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More information on the product recall can be found at Cadbury’s website.
Professor Paul Hunter, Professor of Health Protection at the University of East Anglia, said:
“There appears to be no evidence that the increase in cases of salmonella are definitely related to Cadburys, and given that the number of cases identified in the UK is only 45 and we eat literally millions of these chocolate bars a day – I think the chances of getting salmonella from eating a chocolate bar are on a par with winning the lottery. Also it’s worth remembering that while salmonella in humans can be very unpleasant, it is very rarely fatal.”
Professor Norman Noah, Professor of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said:
“The problem with salmonella in chocolate is that it is a very fatty food. Whereas you need approximately 10,000 salmonellas to cause an infection in a normal human being, when it’s tied up in a fatty food like chocolate the dose tends to be somewhat smaller. So while I think it’s good that the company has come clean and withdrawn the products, I’m not entirely convinced that the low dose means that there is no danger to human health.”
Dr Anthony Hilton, general secretary of the Society for Applied Microbiology and Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at Aston University, said:
“I think it’s admirable that the company has come forward and withdrawn the product. Given the nature of the product, which protects the Salmonella’s passage through the stomach, coupled with the vulnerability of the typically young consumer group, the low contamination level may represent more of a risk of infection than may be immediately obvious.”