Hugh Pennington

Thomas Hugh Pennington (born 19 April 1938) is emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Outside academia, he is best known as the chair of the Pennington Group inquiry into the Scottish Escherichia coli outbreak of 1996 and as Chairman of the Public Inquiry into the 2005 Outbreak of E. coli O157 in South Wales.

Early life Pennington was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School in Lancashire, England. He was dean of the medical school between 1987 and 1992.

From 2003 to 2006 he was President of the Society for General Microbiology. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Campaign for Science and Engineering.

Pennington Group inquiry In late November 1996, an Escherichia coli outbreak in the town of Wishaw prompted the Scottish Office to establish an expert group, chaired by Pennington. The Pennington Group convened between December 1996 and March 1997. Another case of E. coli infection occurred in Tayside in January 1997 and the group was tasked with investigating the additional outbreak.

Subsequent public work Following his chairmanship of the E. coli inquiry, Pennington has worked for the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments as an expert on microbiology and food safety, and has also appeared in British media as an expert. He was a member of the Scottish Food Advisory Committee, He was a founder member of the World Food Programme Technical Advisory Group.

He has criticised the UK and German governments for their handling of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and the NHS for their handling of MRSA. He chaired a 2005 inquiry into a Welsh E. coli outbreak. The 2005 Outbreak of E. coli O157 in South Wales Public Inquiry report was published in March 2009.

In 2003, Pennington published When Food Kills, a popular science book on the topic of BSE, E. coli and public food safety.

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to microbiology and food hygiene.

In November 2015 he published Have Bacteria Won?, where he examines mankind's battles against bacteria and whether we should be optimistic about the future.

In September 2022 he published COVID-19: The Postgenomic Pandemic, an account of how the post-genomic era (after 2008) changed how we understood and dealt with pandemics such as the COVID-19 virus.

Personal life He married Carolyn Beattie in 1966 in Maidstone, Kent. They have two daughters.