The media spin about food that Andrew wrote about here earlier this week is one of the things I worry about as the Food Standards Agency’s Chief Executive – which is why I’ve grabbed the blog to add my thoughts. I worry particularly when we talk publicly about complex risks at our open Board meetings, as we did last week. We discussed at some length a bug that most people have never heard of, but which poisons more than 300,000 people every year and kills about a hundred. ‘Campylo-what?’
So I was pleased that we didn’t provoke a bunch of ill-informed headlines about a ‘new’ food scare. Campylobacter has for a long time been the major cause of foodborne illness in the UK – one in every three people with food poisoning can blame campylobacter – but it’s high on our agenda as it’s bucked the generally downward trend for food poisoning over the past few years.
Science provided the solution that broke the back of our salmonella problem in poultry – a vaccine for laying flocks and a range of other measures for broiler flocks. We don’t yet have comparable solutions for campylobacter, although as our recent international meeting showed there are some interventions that are effective elsewhere in the world that we could implement immediately.
If Andrew were writing this he could talk about the direction our research will take. Fine: but come on, we know enough now to be clear about ‘what works’ throughout most of the supply chain. One of the great advantages we have in the UK is a retailer universe that is rationalised, smart and very clear with their suppliers about what they want. What we want I think they want and I know consumers deserve: clean fresh poultry. My challenge is that they should, with revised specifications and financial incentives, help us to control campylobacter infection and make a substantial cut in that 300,000 figure.
Of course, we need to know more about the microbiology of campylobacter to understand what biosecurity measures work best and what washes or processes or treatments cut contamination most effectively and safely, and are acceptable to consumers. But I think we know enough to push suppliers to do what has been done in other countries to significantly reduce campylobacter, using known simple biosecurity measures.
Science doesn’t give you instant answers. Sometimes data are contradictory or inconclusive. And it really doesn’t help when research gets reported out of context and out of proportion. But a combination of science and commercial pressure is where we’ll find the best available plan to tackle the 'campy' problem that has gone on for far too long.
