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    THE BridgeNews FORUM: On farming, farm policy 
    and related agricultural issues. 
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* No Nasty Political Surprises, And Something To Please Everyone In A 
  Massive Mad Cow Inquiry Years In The Making 
  
  
    By David Walker, agricultural economist 
    BridgeNews 
    Norwich, England--The long-awaited and much heralded report on British BSE  
(bovine spongiform encephalopathy), better known as "mad cow disease," came and  
went last week. 
  
    From Westminster (the seat of government), from Whitehall (home to the  
civil service) and from anywhere else where the British beef industry survives,  
a sigh of relief was almost audible. 
  
    Hidden within the report and of greatest interest to the beef industry, as  
opposed to the historians and finger-pointers, however, was an implicit warning  
that not all the lessons may have been learned by everyone. 
  
    Politically, the outcome was as much as could be expected and there were no  
nasty surprises. There was something in the report to please everyone, but not  
enough to satisfy anybody. 
  
    By announcing a program to compensate the families of victims of variant  
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the rare human disease associated with BSE,  
the government was able to underline this footnote on the past. 
  
    The inquiry was announced by then-agriculture minister Jack Cunningham in  
1997 "to establish and review the history of the emergence and identification  
of BSE and vCJD in the United Kingdom, and of the action taken in response to  
it up to 20 March 1996." 
  
    Lord Phillips, who had no obvious connection with the beef industry but  
several prominent legal inquiries under his belt, was given the job of chairing  
the inquiry. As BSE and vCJD were and continued to be a high-profile issue  
there was no shortage of opinion. Phillips' job was to separate and label the  
wheat and the chaff. 
  
    The date, March 20, 1996, was when mainstream scientific opinion in the  
form of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, the government's  
advisor on the issue, recognized "in the absence of any credible alternative  
the most likely explanation at present is that these (vCJD) cases are linked to  
exposure to BSE."  
  
    Prior to that time the opinion of government, but doubted by many, was that  
the chance of humans contracting the disease by eating beef was remote and beef  
was safe to eat. The date, besides being obvious, was convenient as it was  
about a year before the Labour government took office. 
  
    It enables the government to dissociate itself from the errors and  
omissions, perceived and real, of the previous Conservative government. The  
initial expectation was that the inquiry would take about 12 months, but it  
eventually took 33. 
  
    The inquiry was overwhelmed with opinion; 333 submissions were made. It  
took six months to prepare the report after all the information had been  
collected. The report was understandably massive. The executive summary alone  
ran to almost 6,000 words--16 Web pages on the Internet. 
  
    With some exceptions, the report was critical of the way things were done,  
rather than what was done. Importantly, it judged decisions and actions on the  
basis of what was known at the time rather than on information that came to  
light later. 
  
    The report made, or at least the executive summary contained, a single  
recommendation--victims of vCJD and their families have special needs which  
should be addressed. This was acted upon by the government.  
  
    The four-and-half years since the end of the inquiry period has provided  
opportunity for all other needs to have been addressed. 
  
    The report was of more interest to historians and finger-pointers than  
those dependent on the here and now of the beef industry. Phillips did,  
however, violate his March 20, 1996, curfew in a chapter ambiguously titled  
"Lessons to be Learned," tuck away at the end of the first volume of the report  
(paragraphs 1260 to 1263 to be precise). 
  
    This is undoubtedly the most important corner of the report for those  
producing, marketing and consuming beef. It identifies "five topics which run  
right through the story: the use of advisory committees; dealing with  
uncertainty; legislative loopholes; crisis management; and the experience of  
the victims of vCJD and their families."  
  
    It notes that these have generally been addressed. It lists the creation of  
the Food Standards Agency and the devolution of powers to a Scottish Parliament  
and Welsh Assembly as significant recent changes. 
  
    It concludes with an ominously open-ended comment: "If some of these  
lessons have already been learned, others may bear repeating." It's tempting to  
conclude that Phillips had specific concerns, but felt compelled to observe his  
curfew at this point. 
  
    In the case of the two legislatures, he was perhaps suggesting that any  
attempts by them to flex their newly found political muscle on this issue would  
be counterproductive. 
  
    Raw politics were a major influence at the height of the epidemic five  
years ago when the Conservative government had the slimmest of majorities and  
was exceptionally and unusually dependent on the farm lobby. 
  
    Interestingly, the FSA, an independent body set up last April to coordinate  
a wide spectrum of food related government committees, is in the process of  
winding up a review of current BSE controls. 
  
    There is little doubt the most contentious issue for the FSA is beef  
imports, particularly those from France, which amounted to almost 5,000 tonnes  
last year. 
  
    In its initial review draft, the FSA notes "imports should not carry a  
greater proportionate risk than domestic produce." But of the restrictions on  
imports that supposedly ensure this the draft simply notes, "the only effective  
check is for the U.K. importer to ensure that the imported product complies  
with the rule."  
  
    In view of the increasing incidence of mad cow disease in France, rising  
French consumer concerns and a damning EU Commission veterinary mission report  
earlier this year, this is unlikely to be acceptable. 
  
    How the French choose to handle their affairs is, of course, their own  
business. But the last thing needed in Britain is fresh concern over the safety  
of beef arising from imports. 
  
    The French seem to be in the same kind of disarray the British were five  
years ago. But they lack the excuse of dealing with the unknown. 
  
    Having already spent 27 million pounds on the BSE Inquiry, the government  
should perhaps invest in having it translated into French and printed in  
sufficient quantity to be available to all French functionaries who have  
BSE-related responsibilities.  End 
  
    DAVID WALKER, an agricultural economist, lives on his family's farm   
outside Norwich, England. He recently served as senior economist in London  for  
the Home-Grown Cereals Authority and previously was executive director of the  
Alberta Grain Commission in Canada. He also maintains a Web site at  
http://www.openi.co.uk/. His views are not necessarily those of BridgeNews, whose  
ventures include the Internet site http://www.bridge.com/. 
  
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    EDITORS: A color photo of the author is available from KRT Photo Service.