A link to Campylobacter jejuni was suspected when a young girl was admitted to Second Teaching Hospital.
Shortly after midnight on 6 November 2005, the day before his scheduled swearing-in for his fourth term in Parliament, he died suddenly at his Christchurch home after suffering for a few days from Campylobacter jejuni food poisoning from an unknown source.
The hisB gene, found in the enterobacteria (such as E. coli), in Campylobacter jejuni and in Xylella/Xanthomonas encodes a protein involved in catalysis of two step in histidine biosynthesis (the sixth and eight step), namely the bifunctional Imidazoleglycerol-phosphate dehydratase/histidinol-phosphatase.