Transcript of Justin McCracken interview

PLEASE NOTE "THE ANDREW MARR SHOW" MUST BE CREDITED IF ANY PART OF THIS TRANSCRIPT IS USED

Andrew Marr interviewed Chief Executive of the Health Protection Agency Justin McCracken on June 5th 2011.

ANDREW MARR:

There's been a call for German food to be taken out of the shops amid fears that an aggressive mutant strain of E.coli, which has infected hundreds of people and killed 18 people - in Germany mainly - could spread. There's been 11 cases here so far. The Health Protection Agency is in charge of responding to this kind of emergency and its Chief Executive, Justin McCracken, is with me now. Good morning.

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

Good morning.

ANDREW MARR:

Let's start with the call to take food off the shelves of British shops. So far as you're aware, is there German food that could be infected that has to be removed from supermarkets?

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

Well it's the Food Standards Agency actually that leads on food safety in this country …

ANDREW MARR:

Sure.

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

… and their advice is that there is no food in the UK, which is linked in any way with the source of this outbreak. And all of the evidence supports that from the pattern of cases which we've observed.

ANDREW MARR:

So far as you can tell at the moment, is this purely a German problem, not something that we should be worrying about in Britain?

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

As far as we can see at the moment, the source of infection, the thing that's making people ill, is somewhere and it appears to be in Northern Germany, and there is no source of infection anywhere else in the world. All the cases that have occurred outside Germany can be linked back to Germany. Generally it's somebody who's travelled there.

ANDREW MARR:

And how easily … I mean it's clearly a very unpleasant and potentially deadly new strain. How easily can it be passed?

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

It can be passed from human to human, but not easily. It's not like flu or measles which easily transmits from one person to another. The usual way people get infected is by eating some food that's been contaminated or by drinking contaminated water. When somebody is ill and has actually got active diarrhoea, it can be passed by close contact from one person to another: the faecal-oral route, what we call the toilet route, which is why we advise people to be very careful about personal hygiene.

ANDREW MARR:

Well I was going to ask because that's the next question: what should people do? Either if they're travelling … A lot of people travel to Germany, a lot of people come back from Germany - transit both ways. What should people be doing?

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

We are advising people who travel to Germany to follow the advice of the health authorities there, which is to avoid eating raw tomatoes, raw cucumbers and leafy salads, including lettuce. Now if that advice changes, then we would advise people to follow whatever the new advice is from the German authorities because actually most outbreaks of E.coli in the past have been linked more to things like meat and dairy products, and there's no certainty yet about what the source of this outbreak is.

ANDREW MARR:

What about the people who are ill here? What do we know of them?

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

Well there are 11 people only in this country who are ill - 3 of whom have the more serious complication of Haemolytic Uraemic Syndrome that causes kidney disease and needs very careful management. So 11 people ill, all with clear links to Germany. But for other people in this country, we would advise, you know, if people have travelled to Germany and they become ill with diarrhoea, then if it's bloody they should immediately seek medical attention. But for people who have no contact with Germany, they should continue with their normal hygiene.

ANDREW MARR:

Okay. Now when we have these crises, we tend to turn to the Health Protection Agency and have somebody like you on and ask you about it, but the HPA is actually now doomed, aren't you?

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

It is true that in a year's time, there won't be a Health Protection Agency. The work that we do is part of the government's wider reforms of the healthcare and public health system, is being transferred into the Department of Health. So within that, there will be a new organisation called Public Health England.

ANDREW MARR:

Will that be politically controlled though?

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

Well I mean it is absolutely critical, the opportunity of creating a new organisation with a wider remit there's some opportunities to improve public health, but there's some real risks to two things that underpin our work. One is the expertise we have - much of which is independently funded and it's not clear that people will actually govern.

ANDREW MARR:

Sure.

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

The other thing is that our advice needs to be seen to be independent of any political influence. And how these changes are implemented will be absolutely critical to whether that's the case and, therefore, the effectiveness of public health advice in the future.

ANDREW MARR:

Alright, Mr McCracken, for now thank you very much indeed.

JUSTIN McCRACKEN:

Thank you.

INTERVIEW ENDS

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