Vincent Arbuckle: Food Safety NZ Deputy Director-General responds to study of campylobacter infection rates

Food Safety New Zealand says a study of campylobacter infection rates is unnecessarily alarmist.

The Public Health Communication Centre claims more than 10 percent of the population contracted the infection from eating chicken in the past few years.

It suggests it's caused 9000 hospitalisations, and at least 60 deaths since 2008. 

Food Safety NZ's Vincent Arbuckle says the numbers are way off. 

"Every time there's a death, the clinician has to determine the primary cause and that goes on record - and the primary cause has been only three cases."

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Frame bread.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
So it turns out if the next story is to
be believed, and that is a question mark. But not
only we pay more for our food, but it could
potentially be making us quite sick. People getting sick they
reckon from fresh chicken responsible for six hundred thousand illnesses
since two thousand and eight. This is analysis from public
health experts led by Michael Baker. They estimate that Kampbella

(00:21):
bacter has caused nine thousand hospitalizations and at least sixty
deaths since two thousand and eight. Now they want warning
labels on chicken in the shops if you can believe it,
limits on allowable levels of campbeller backt on fresh chicken
for sale, which means some of it might have to
be frozen. But New Zealand Food Safety has called the
paper unnecessarily alarmist. Vincent Arbuckle's the deputy director general and

(00:46):
is with me, now, hello, hello, why is this alarmist?

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Look, there's aspects of the report that you know, what
we feel not based on fact. I mean the example
which we most concerned about is the claim of an
excess of sixty deaths over that report period. The reality
is that that the numbers of reported death due to

(01:13):
campler bacteriosis from two thousand and seven to two twenty
twenty four is three. So that's three cases where the
principal cause of fatality was due to that infections.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Like the COVID thing where it was due to or
died with.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, and you know you
can you can look at stats in different ways. But
they reported every time there's a death the physician that
the clinician has to determine the primary cause and that
goes on record, and the primary cause has been only
three cases. There's been other cases where there have been

(01:57):
primary cause and associated causes, but the prime only three cases.
That that doesn't take away from the importance of focusing
on camplbacta and poultry. So we why we know, we
don't disagree that.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Okay, yeah, so you agree it's important, but we need
to be making sure we're talking facts, right, So why
do you think they're doing it?

Speaker 1 (02:18):
I don't know. Look, look, I mean we've tried to
engage in the last couple of weeks and respect researchers
and I'd rather focus on working together where we can.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
What did they say when you're the problem? What did
they say when you tried to engage with.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Them, Well, I think they you know that verily, I've
got to respect their views and you know that they
are an interpretas as an interpretation of a series of facts,
we rely on the published notified data. That's our north star.
So the notified reported cases as the best indicator of

(03:00):
the prevalence of the infection in consumers. That has been
reduced from about twenty twenty twenty six to twenty twenty
by half. And then we had a target across the
health authorities with the industry and ourselves to drive it
down by a further twenty percent from twenty to twenty

(03:21):
twenty to twenty twenty four. And we achieve that we're
not there yet. There's more work that needs to be done,
but we are singlely focused on containing and controlling this problem.
It is the number one food borne illness in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Do we need the labels that are suggesting.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, look at late. It's interesting, isn't it. Far as
we can work out, there's only one country in the
world that does do a label is suggested. We serve
a consumers regularly about their understanding of the risks of poultry,
and we know there's a very high level of awareness.
Only one area that possibly consumers don't that sort of

(04:03):
split on as where they wash the chicken. Before we
introduce yet another control and therefore put a cost on
industry and potentially on consumers, we need to be sure
that that intervention will have a proportionate, will better response,
you know, like what's the return on investment. We're not
convinced at the moment that labeling a chicken is going

(04:24):
to make a substantial difference to the awareness of the public.
We believe most consumers understand the risk, take good steps
to you know, make sure they cook their chicken and
handle it with care. We don't really think labeling and
make much difference.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Okay, Vincent, Thank you. Vincent Arbuckle with the New Zealand
Food Safety.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
For more from hither Duplassy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.