When Food Kills: BSE, E.coli and disaster science - Hardcover

Pennington writes with intimate knowledge not only of the science but also of regulations and committees ... Very well informed and wide-ranging. (The Scientific and Medical Network Review)

... a fascinating read, packed with wry observations of human social behaviour ... The book is informative and thought-provoking and I recommend it highly for any who might be under the spotlight next time there is a microbiological disaster - which there will be! (MicroBiology Today)

.... he embraces the historical, legal and scientific aspects of his subject, though he is best when dealing with the political aspects

... a thought-provoking and in-depth look at a handful of relatively recent food scares in Britain - including the outbreak of E. coli 0157 and the emergence of variant CJD. (M2 Best Books)

This book has a refreshing underlying belief in the possibility of progress. (The Lancet)

Pennington's passionate commitment to the explanatory power of scientific understanding is the laudable central quality that gives this book undeniable importance and relevance. (The Lancet)

Pennington has written a defence of science in the service of society that is as accessible to the general reader as it is timely and of great importance. (The Lancet)

... memorable examples of the human propensity to ignore danger signals until it is too late. (Nature)

Consumers' interest in food is at an all time high ... However, there is also a great deal of misinformation in the general media. Hugh Pennington's reputation for independence and sound science will carry weight with the target audience. (Dame Sheila McKechnie, Director, Consumers' Association)

Riveting is not a word to use lightly, in a review or anywhere else. But it is exactly the word for Professor Hugh Pennington's forensic filleting of cases. (The Scotsman)

The 'food scare' concept took on new meaning in 1996, which opened with variant CJD emerging as the human form of BSE, and closed with Britain's worst E.coli O157 outbreak in central Scotland. As people died, so did trust in government and science. This book tells the story of these events, what led up to them, and what has happened since. It breaks new ground by dissecting these tragedies alongside catastrophes like Aberfan, Piper Alpha, Chernobyl, and the worst ever railway accidents in Ireland and Britain (Armagh and Quintinshill), as well as classical outbreaks of botulism, typhoid, E.coli O157 and Salmonella food poisoning. Britain's ability to win Nobel prizes marches with a propensity to have disasters. The book explains why, demonstrating failures in policy making, failures in the application of science, and failing inspectorates.
A unique feature of this book is its breadth since it covers history, politics and law as well as science. It also makes some fascinating connections, like those between 1930's nuclear physics, E.coli, and molecular biology, and the links between manslaughter in 19th century mental hospitals, syphilis, the Nobel Prize, and the prospects for successfully treating variant CJD. Royal murderers, vaccine research in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and the race to develop the atom bomb appear as well.
For the general reader its non-technical but authoritative account of the science behind these tragedies, its critical appraisal of how the government responded to them, its coverage of public inquiries and its analysis of risk will be informative and stimulating. Scientists will find its approach to the prion theory and the origins of BSE challenging and controversial. Policy makers will find not only diagnoses of what went wrong in the past, but remedies ror the future.