Supermarkets try to block food watchdog's bid to ‘name and shame’ stores selling chicken tainted with deadly bug

wyatt1 wrote:Supermarkets have mounted a new attempt to stop food watchdogs publishing a ‘name and shame’ list of stores selling chicken contaminated with a deadly bug.
The bug involved, campylobacter, is associated with 280,000 food poisoning cases a year and as many as 100 deaths, making it one of the biggest threats to public health.
Yet supermarkets and farmers have failed to eradicate the bug from farms and the meat reaching the high street and homes despite pleas from health experts dating back more than a decade.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has been conducting a survey of fresh chicken and has found evidence that 60 per cent is carrying campylobacter.
The organisation is due to publish the details as early as this week and will identify which of the major retailers – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, the Co-op, Waitrose, and Marks & Spencer – have the best and worst contamination levels.
The supermarkets are worried about a customer backlash and have been putting enormous pressure on the FSA not to name the stores involved by questioning whether the survey will produce reliable results.
The chief executive of the FSA, Catherine Brown, has revealed that she recently received a letter from the British Retail Consortium (BRC), which speaks for supermarkets, trying to kill plans to name the stores.
The high pressure tactics are detailed in a paper written by Miss Brown which will be discussed by the FSA board at a meeting in London tomorrow.
She wrote: ‘It is disappointing that the British Retail Consortium, which speaks on behalf of retailers, has written to us again pressing us not to release the results of the retail survey and seeking to call into question the validity of the sampling plan, which they were consulted about before the survey commenced.’












Profit before health,  so  FU Jack, we're all right ! 


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2820718/Supermarkets-try-block-food-watchdog-s-bid-shame-stores-selling-chicken-tainted-deadly-bug.html#ixzz3I88ujaeS 
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