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Hugh Pennington

Hugh Pennington is chair of the public inquiry into the 2005 South Wales E.coli outbreak. He lives in Aberdeen.

From the London Review dated 15 December 2005

Don’t pick your nose

M stands for methicillin, a chemical derivative of penicillin, first called BRL 1241 because it was developed during the 1950s in the Beecham Research Laboratories at Betchworth in Surrey. R stands for resistant; the development of methicillin resistance in a hospital was first detected in October 1960 in Guildford, also in Surrey. And SA stands for Staphylococcus aureus, the bacterium that causes boils, carbuncles, abscesses, osteomyelitis and most wound infections after surgery. It was discovered in the late 1870s by Alexander Ogston, a surgeon at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. [ read more . . . ]

Selected bibliography

  • When Food Kills: BSE, E.Coli and Disaster Science (2003)
  • The Pennington Group Report: Report on the Circumstances Leading to the 1996 Outbreak of Infection with E.Coli 0157 in Central Scotland, the Implications for Food Safety and the Lessons to Be Learned (1997)

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