Day 295 - 06 Nov 96 - Page 10
1
2 But it does to us indicate a general pattern as regards how
3 McDonald's deals with public concerns and criticism; that
4 they deal with it by raising up red herrings and
5 propaganda. You know, 'What is our line going to be on
6 this? Well, we will not admit any food poisoning liability
7 for any incident, such as the Preston one', unless it is to
8 stop us calling our witness on the subject, which they had
9 the right to do in this case. But at the same time they
10 raised the idea of all this testing to imply that the food
11 must be safe, instead of being open and honest with the
12 public, you know, and work with the public and encourage
13 people to bring back undercooked food, et cetera, et
14 cetera.
15
16 And as they have made a formal admission now regarding the
17 Preston incident, if I could just read it out, because I
18 wanted to read this one out.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
21
22 MR. MORRIS: Formal admission that in January 1991 a number of
23 people suffered food poisoning after eating burgers from
24 McDonald's in Friargate Preston. Some had severe medical
25 problems requiring hospitalisation. McDonald's refused to
26 admit responsibility despite a public health laboratory
27 official report into the incident identifying the company
28 which concluded that, "the problem may not have been
29 completely restricted to that single branch or to a single
30 hamburger chain". Survivors of the outbreak only received
31 some compensation (without admission of liability) after
32 strenuous and lengthy efforts.
33
34 And the point about the... Sorry, that was made on 6th
35 July 1994. And then it went on to say, in another
36 admission, which I have not got in front of me, that --
37 yes, it was another admission made on 22nd March, 1995:
38 The cause of the food poisoning outbreak was undercooking
39 of burgers contaminated by E.Coli 0157H bacteria.
40 Following this incident, McDonald's increased their cooking
41 time for beef patties. For the avoidance of doubt, it is
42 not admitted that despite this, McDonald's cooking
43 time/temperature specifications are still insufficient to
44 ensure food safety.
45
46 We say that admission contains a further admission that
47 they were insufficient to ensure food safety at the time of
48 the incident in 1991, which, as we know, was, in any case,
49 previous to that, it was even more insufficient, and in
50 America we know it was even more insufficient still because
51 the time/minimum temperatures were even lower.
52 So that admission was made.
53
54 The reason for bringing it up now is to say that this is
55 part of the general deceptiveness of McDonald's in hiding
56 the reality and not wanting to concede the reality and, on
57 a matter as important as this, instead of working with the
58 public they are trying to fob the public off or deny the
59 reality, and they only made compensation, not even
60 admitting liability, as they admit, after strenuous and
