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It didn’t even wake up and do its own examination when the Irish authorities informed it last November that they were sufficiently concerned to have a proper look, meaning that – and not for the first time – a British food scandal was uncovered abroad.
But the truth is that the FSA has a long history of similar failings, for it is just the latest incarnation of a regulatory system that has consistently let down British consumers, often by giving a lower priority to public health than to the private profits of the food industry.
The classic case, of course, is the way its predecessor, the late and unlamented Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff) handled BSE, assuring us for years, while hundreds of thousands of diseased animals were being put into the food chain, that infected beef was safe to eat.
Scientists who warned of the dangers were mocked and persecuted. Evidence given to the official BSE inquiry detailed how the first vet to recognise its importance was forced to alter his report, and how the first doctor to warn that it could spread to humans was ridiculed and refused a research grant. Two of the country’s most distinguished scientists, charged with finding out what was happening, were deceived over the extent of official safeguards, while another was denied essential data for six years. The inquiry concluded that there had been a decade-long official “campaign of reassurance” whose “object was sedation”. Full story...
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It didn’t even wake up and do its own examination when the Irish authorities informed it last November that they were sufficiently concerned to have a proper look, meaning that – and not for the first time – a British food scandal was uncovered abroad.
But the truth is that the FSA has a long history of similar failings, for it is just the latest incarnation of a regulatory system that has consistently let down British consumers, often by giving a lower priority to public health than to the private profits of the food industry.
The classic case, of course, is the way its predecessor, the late and unlamented Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff) handled BSE, assuring us for years, while hundreds of thousands of diseased animals were being put into the food chain, that infected beef was safe to eat.
Scientists who warned of the dangers were mocked and persecuted. Evidence given to the official BSE inquiry detailed how the first vet to recognise its importance was forced to alter his report, and how the first doctor to warn that it could spread to humans was ridiculed and refused a research grant. Two of the country’s most distinguished scientists, charged with finding out what was happening, were deceived over the extent of official safeguards, while another was denied essential data for six years. The inquiry concluded that there had been a decade-long official “campaign of reassurance” whose “object was sedation”. Full story...
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