When it became obvious the UK initiative was a dismal failure, with only minimal impact on public health, they devised a strategy enlisting retailers to "name and shame" UK poultry companies. One expert called this "the last desperate act of a failed strategy".
In 2014-15, UK campylobacter rates finally improved from 104 human cases per 100,000 to 97, with 80 per cent, or 78 per 100,000 of the total cases, attributed to chicken. Thus, in the first year of the revised UK strategy (which Consumer wants adopted here) there was only a 7 per cent reduction in the overall number of human campylobacter cases.
Conversely, the evidence in New Zealand is that the Ministry for Primary Industries/poultry industry campylobacter strategy has had far greater impact on public health than the UK process. The overall drop from a peak of 380 per 100,000 in 2006 to 135 per 100,000 in 2015 is a significant improvement of 64 per cent.
Importantly, attribution studies of campylobacter sources in New Zealand show only 40 per cent of human campylobacter cases are attributed to chicken. In the UK and Australia, chicken is responsible for at least 80 per cent of human campylobacter cases. The 40 per cent attribution to chicken in NZ equates to 54 (out of the 135) cases per 100,000, compared with equivalent figures in Australia of 100 and UK of 78.
MICHAEL BROOKS
Poultry Industry Association of NZ executive director
Life jackets
I see those people enjoying "Liquid lunch" as it was headlined (Chronicle, January 2) in the Evinrude-powered boat on the river in Tuesday's paper.
Just a question: "Did I see any life jackets being worn?"
ROD NEWPORT
Whanganui
The Land WarsT
he answer to Mike Lally's question (Chronicle, January 3) is obvious to those who know the real history of the Taranaki tribes since 1840.
We are all victims of "ethnic cleansing". Exactly the same process as was implemented in America, Australia, Africa, Canada and every other country or land that was colonised by Europeans.
And "victims" is just one of the popular terms used in the propaganda that has been perpetrated and perpetuated ever since. Europeans can't help themselves, it's in their genes.
Every European country has been invaded multiple times, their lands and livelihoods stolen.
My personal problem is that the majority of the modern generations have capitulated and have joined the establishment in imposing the assimilation process on ourselves.
They are being well paid for it too, but for the majority nothing has changed. So as we have always done, we, the majority, have just got a job and got on with life.
So the term "victims" is a misnomer, as were all the other propagandist terms used in the process of the denigration and vilification of Maori. There is a desire to commemorate the Land Wars here in Aotearoa. But we need to acknowledge the real history first.
POTONGA NEILSON
Castlecliff
Clean and green
Frank Greenall is like so many who want the world but are against most of the things that will create the wealth needed to pay for it.
He puts farming up as something that is ruining our country, yet it creates our wealth -- and only wealthy countries are clean. Tourists comment on how clean and green we are.
He wants chemically produced protein; we tried that with chemically produced fat: margarine, a disaster to health. Now people have lost their fear and gone back to a natural product called butter.
After promoting chemical food he turns to praise organic food, supposedly better for you than mainstream food production because he believes it is chemical-free, always forgetting plants produce their own chemicals to protect themselves.
John Key has done a great job of keeping our economy growing, even with strong head winds, which is allowing us to progress our economy better than most, allowing increases in measures to help the less well-off.
The last people who tried to get rid of farming were David Lange and Roger Douglas, going very close to bankrupting NZ.
Frank, there is a huge demand for our produce because they know it is produced in a clean green environment, and because they want to live healthy lives, produced by good protein and fats.
Frank's logic says to hell with them.
G R SCOWN
Whanganui
Values & beliefs
I refer to Alan Duff's article of November 29, 2016 in the NZ Herald, entitled "The more we know, the more we cling to beliefs."
I take issue with Alan's assertion that, "We're just atoms formed into molecules that come together organically." He then goes on to say that advances in science should negate any belief in the supernatural.
But what about values? We all know that love -- seeking a person's highest good by the best possible means -- can never come from atoms and molecules. Science has absolutely nothing to say about life regarding origin, meaning, morality and destiny. You only get that from philosophy and religion, and, like it or not, we all have a belief system of some kind. Trouble is, it isn't always logically consistent and doesn't always have any historical or experiential evidence to back it up.
Speaking of evidence, Alan states that, "Christians still quote from a book written at least a century after Jesus Christ was killed." Guess what, Alan -- a Greek philosopher called Epicurus put forward the idea that we are made up of atoms long before that and most of us still believe it.
Also, Paul's first letter to the Corinthians in the Bible was written about 20 years after the events he describes, namely that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and appeared to a number of people -- 500 at one time. He even says that at the time he was writing, some of the people who had seen the resurrected Jesus were still living -- in other words, go check it out.
Most of us can remember events that happened 20 years ago. Of course, there are a lot of books in the Bible that were written centuries before Jesus was born, but does that mean they shouldn't be believed? The Ten Commandments were written over 3000 years ago. Our system of justice is based on them. I am quite sure Alan Duff and a lot of other people would never dream of dispensing with these laws just because they were written over a century ago.
Also, loving God, and loving your neighbour as yourself, are straight from the Bible. Most people try to dispense with the "God" part and just do the "neighbour" bit. Trouble is, as world events prove, the one we want to keep doesn't work without the one we want to get rid of.
By the way, Muslims don't have anything about love in the Koran. As far as they are concerned, they are slaves of Allah.
We all have a fundamental human need to be loved. If any religion does not have love as a core value and does not have a positive moral influence, it is not worth having.
DAVID GASH
Whanganui
