faeces. Only some birds become carriers but the mass processing helps to spread the bacteria to clean carcasses.

There is a lot of current interest in how organic chicken compares with battery chicken but not enough tests have been done to draw useful conclusions. Organic chickens generally have longer lives before slaughter and use of antibiotics is not permitted. I recall reading that it is helpful to ensure that chickens have clean drinking water at all times, so not all the measures to control campylobacter are highly sophisticated.

We would all be so much better informed if we had the opportunity to see chicken production first hand but I’m not sure I could cope with this.

I have seen TV programmes where the poor chickens have standing room only and the conditions have been pretty disgusting.

I believe even animals bred for human consumption are entitled to a reasonable quality of life and battery farm hens certainly don’t get any.

Perhaps children should learn about where their food comes from, alfa. I have been told that free-range farming is not very good either, but maybe that is propaganda.

When on holiday I was introduced to a farmer with 100,000 battery chickens, not broilers but for egg production. The aim is to produce as near to one egg per day, every day and when production falls off they are slaughtered. There is so little meat that once the legs have been removed for shipping abroad, the carcasses used to produce soup.

The report does look at the effect of rearing regime – standard, free range, organic. I suspect the samples from organic were too small to be significant, but on the information given, organic were better at very low levels (below 100) but worse at the high levels (above 1000). Since the majority of chicken produced will be by intensive methods, the focus should be on improving these. Maybe if one of the other regimes proved significantly better we could apply the results generally but no indication here.

Disappointed but not surprised, Ian. 🙁

I would hesitate to say that “most places know when they’ll be inspected”, Ian, but there is probably a certain amount of leakage. The objective of inspections is to achieve compliance with the food hygiene regulations and food safety legislation, not to condemn or close down establishments. I do not support pre-warnings of inspections [apart from anything else, the public health inspectors would be putting themselves and their careers at risk of being reported for such an act]. The sort of people who operate a dodgy take-away will probably not have many moral scruples if they don’t get the inspection result they wanted and are just as likely to blow the whistle..

The FSA have, I believe, considered chemical treatments. Many would not, I think, like our food soaked in chemicals when proper cooking can deal with the problem,
One comment from the USA says: “Chlorine and peracetic acid are used to treat chicken at the processing plant where a federal poultry inspector died after coughing up blood and his lungs and kidneys failed. Both are toxic chemicals known to cause lung damage, among other health hazards. USDA inspectors and poultry industry employees across the nation have also suffered from asthma, burns, rashes, irritated eyes, and sinus problems that they attribute to chemical exposure.
Use of these toxins and other antimicrobials to treat chicken contaminants will increase because of the pending poultry-inspection guidelines that state “all carcasses would remain on the line to be treated with the on-line anti-microbial agent”. In other words, all poultry products would be doused with an agent such as trisodium phosphate, chlorinated water, or acidified sodium chlorite prior to reaching consumers.”
This may be a slightly biased response – I don’t know – but we condemn chemicals in food quite often and I’d prefer not to see them proliferate. Can you trust the supplier to use them correctly? I’d prefer to see non-chemical measures used if possible.

To take another quotation from the same US website: “Chickens can soak in “fecal soup” for up to an hour before being packaged for consumers.”

That is what we are up against in the UK too. But we have moved on and now our chicken marinaded in faeces is bagged ready for the oven.

Well, is this really the case? I doubt it. the current situation is not like this at all. But if you have been scared by the headlines then maybe apart from avoiding chicken you could restrict yourselves to frozen chicken; that appears to be very effective at dealing with campylobacter; better than chemicals in my view. Still cook it well though.

All I’m scared of is what is going on in the food industry, Malcolm. 🙁

I cannot claim any great knowledge of campylobacter but having spent my working life in the field of microbiology I believe I have some appreciation of the problem.

As I have said, I don’t want to see use of chemicals as an alternative to effective measures to control campylobacter contamination.

It’s interesting to explore how we look at chemicals, because it may be necessary to take a balanced view. We treat tap water with chlorine to make it safe to drink. This is universally seen as a sensible use of chemical treatment in the developed world. Preservatives used in sausages and cooked meats are a better alternative to the risk of food poisoning. It’s interesting that most of us accept that chlorination of water is acceptable, even though we might boil or filter it to remove the taste, yet chlorine washing of chicken is seen as evil. Search for ‘chlorine chicken’ to see some extreme views.

