Meat - Facing the Dilemmas

The Business PageIndustry benefits ifregulators learn fromBSEPatrick van Zwanenbergand Erik MillstoneOne calamity seems to follow another in themeat industry: BSE, foot and mouth disease(FMD), bluetongue, and the threat of birdflu. The reasons these disasters present suchprofound challenges lie partly in the practicesof modern agriculture and food production –which may cause and exacerbate the scaleand seriousness of disease outbreaks – butalso depend on how government and industryhave responded to these threats.The policy mistakes that contributed to theBSE saga have rightly been subjected toa searching public inquiry and sustainedeffort by the UK government to reformsome aspects of the ways in which policiesare made and justified. They needed to be.Mistakes meant that we took considerablylarger risks to human health from BSE thanwe should have done. The mistakes adverselyaffected consumer confidence and trust ingovernment, livestock farming, and the meatproducts industry. That lack of trust spilledover and affected consumer attitudes to arange of other food issues, notably aroundinnovations in agricultural biotechnology.Consumer trust depends not just onconfidence in the expertise of advisors andthe competence of policy-makers, but also onconfidence that advisors and policy-makersput consumers’ interests first.As one of the aims of food regulation is toengender consumer trust in the productsprovided by the private sector, one mighthave thought that the food industry would beparticularly keen to ensure that government’sregulatory reforms did not fall short ofexpectations. But, as on-going problems withfood safety policy demonstrate, that is justwhat has happened.The decision to create the Food StandardsAgency (FSA) in April 2000 was, in part,a decision to separate regulation fromsponsorship in respect of food safety. Butthree key areas of UK agricultural and foodpolicy-making remained unreformed, namelyBSE, pesticides and veterinary medicines.The continued lead role over BSE, first byMAFF and later DEFRA, is bizarre. It istantamount to maintaining the pretence thatBSE is primarily a veterinary problem ratherthan an issue of human health. DEFRAshould be developing agricultural policywithin a regulatory framework that isconcerned with public health and set by theFSA, rather than the FSA struggling to dealwith public health within the parameters setby DEFRA’s approach to agriculture.By the same logic, primary responsibilityfor policy on pesticides and veterinarymedicines should also be transferred to theFSA. The FSA is supposed to represent andprotect the interests of consumers, while theVeterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD)sees drug companies as its customers, andthe majority of members of the VeterinaryProducts Committee have numerouscommercial and consultancy interests in thecompanies manufacturing and marketingveterinary medicines. The VMD has alsobecome increasingly dependent on theanimal drug companies for its funding.One example of the consequences: theSoil Association has criticised the VMDfor doing the bidding of the animal drugindustry when it revised its proposals soas to allow the veterinary drug companiesto advertise prescription-only productsdirectly to farmers, despite the provisionsof an EU directive prohibiting that practice.It is now clear, in the wake of the mostrecent FMD debacle, that veterinarymedicines can harm veterinary health andthe livelihoods of livestock farmers, as wellas public and environmental health. DEFRAand the VMD are not protecting consumers,livestock or the long-term interests of thelivestock and meat industries.One of the most acute problems withBSE policy-making was that scientificuncertainties were not always disclosed,not just to the public but even to ministersand some senior officials. This meant thatministers were sometimes unaware of thescope for precautionary decision-making orthat public policy decisions were in practicebeing taken by expert advisors rather thanministers. In response, the Food StandardsAgency recommended in 2002 that allits expert advisory committees shouldconduct their business in open sessions.It insisted that unorthodox and contraryscientific views should be considered, andthat advisory committees should alwaysprovide a clear audit trail showing how andwhy they reached their decisions, wheredifferences of opinions had arisen, andwhich assumptions and uncertainties wereinherent in their conclusions.The FSA rules do not apply to othergovernment departments and agencies.DEFRA’s rules and procedures, forexample, continue to exempt the VMD andthe Pesticides Safety Directorate, and theiradvisory committees, from proper scrutinyor accountability.Even where the rules do apply they needfollowing. Recently assessing new evidenceindicating that mixtures of artificial coloursand a preservative adversely affectedchildren’s behaviour, one problem at theFSA was that the advisory committeefailed to follow those procedural rules, andthe FSA’s Board and its officials failed tonotice.Some lessons have been learnt from BSE butmostly just the easy ones. Sponsorship andregulation are still not properly separated,and science and politics are entangled inways that hide decision-making from duescrutiny, and that undermine ministerialresponsibility for making policy choices. Itis in the food industry’s long term intereststo persuade ministers and officials thatreform must go further.Patrick van Zwanenberg is a Research Fellow at theScience Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex.p.f.van-zwanenberg@sussex.ac.ukErik Millstone is a Professor of Science Policyat the University of Sussex, who combines hisscholarly studies with an active engagementin food policy debates.e.p.millstone@sussex.ac.ukNext issue - March 2008WaterIf our food is too thirsty...To receive your copy subscribe now atwww.foodethicscouncil.orgwww.foodethicscouncil.org | Volume 2 Issue 4 | Winter 2007 21