Junior Health Minister Edwina Currie resigned Friday over an incautious remark about disease-infected eggs that is costing the British government millions to counteract.
In her resignation letter to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Currie - persistently one of Thatcher's most controversial ministers - said Britain's "greater prosperity has also made people far more interested in the promotion of good health."Public awareness of health matters had been her job, and Currie achieved it with headline-grabbing statements that in three years made her one of the country's best-known politicians.
But she has been under attack since Dec. 3 when, following reports of about two dozen cases of food poisoning traced to eggs, she said, "Most egg production in this country, sadly, is affected with salmonella."