I must have a look to see if there is any new information about the the effect of freezing on the survival of campylobacter. The sensitivity to low temperature is exploited in the process of rapid surface chilling developed by BOC in collaboration with Bernard Matthews.

I don’t buy chicken for various reasons, including the treatment of the animals, I would rather eat meat I enjoy and more recently because I have learned more about the poor hygiene conditions in the industry.

Ian, I am indeed aware and I think it is a serious loss. CAB have far too much to do, members of the public cannot approach the TS group direct it seems, and they only act (when they do) reactively not proactively as they should.
There is a report “THE IMPACT OF LOCAL AUTHORITY TRADING STANDARDS IN CHALLENGING TIMES” that makes for sad reading. It includes the lack of proper surveillance of the food industry and food outlets.
As they should be a bastion of consumer support I would like Which? to lobby hard to get a TS organisation properly funded.

Malcolm has been at the forefront on this site of alerting us to the progressive reduction of active Trading Standards and Consumer Protection activity, deploring the transfer of the ‘front desk’ to the under-resourced and inexperienced Citizens Advice service, and the transition of TS to a reactive role in which it waits until there is a body of complaints or concern before it acts.

There is no doubt that TS has suffered disproportionately from local government cuts although some reductions have probably arisen from new technology in undertaking the traditional weights & measures functions. The testing of all weighing and measuring devices was routinely undertaken periodically, as well as the check weighing or measuring of all products [e.g. bread, coal, beer] that were required by law to be supplied in prescribed weights or volumes, giving opportunities to look at other aspects of the business [like price markings]. Some of these requirements have passed with the changes in society or as a result of legislation abolishing some of the regulations [e.g. pubs are no longer required to display the prices of drinks]. Unfortunately the resources released by these changes have not been redeployed into consumer outreach and protection. There is also a loss of public accountability as Consumer Advice is a remote and unknown organisation without any democratic interface.

I am not aware of any local authorities having closed their trading standards departments as you allege. They still have statutory responsibilities for a wide range of buying and selling situations and the investigation and prosecution of illegal practices. Norfolk County Council maintains a trading standards function but it is probably a shadow of its former scale. A few recent enforcement actions published on their website show the kind of things they are now dealing with –
:: Thetford Convenience store owner sentenced at Norwich Magistrates Court for selling baby food and food products without the correct labelling in English – 5 August 2015
:: Great Yarmouth Shopkeeper sentenced for illegal tobacco offences – 6 July 2015
:: Two Norwich shops give undertakings not to sell New Psychoactive Substances – 28 May 2015
:: Two directors and salesman for Norfolk roofing company sentenced at Norwich Crown Court – 16 January 2015

The reports on each case make interesting reading and the sentences given by the courts were quite steep, involving imprisonment in most cases, reflecting the amount of work put in by TS to bring successful prosecutions. I imagine this did not represent the entirety of their work, but I think it shows they are concentrating on important issues. The new government has failed to appoint a minister with responsibility for consumer affairs and unfortunately it is doubtful if anything will now be done to reverse the trend in the run down of the TS service and consumer protection generally.

I see this differently. I believe that what Citizens Advice does is to look at individual cases and decide whether to refer them to Trading Standards or elsewhere. This is a well established way for organisations to operate efficiently, even though it’s frustrating for those of us who are quite sure who we need to deal with. If Trading Standards had to listen to problems and then tell people that they should contact Citizens Advice or another organisation, resources would be wasted.

The demands on Trading Standards have become much greater thanks to the rise in online trading and imports. Until this or another government take action the situation is unlikely to improve.

The problem with deceitful supermarket pricing could, for example, have been dealt with by Trading Standards in the good old days, in response to individual complaints. I doubt that CAB will do that; they have far more to do than they are capable of – pension advice being a case in point – and I doubt they have the expertise needed to evaluate many complaints. We need to properly resource organisations that should be protecting consumers, including a government minister.

Thank you, Ian. The overall objective is to make sure that any food establishment is compliant with all the food hygiene, food safety and health & safety requirements on every day that the premises are operating. While deprecating it, If that is effectively achieved by cooperation between the enforcers and the enforced against, I can live with it. It probably saves an enormous amount of time in procedural formalities that can be put to better use in more inspectionsand follow-up work.

