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MSPs have called for a reprieve of national references laboratories, which study E. coli and the food poisoning bacterium, Campylobacter, that are threatened by the removal of the Scottish Executive's contracts next April. Laboratories' co-director Hugh Pennington, the Aberdeen 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ bacteriology professor who headed the investigation into the country's worst E. coli outbreak, warned that expertise on tracking the spread of infection will dissipate if the funding is removed.