In 2000, the United Kingdom Government's Food Standards Agency published "A report of the study of infectious intestinal disease in England". This report was the result of over a decade's endeavour and cost well in excess of 2 million pound sterling (approximately 3.3 million euros). The study originated in 1989. In response to national epidemics of foodborne infection with Salmonella enteritidis phage type 4 and Listeria monocytogenes, the Government set up the Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (the Richmond Committee). This committee wished to know the actual level of clinical disease in the population giving rise to the laboratory reports of gastro-intestinal pathogens in national surveillance data and recommended studies to achieve this objective. In addition, successors to the to Richmond Committee decided that it would be of value to collect information from both cases and controls, including documenting exposure to biologically plausible risk factors so that differences between the ill and the well could be identified. Enquiries were also made about the clinical course of disease, so that long term sequelae and socio-economic costs could be estimated. A full description of this enormous study is beyond the scope of this paper, which defends the personal view that resources might have been better spent on a less ambitious enquiry.