I frequently read the inspection reports produced by Norwich City Council’s environmental health officers which are published on line in full and I would disagree with you that the inspections concentrate mainly on paperwork. This charge is frequently laid but rarely substantiated. A part of the visit is normally devoted to checking the record-keeping [some of which is a statutory requirement] and documentation [most of the premises having themselves elected to follow a prescribed evidential process] to assess the degree of compliance. Deficiencies are frequently found which is serious because delinquency in these matters might indicate where the inspectors should be looking in the control of foodstuffs in the kitchen and the maintenance of correct hygiene and safety standards throughout the restaurant all the way from the back gate to the dining table. It is clear from the reports I have read that the greater part of the time is actually spent checking every part of the premises for cleanliness; freedom from vermin, infestations, and contamination; correct storage and temperature control of food; electrical and physical safety; first aid and health & safety compliance including workwear; kitchen management including proper treatment of cookware, utensils, tableware and cutlery; and sanitary provisions. Journalists from the regional newspaper recently followed the inspectors on a programme of visits and reported on them. There was a series of double-page spreads over three days highlighting the regulations, the food hygiene ratings, and the enforcement procedures. It was a major exercise in public information that benefitted the trade and consumers alike.

Any public official that gives advance warning of an inspection in return for a little cash is being extremely foolhardy. If it should happen that there was a food poisoning incident at a premises there would be a full scale investigation and it would almost certainly come out if there had been a tip off about an inspection leading to a favourable report. I suppose it might happen in some places, and not all public officials are above temptation, but to expose yourself to the potential for blackmail, put your entire career at risk, and face prosecution, for the sake of “a little spare cash” would be ludicrous. The price for such jeopardy would far exceed what a small-time take-away could afford, and they are not usually so daft as to ignore the risk that a public official dishonest enough to take the inducement is just as likely to betray the perpetrator.

In my opinion one inspection a year is not enough overall, and sometimes even this interval is stretched. I believe every establishment should be inspected at least once a year, that random second and third inspections at a proportion of the premises should be carried out to keep them all on their toes, that any change of management should lead to a further inspection, and that no establishment should be allowed to bump along in the bottom category with a food hygiene rating of only one or two. Premises with a zero rating should, obviously, be closed down until the Council is satisfied that it is capable of achieving and operating sustainably at a rating of three. I would like to see full publication of the inspection reports and display of the ratings on the outside of premises to be mandatory [although refusal to do so usually speaks for itself].

Consumers who are concerned can already buy frozen chicken. Campylobacter will, according to the FSA, be unlikely to ever be eliminated as it is widespread in the environment. So the aim is to reduce it to a minimum. There will still be a residual, but smaller (hopefully much smaller), risk it seems.

I would like to see stronger evidence of the benefits of buying frozen chicken, but if than can be obtained then the Food Standards Agency should promote this, in the same way that they campaign to warn us of the dangers of washing chicken.

I am more optimistic about a solution. I understand that most chickens are not infected by campylobacter despite intensive rearing. Rapid diagnostics are under development, for example biosensors that could be used to test individual birds before slaughter. Until that happens, I believe there is scope for redesign of processing plant to decrease the extent of contamination of ‘clean’ birds with faeces laden with campylobacter.

FSA report states “The prevalence of Campylobacter was higher for chilled chicken (47.6%) than
for frozen (13.6%). The enumeration results, from the 927 samples tested also show that, when detected, levels of Campylobacter (cfu/sample) were
significantly lower (p=0.006) on frozen samples. ”
“Freezing is a proven effective intervention to control campylobacter contamination of poultry meat. ”
NHS say” Freezing raw chicken reduces levels of Campylobacter but does not eliminate it completely. The safest way to kill all traces of Campylobacter is by cooking chicken thoroughly.”
WHO report “Freezing of naturally contaminated carcasses followed by 31 days of storage at -20°C has been shown to reduce Campylobacter by 0.65 to 2.87 log10 cfu/g.
My inexpert view would still be to avoid chicken if you are concerned, to cook it properly if you want to eat chicken, and to wait to see how effective the different interventions being trialed by producers are in reducing the incidence of campylobacter.
If, as seems likely, campylobacter can never be eliminated from poultry then we should still expect to have to handle and cook it carefully as a routine.

Freezing is one of the widely used techniques for long-term storage of bacteria in laboratories. Every freeze-thaw cycle results in some loss of viability, which varies according to the organism. While frozen, there will be little change in the numbers of bacteria that have survived. In order to push the food industry towards selling frozen chicken, I believe we need stronger evidence of the benefits.

