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IF EGGS could be pasteurised as easily as milk, thousands of people could be spared salmonella poisoning every year. But until now, efforts to make eggs bug-free have met with a mixed reception. What’s OK in the US, for instance, is banned in Europe.

There’s a clear need for a way of pasteuri-sing eggs. According to Britain’s Public Health Laboratory Service, there were nearly 11,000 cases of Salmonella enteritidis poisoning last year, and eggs are a frequent culprit.

Salmonella mainly gets into eggs inside the hen’s ovary or oviduct, before the shell forms around the yolk and white. It…

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