Former Health Minister, Edwina Currie, speaking on BBC Radio 4: "I was a politician, darling"

Eggs now being sold in Britain are just as dangerous as they were during the height of the salmonella scare in the late-1980s, new figures show.

Unpublished research commissioned by the Department of Health finds that virtually the same number of eggs contained salmonella in 1996 as in 1991, despite drastic measures taken between 1989 and 1993 to combat the problem.

Salmonella remains a problem despite the slaughter of 2 million hens

The Public Health Laboratory Service found that one out of every 650 eggs was contaminated with salmonella in 1991, and one in 700 in 1996, according to a report in New Scientist magazine.

The figures suggest the failure of measures introduced after the 1988 scare sparked by the then Health Minister of the Conservative Government, Edwina Curry.

Egg sales fell by 60% after she said that most of the country's egg production was infected by salmonella and she was forced to resign.

The government ordered the slaughter of more than two million chickens to control the spread of the bacteria, introduced legislation to improve hygiene in hen houses and imposed tighter controls on the sale of eggs.

Edwina Curry: sparked salmonella scare in 1988

The findings have prompted the government's independent Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF) to launch an investigation into why the situation has not improved.

Doug Georgala, the committee's chairman, said: "They show there's been no significant drop. From the public health point of view this is still not acceptable."

He added that salmonella was found not just in UK eggs but imported eggs as well.

The ACMSF investigation will review the latest research and look at how the bacteria were transmitted. It will also scrutinise hen coop hygiene.

Mr Georgala said lessons could be learned from Sweden, where less than 0.1% of poultry is infected with salmonella. There, feed pellets are heated to kill bacteria, and imported day-old chicks are quarantined for 16 weeks to ensure they are disease-free.

The UK consumes 27 million eggs a day

But, Ben Gill, President of the National Farmers' Union insisted eggs were perfectly safe if cooked properly.

The government's Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Jeremy Metters, repeated the Department of Health's advice to the public not to eat raw eggs.

He said it would be prudent for the public not to eat "raw eggs or uncooked foods made from them, such as home-made mayonnaise, mousse or ice-cream."

He added that the present evidence did not appear to show a similar risk associated with the consumption of cooked eggs and therefore there was no reason to recommend an increase in cooking times.

However, he said: "It is advisable for vulnerable people such as the elderly, the sick, babies and pregnant women to consume only eggs which have been cooked until the white and yolk are solid."

In the UK, 27 million eggs are consumed every day. The industry is worth about £800m a year.
 

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