I am not convinced that we need to eliminate campylobacter. We have evolved ways of coping with lower levels of most microorganisms, although there are some very important exceptions. Getting rid of the heavily contaminated chickens would be a good start. The raw data on the FSA website shows just how contaminated a small proportion of samples were.

I agree with the final paragraph, WC. We have to live with all types of bacteria in the environment so attempting to eliminate campylobacter would, I suspect, merely provide a golden opportunity for another and possibly more pernicious, opportunistic nasty to move in. If they could simply ensure the outer bags are reasonably safe I’d certainly be happy.

I agree that the outer bags used for chicken and other raw meat should be free from contamination. I don’t want to see chlorine washes used for chicken but perhaps it would be useful to do this with the packaged birds.

A stout leak-free bag, such as a ‘bag for life’ in decent condition is useful to transport raw meat from the supermarket. After use, turn it inside-out and wipe it with a little bleach on a cloth.

Yep . . . it’s all on the premise that they won’t get caught.

Thanks for that report Diesel. “Well done” I should say.

It surprises me that food establishments are permitted to even offer to serve underdone meat. Some won’t, and others rely on a written warning in the menu to absolve themselves from any repercussions.

It’s interesting that in the USA the term ‘conventional cattle rearing’ applies to a system that we regard as unnatural and that ‘grass-fed cattle’ are the minority, whereas here, grass-fed is the norm for beef production [dairy production here is becoming an increasingly mechanised and indoors-only operation but still far less intensive than the American feed lots used for fattening cattle reared for beef, the description of which in the article is quite off-putting].

Because of the significant price differential between grass-fed [high] and intensively-reared [low] beef there is a worry that people on low incomes will be unable to afford the much safer, although never entirely risk-free, pasture-grazed beef in its ground form used for burgers. Due to other tendencies within their diets that reduce their tolerance of bacterial infection this puts poorer families at higher risk of illness. This might not yet be a significant problem in Europe where most beef products in the home market derive from traditionally-reared cattle, but we need to keep a watch on it and look out for the practices of the budget eating-out market which will source supplies from elsewhere if there is a price advantage in doing so. That could be where the TTIP bites.

John, I like your avatar and note that its colour matches that of the infected birds in the introduction. I presume it is a cuckoo in disguise? You should have it checked for campylobacter; wild birds are carriers and spread the infection through their faeces.

Well, Malcolm, although Eccles was originally employed to tell the time by cuckooing on the hour every hour and was therefore described in the contract documents as a Cuckoo, it has certainly been remarked that he has more than a touch of the Cockatiel about him, especially the beautiful plumage – Norwegian Blue I believe. So there is a distinct possibility of a Trades Description Act infringement but I do not wish to register a complaint.

The fact that campylobacter can be passed on from birds and other animals has been suggested as one reason why some studies have reported greater contamination than in chickens kept indoors.

Contamination of drinking water – such as puddles – drunk by birds outside is a recognised problem I believe.

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times. I believe that it is easier to keep drinking water clean in battery farming, not that I’m keen to promote this.

Thanks DT. I saw this in the news but Which? has ended its campaign about the campylobacter problem and few seem interested in continuing the discussion.

For many years, scientists have been warning about use of antibiotics in farming and unnecessary use of antibiotics by doctors – often in response to pressure from patients. Many have heard of the spread of antibiotic resistance but it is a very serious issue. I know several people younger than me who have had problems with persistent infections. For example, I know a retired hospital doctor who acquired a foot infection that spread and proved untreatable despite repeated efforts in hospital. Eventually he had his foot amputated and he has said he might lose the lower part of the leg. He had known the dangers since the infection had failed to respond to antibiotics two years earlier.

The difficulty in producing new antibiotics is that the metabolism humans and bacteria has so much in common, making it difficult to target the bacteria without harming us. Penicillins are an example of antibiotics that achieve this, by interfering with production of bacterial cell walls. A year or so ago, we heard about teixobactin, a possible new antibiotic that could do the same, but in a different way. Whether it proves useful remains to be seen. Long-term, there are various possibilities of other ways in which we might be able to tackle bacterial and other infections, but for the time being we have a major problem with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The work will have to be done in our research institutes and universities because companies are not prepared to invest large sums of money when there is a limited chance of success in developing new antibiotics.

Despite the reassurance given by supermarkets, they are still selling some heavily contaminated birds. Months after developing a complication of a campylobacter infection, a friend is able to walk with assistance but still cannot use her hands properly. This is a result of eating chicken in a restaurant.