Safe to eat, the cheese linked to E.coli death
Expert condemns agency findings
THE Scottish cheese blamed for a deadly E.coli outbreak has been cleared by the UK’s leading expert on the bug.
Last summer, an outbreak of E.coli struck down 20 people, killing a three-yearold girl in Dunbartonshire.
Food Standards Scotland (FSS) linked the outbreak to Lanarkshire-based Errington Cheese, claiming tests revealed E.coli bacteria in its signature Dunsyre Blue cheese.
The accusation has led to a bitter dispute between the quango and the family business, which is banned from selling products until the investigation has concluded.
But a new report has cleared the cheese – and accused FSS of dramatically misinterpreting its own test results.
The report has been authored by Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University, who has led major investigations into E.coli and is widely regarded as the UK’s leading expert.
In the report he writes: ‘So far I have seen no microbiological evidence that links Errington Cheese to the E.coli O157:H7 outbreak.
‘The outbreak was caused by E.coli O157 phage type 21/28. I have seen the results of many microbiological tests on numerous samples of Dunsyre Blue Cheese. None were positive for this organism.’
Yesterday, Professor Pennington added: ‘Finding the bug in the cheese would be the smoking gun, as it were, and that wasn’t found.
‘I’m disagreeing with their interpretation of the microbacterial results, which I think they are over-interpreting in a massive sort of way.’
As well as ordering the cheese to be removed from the market, FSS also pushed for stocks to be destroyed.
The destruction order was waived last month after the company challenged it in court, and FSS paid some of the legal fees of the company.
But in his report Professor Pennington has also criticised the quango’s attempt to destroy the dairy products.
He wrote: ‘As a microbiologist with extensive experience in food safety matters, I was amazed to learn about the mention of destruction.’
He also notes that South Lanarkshire Council officials appear to have confused two strains of E.coli during testing – identifying one that only infects cattle as potentially harmful to humans.
The report was commissioned by the owner of the cheesemaking company, Humphrey Errington, in the run-up to a judicial review of the case, which has now been dropped.
Mr Errington, 71, said: ‘The report explains in quite a lot of detail where the FSS interpretation of that test was simply wrong. What we now need is a court to hear their evidence and hear our evidence and come to a decision because they’re never going to back off and say, “We got it all wrong”.’
An FSS spokesman said it acted after ‘the identification by South Lanarkshire Council of serious deficiencies in the food safety procedures that Errington Cheese uses’.
She added: ‘This testing served to confirm the evidence gathered which had raised serious questions regarding the safety of cheeses produced by this company.’
NHS agency Health Protection Scotland, which led a team investigating the outbreak, said: ‘During investigations it is not always possible to isolate the organism which caused the outbreak from the implicated food.
‘Microbiological testing of food therefore comprises only one component of a foodborne outbreak investigation.’
‘Smoking gun wasn’t found’