Skip navigation
London Review of Books London Review Bookshop

Articles marked subscriber-only content are available to registered subscribers to the print edition of the London Review of Books. For information about subscribing to the LRB, click here. If you are already a subscriber and you wish to register for online access, click here.

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 5 June 2008

Disasters and Disease

Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar (let’s use the place names used by the World Food Programme) on 2 and 3 May, blasting the Ayeyarwady delta and the capital, Yangon. The population of the declared disaster areas – much of it the country’s granary – is about 13 million. About 1.5 million have been seriously affected. In many places houses, farming assets and food stores have been destroyed and the land ruined by saltwater. [ 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)

Search the web for Hugh Pennington: Google · Yahoo! · AltaVista · Wikipedia

In the LRB archive

Disasters and Disease · 5 June 2008

Short Cuts: Bluetongue · 21 February 2008

Wash Your Hands · 15 November 2007

  • Investigation into Outbreaks of ‘Clostridium difficile’ at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust
  • Investigation into Outbreaks of ‘Clostridium difficile’ at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust

subscriber-only content In the Chocolate · 2 August 2007

subscriber-only content The Problem with Biodiversity · 10 May 2007

subscriber-only content Big Biology · 8 February 2007

subscriber-only content Lethal Specks · 14 December 2006

subscriber-only content Then came the Hoover · 22 June 2006

Don’t pick your nose · 15 December 2005

subscriber-only content If H5N1 Evolves · 23 June 2005

subscriber-only content Two Spots and a Bubo · 21 April 2005

  • Return of the Black Death: The World’s Greatest Serial Killer by Susan Scott and Christopher Duncan  Buy this book
  • The Great Plague: The Story of London’s Most Deadly Year by Lloyd Moote and Dorothy Moote  Buy this book
  • Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease by Wendy Orent

subscriber-only content Wandability · 18 November 2004

  • Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets by Joanna Blythman  Buy this book
  • Not on the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on Your Plate by Felicity Lawrence  Buy this book
  • Food Policy Old and New edited by Simon Maxwell and Rachel Slater  Buy this book

Why can’t doctors be more scientific? · 8 July 2004

subscriber-only content Phrenic Crush · 5 February 2004

  • The Return of the White Plague: Global Poverty and the ‘New’ Tuberculosis edited by Matthew Gandy and Alimuddin Zumla

subscriber-only content Can you close your eyes without falling over? · 11 September 2003

  • Pox: Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis by Deborah Hayden

Too much fuss? · 5 June 2003

Smallpox Scares · 5 September 2002

subscriber-only content Woolsorters’ Disease · 29 November 2001

Myrtle Street · 8 March 2001

  • The Removal, Retention and Use of Human Organs and Tissue from Post-Mortem Examination

The English Disease · 14 December 2000

  • The BSE Inquiry by Lord Phillips et al

From the LRB letters page